Macbeth

This teaching guide is designed as a self-contained unit for students of medium to high ability. It can be used to produce the AQA A GCSE Shakespeare coursework and has been designed for assessment via the EN2/Lit Oral Response Option (although it could easily also be adapted to provide a written response).

The AQA A Shakespeare coursework is what is termed as a ‘cross-over’ piece; therefore, if you are using it for assessment for both English and English Literature GCSEs (the most common approach), the student will need to be...

• Judgment against murderers on earth – the punishment.
• Image of the poisoned chalice being brought back to the lips of the perpetrator.
• Macbeth being a loyal subject of the king.
• Macbeth being the host who should protect the king.
• Duncan being a good and honourable king.
• The horror and pity caused by his death.
• Macbeth’s image of the horse as his ‘vaulting ambition’.

Macbeth Table.doc

Macbeth Soliloquy Act 1 Scene 7 Card Sort.doc

Macbeth Plot Cards.doc

Shakespeare Coursework Group Presentations on ‘Macbeth’

Question:

In your scene, how does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth’s character in order to show the changing relationship between her and Macbeth?

Make sure you:

• Discuss your analysis of the kind of language Lady Macbeth is given to use by Shakespeare.
• Discuss the effects this is likely to have on both Shakespeare’s and a modern audience.
• Link your chosen scene to other scenes and explain how Lady M’s character and her relationship with her husband changes
• Discuss how...

Macbeth Coursework Assessment.ppt

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s Relationship in Act 1 Scene 7

• In your script, you have four extracts from Act 1 Scene 7 of Macbeth. You will be acting these out in class in order to show your understanding of how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship develops and changes from Act 1 Scene 5.

Remember, in Act 1 Scene 5, Lady Macbeth has received a letter from Macbeth telling of the predictions of the Three Witches, and we see her reaction to the good news. She greets Macbeth with excitement, and tells him how he should progress with the...

Macbeth.ppt

Shakespeare Research

When you carry out your ‘Speaking and Listening’ assessment on Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, you will need to relate the key scenes to the social and cultural context at the time the play was first performed. This means you need to discuss what is in the play and how it reflects what was happening at the time of Shakespeare as well as people’s attitudes to different topics.

• Find out about Shakespeare’s life, dates, family, what he did.
• Find out about how women were treated at the time. (Lady M)
• Find out about...

What does Lady Macbeth do to help her husband kill King Duncan?

To sum up, what does she do/say?

Reads letter.
Rejoices in the news.
Worries about his nature.  (Why?)
Prays to the devil. (Why does she need to?)
Welcomes him home.
Chastises him. (How?)
Takes over.
Uses euphemisms to describe the regicide. (Why can’t she call a spade a spade? What does this reveal about her?)
Insults his masculinity. (How? Why?)
Talks of killing her own child.  (Why?)
Issues orders. (Where? How? What are they?)
Drugs guards.
Leaves out daggers for him....[ read full article ] »

AQA GCSE English

An A Grade GCSE Response to Shakespeare

An Alternative Coursework Assignment for GCSE English Language and/or Literature?

It fulfils the requirements of GCSE Language and/or Literature as a inventive and enterprising personal response to a Shakespeare play. It would be an excellent example of coursework.

Egghead Productions

Dear Ms Holden,

Congratulations!

We are delighted to inform you that you have successfully made it through the auditions and have been chosen to portray the role of Lady Macbeth in the forthcoming...

Written: 1606
First performed: 1606
First review: 1610 by Simon Forman

What was happening at the time: The Gunpowder Plot in November 1605 and the trial and execution of the plotters in Spring 1606

References in the play

The Porter is a satire on Father James Garnet, a gunpowder plotter and ‘equivocator’.

The witches are there as a homage to James 1 who had written a book on witchcraft called ‘Daemonologie’ and was a witch hunter himself.

There is a reference to James’s brother who was drowned in a storm at sea for which...