SCHEDULE:
Calendar: we have 9 days plus final
Fri 11/13 - Archaic words/ Introduce tragic hero - Watch 1st half of play / plot summary
Mon 11/16 - Tragic hero connect to characters/ read Brutus’ orchard speech and discuss
Wed 11/18 - Discuss Caesar’s death scene – (read death scene) stage directions, act out silently, discuss betrayal and friendship
Fri 11/20 - Discuss Antony’s/Brutus’ funeral speech (read speeches) (rhetoric, persuasive speech, irony)
Mon 11/23 - Watch 2nd half of movie, Discuss suicide and misinterpreted omens/predictions
Thanksgiving break
Mon 11/30 - Work on tragic hero story board
Wed 12/2 - Story Board/introduce essay
Fri 12/4 - Finish story board/ teach essay
Mon 12/7 - Write tragic hero paper on JC
Wed 12/9 - Essay/present story boards
Fri 12/11 – peer editing
Finals week
JC Lesson Plan day one
Overview: We will begin reading Julius Caesar today. In order to frame this text, we will discuss Shakespeare’s writing style before reading. After reading the first scene, we will discuss setting and exposition.
Student Objective: I want students to become familiar with common archaic words used in Julius Caesar. I also want students to understand some of the ways Shakespeare often writes, specifically using puns and how the setting of drama is communicated without a narrator (through exposition). I also want students to begin thinking about the play, how they feel about it, and why it is important.
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
List of archaic words in Julius Caesar
Sentence Starters overhead
Instruction and Activities:
First, we have to finish the presentations from Friday.
Then I need to present more information that was left out of the presentations. (For first period: Shakespeare and about the Globe Theatre .)
[Push this back to Friday (next time we see the class) - We will begin with a quiz about the presentation on the history of Julius Caesar. This should get students thinking about the time period and the play.]
After the quiz, I will put common archaic words on the board. I will ask students to write them down and predict what they mean. Then I will go over each word in context and tell the students the correct meanings. Students will create a list of these words and their meanings to refer to during their reading.
We will next discuss setting. I will talk about stage directions briefly (since this is the topic of another activity later in the unit.) We will talk about how drama shows setting and how that is different than other genres.
Next, I will read the first few pages of the play out loud to the class. We will talk about unfamiliar words and ideas. We will discuss the pun in the first scene.
After reading the whole first scene to the class, I will ask them to finish the sentence starts I provide on the overhead.
We will then discuss the sentence started activity so I can have a better idea of where the students are and what they expect out of this unit.
If there is time, we will begin reading the second scene.
Sentence Starters and Anticipation Guide for Julius Caesar
Before reading, the students will respond to each of the following statements:
Power and manipulation go hand and hand.
Sympathy is a stronger emotion than envy.
Violence and bloodshed never produce morally good results.
After reading, the students complete the following sentences:
I’m confused about…
If I were…
I’m not sure…
One of the benefits of doing this activity is building a stronger classroom community. Not only do students think deeper about their beliefs and morals, they also share those ideas with their classmates. By reading their responses, I achieved a better understanding of who my students are as people. It was very interesting to read and comment on each student’s response. I could easily find trends within certain class periods, between genders, and within different groups of students.
The idea of student feedback seemed so brilliant to me that I could not wait to try it with my classes. Especially now, at the beginning of my teaching career, I value feedback since it will take time (probably years) to become good at gauging the class.
JC Lesson Plan day two: Plot summary
Overview: Today we will discuss archaic words, introduce the tragic hero, give a plot summary of JC and watch the first three acts of the movie
Student Objectives:
For students to become familiar with common archaic words used in Julius Caesar. This will help them understand the play while reading it and watching the movie.
Begin to think about what makes a tragic hero.Understand most of the plot to JC in preparation for the movie.
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
List of archaic words in Julius Caesar
Plot summary handouts
Tragic Hero handout
Julius Caesar movieInstruction and Activities: (100 min)
Quiz over presentations. (10min)
After the short quiz, we will begin with a quick review over what we read and discussed last class. (5 min)
Then I will put common archaic words on the board. I will ask students to write them down and predict what they mean. Then I will go over each word in context and tell the students the correct meanings. Students will create a list of these words and their meanings to refer to during their reading. (10 min)
Next I will hand out copies of the plot summary and review this with the students. I will leave blanks in the text so they will have to be active and fill in some of the information. (20 min)
Then I will introduce the tragic hero and give them the chart. This will let them refer to it while they are watching the movie. (10 min)
Movie: First three acts. (Or as far as we get with the time we have.) (30 min)
Short quiz (sentence starters maybe) about what happened in the movie to make sure students are paying attention. (10 min)
JC Lesson Plan day three: Brutus / Tragic Hero
Overview: Today we will talk about the tragic hero in more depth. We will talk about character and vocabulary related to characterization. We will then read and discuss Brutus’s speech in the orchard.
Student Objectives:
Student will know lots of character-describing words that will enable them to gain a deeper understanding of characters and give them a larger lexicon when talking about characters.
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
Plot summary handouts
Tragic Hero handout
Julius Caesar movie
Instruction and Activities: (100 min)
We will begin with a short write about heroes. Prompt: My hero is… because… (5 min)
Then we will discuss what makes a hero. (10 min)
Next we will discuss the tragic hero handout the students received last week. We will talk about what we know about the characters in the movie so far. (10 min)
Then we will switch gears and read Brutus’ speech in the orchard. Students will do this in small groups and paraphrase it into their own words. (20 min)
We will talk about what Brutus says and what that means about his character. (10 min)
Students (in the same groups they paraphrased in) will illustrate Brutus’s speech. (30 min)
Then we will share the illustrations. (10 min)
If we have time, we will watch more of the movie (if we didn’t finish Act III last time).
Funeral Speech Chart
JC Lesson Plan day four: Caesar’s Death
Overview: Today we will focus on Caesar since last class we focused on Brutus. We will read Act 3, scene I and discuss stage directions. Than students will act out Caesar’s death scene. This lets students participate in the play and gain a deeper understanding of the factions that vie for power in the play.
Student Objectives:
Students will understand stage directions.
Students will gain a deeper understanding of the play, especially Caesar’s death.
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
Julius Caesar movie
Silent Scene handout
Instruction and Activities: (100 min)
We will watch the movie though Act III if we haven’t finished. (20 min)
I will read the death scene of Caesar. (5 min)
Discuss the 5 senses. How would the scene play out for those senses?
As a class, we will try to decide how the scene would be acted out, create stage directions, and act out silently. (60 min)
Then we will discuss how Caesar was “stabbed in the back”. We will talk about friendship and betrayal. Students will do a short write about friendship and how they felt when they were betrayed. (if time permits)
JC Lesson Plan day five: Antony’s Speech
Overview: We will read and discuss Brutus’s and Antony’s funeral speeches
Student Objectives: Students will be able to define: rhetoric, persuasive speech, irony, pathos, logos and ethos. They will be able to explain how/why the funeral speeches were effective/ineffective
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
Sensory notes chart
Notes on Rhetoric
Rhetorical Tool charts
Instruction and Activities:
After finishing Caesar’s death scene, the students will fill out the chart on sensory notes.
We will discuss why Shakespeare made his play so violent (to compete with public hangings, because of the black plague, to sell tickets, to shock audiences, to depict the death as accurately as possible.)
The students will close their eyes and imagine the scene. They will open their eyes and fill out the Sensory Notes Chart. After doing this on their own, we will go through their ideas as a class and I will write them all on the overhead. Then we will underline the most important aspect of each sense.
(I modeled an example using the classroom and it worked really well and only took about 5 extra minutes.)
After the death scene, we move on to the funeral speeches. Before reading the speeches, we took notes on rhetoric (attached).
I will explain each word using examples students would be familiar with. (Obama and his charisma for ethos or Oprah and her fame.)
Make a chart on the overhead and have students copy it down. Then re-read the speeches to the students while they mark off each literary device they hear.
Then go over each rhetorical tool and discuss how/whether it was used in each speech. Be sure to discuss prose and why Antony’s speech is written in iambic pentameter and Brutus’s is written in prose (one of the few places in the entire play where this occurs). This can be shown by looking at the visual representation of the speeches –Brutus’s is like a rectangle, all words, while Antony’s is like a poem, meant to invoke emotions.
Below their charts, have the students list an example of a rhetorical tool from each speech and explain why it was effective.
Rhetoric – the art of using language effectively and persuasively
Persuasive speech - aimed at influencing values, ideas, beliefs and attitudes used to convince people to come to a different idea, attitude, or belief
RHETORICAL TOOLS
Irony – when something happens that is the opposite of what you think would happen; unexpected
False Intent – saying the opposite of the truth; lying
Rhetorical questions – questions asked to make the listener think a certain way; the asker does not want an answer (How many times do I have to tell you to pick up your socks? Your mom doesn’t want you to say, “At least one more” or “Exactly 62.)
Ethos – appeal based on the ethical character of the person, not on what they are saying (voting for Obama bc he is charismatic, not bc you agree with his platforms; listening to Oprah just bc she’s famous)
Logos – appeal based on logic, or reason (most literary/academic papers –the kids tragic hero essays)
Pathos – appeal based on emotion or feeling (poetry)
Parallelism – using similar syntax (sentence structure, paragraph structure) within a speech or writing to emphasize an idea
Repetition – Repeating a word or phrase for emphasis
JC Lesson Plan day six: finish movie/themes and motifs
Overview: Today we will watch the rest of the movie and discuss how it ends, focusing on suicide, themes and motifs.
Student Objectives:
Students will be able to explain the play as a whole.
Students will understand the Roman ideals behind suicide.
Students will be able to pick out themes and motifs in JC.
Instructional Plan
Materials:
Julius Caesar books
Julius Caesar movie
Instruction and Activities: (100 min)
Watch the rest of the movie. (60 min)
Discuss the ending. Talk about Roman suicide. (10 min)
Have students do a quick write about the ending and what they thought the theme was. (10 min)
Some evaluation activity. (20 min)
