Strategies
The lessons taught in the unit are meant to satisfy the requirements of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for Third Grade. The background knowledge listed after each subject section will help me weave information from the time period into any discussion that may come up in class. Literacy will comprise the largest section of this unit and will include a five week study of Macbeth coupled with a poetry unit in which students will compose blank verse and sonnets of their own. During these five weeks students will look at the monetary system of 16th century England during our math class and create word problems and make change using the pound in representational (picture) form. In social studies we will listen to music and perform a dance from the period. Students will also explore artifacts from the time period by rotating through stations containing examples of clothing, educational materials, games, food, and writing instruments. Science will be split into two parts, with the beginning of the unit focusing on Copernicus and his ideas of the solar system and the end of the unit focusing on the human body and what medicine and disease were like in the 16th century. Additionally, students will participate in a theatrical production of Macbeth following this unit.
Overarching Theme of Shakespeare's World
Shakespeare's World will be ever-present in our classroom through our Concept Question Board. This is essentially an extremely large bulletin board space or an entire wall where students post questions, ideas, and concepts they have acquired about anything they find that is connected to our unit. I split the wall into two pieces. One half is labeled "Question" and the other half is labeled "Concept". As we work through the unit, the number of items on the wall will grow as I ask students to make postings. Students may discuss items before they are posted, but they don't have to. Items are fluid and may move back and forth from question to concept to question as appropriate. During this unit, I will add a full size outline of a boy and a full size outline of a girl to represent Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Students will use these as a "body biography" to characterize Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as they read by recording quotes from the text on sticky notes to place on the outlines of the bodies. Quotes that show what the character is thinking will be placed on the outline's head. Quotes that show what the character is doing will be placed on the arms and legs. Finally, quotes that show how the character is feeling will be placed on the trunk.
Literacy
I want my students to improve their literacy skills by studying Macbeth and Sonnet 18. I am quite determined to use Macbeth, despite concerns about its violence. I think that Macbeth has a simple plot. It is easy to understand compared to the complex plots and subplots of the comedies and histories. I think third graders are able to understand the lust for power and the guilt that ensues from doing the wrong thing. To teach Macbeth, I will use the comic book version and add the names of the speaking characters to the dialogue for clarity. I have chosen a comic book version by Timber Frame Publications because it is less violent than the original text, reduces the number of characters in the play, uses much of Shakespeare's original text, and adds an explanation at the end of each section.
Literature mini-lessons will include previewing the text using probable passages, text coding for cause and effect, flow charts for sequencing, discussion on paper, double entry journals, discussion of types of figurative language and poetry vocabulary (hyperbole, couplet, personification, alliteration, sonnet, line, verse, stanza, metaphor, simile).
For probable passages, the teacher selects a group of words. I usually use about ten, and list these words for the students on the board. Students then work in small groups to make predictions about what will happen in the story. Predictions must use some of the words from the list.
The text coding activity is done using sticky notes. Pairs of students work together to read the assigned portion of the play and whenever they come to something you have assigned them to look for, they write a symbol you devise on their post-it and stick in on the text. For example, I might ask the students to code Macbeth for cause and effect as they read with a C for cause and E for effect and a matching number if they go together, like C1 and E1. Students might put the C1 on Macbeth winning the battle against the Thane of Cawdor and E1 on being made the new Thane of Cawdor.
Discussions on paper are completed using a piece of chart paper for every four students and four different colored markers. Each student chooses a marker and keeps that marker for the duration of the activity. The teacher prepares a question in advance and tapes or glues it in the center of the paper. When the teacher says begin each student has one minute to read and respond to the question. Then students rotate and read what the student next to them wrote. The teacher says go again and the students have another minute to respond to their neighbor's response to the question. This rotating and responding in writing is repeated until everyone is back in their original places. At that point students are allowed to verbally discuss the question.
I will spend approximately five weeks with the students reading the play and teaching the poetry unit. Macbeth is set in Scotland prior to Shakespeare's time, but as a result there are some contrasts that can be made between the text and the 16th century, such as Thane versus the English nobility, and a middle ages castle versus a more modern castle.
At the end of Macbeth, each student will create a Macbeth poster.1 They will cut the poster board into a shape that is related to the play. The poster should display three drawings from the play, the three most beautiful, powerful, or important quotes from the play, and answers to the following questions written in first person point of view: What three things would you change if you were Macbeth? (Write this from his point of view.) Lady Macbeth? (Write this from her point of view.) What is the witches' opinion of Macbeth? (Write this from the witches point of view.) If you could write Banquo a letter, what would you tell him? (Write this from your point of view.)
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