Overview
This unit seeks to explicate strategies and activities that represent a well-rounded deep investigation of character in William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Julius Caesar. This text, a mainstay of the public school canon, remains relevant and ripe with contemporary connections despite its over 400 years of age. This unit is designed for an advanced ninth grade classroom; however, it could be easily differentiated for learners at all levels, in middle or high school.
The focus of this unit is how to enable students to understand the creativity and economy with which the Bard approached the English language, and the frank and clear eye with which he was able to evaluate some of the most base and inherent characteristics of the human condition. To this effect, “readers (and playgoers) find more vitality both in Shakespeare’s words and in the characters who speak them than in any other author, perhaps in all other authors put together”.1 It is a commonly accepted notion that we read and experience literature -- but Shakespeare before all other literature -- as an extension and enhancement to our understanding of humans and humanity.
Students will come to understand Shakespeare as a master craftsman of humanism and of the psychological development of characters. At best, a student can come away with an appreciation of the timelessness of Shakespearean plays; at worst, they will be able to read and extract meaning from a not immediately fully accessible text. The ability to read closely and find textual evidence is a primary goal; the aesthetic appreciation of the beauty and concision of the words and work is an added bonus. All the same, the universal appeal and connection to the hallmarks of the human experience is undeniable.
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