Simon Rodberg                                                                        Julius Caesar Lesson Plan

Teaching Shakespeare Institute 2006                                        2.1.137-324

 

“I Am Meek and Gentle With These Butchers”

 

Simon Rodberg teaches English at the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

 

Plays/Scenes Covered

Julius Caesar Act 2, Scene 1

 

NCTE Standards Covered

1, 2, 3, 6, 11, 12

 

What’s On for Today and Why

Mark Antony’s scheming brilliance in the second half of 2.1 comes couched in long speeches. If students can understand Antony’s balance of grief, anger, and sucking-up, they will connect to Antony’s reaction. They will also practice reading for, and isolating, the main idea of difficult text.

 

This lesson asks students to imagine their own reaction to Antony’s situation, and follows with a close reading, in groups, of Antony’s three main speeches in the scene. Students cut the speeches in half to isolate the main ideas, then chorally perform and explain the cut versions. Finally, the whole group compares Antony’s reaction to the students’ imagined reactions, and uses exit cards to predict the next scene. For homework, students re-place one cut phrase into their text, and explain why they chose that phrase to replace.

 

What to Do

 

1. As a warm-up, ask students to write about the following questions: What would you do if your friend were murdered by a group of men, and you had to talk to the group of men alone? What would you think as you spoke to them? What would you say? After students have written a few sentences, ask them to share their responses.

 

2. Explain that today’s project will be to look at speeches and cut them in half while keeping their meaning and proper English. On an overhead projector or the board, model the process using 2.1.159-162 (see attached document) by giving students context for the conversation, crossing out words, rewriting the shortened conversation, and explaining the main ideas of the conversation. The original has 33 words; it can be cut to 17 (“we shall have him to friend / we may: yet have I a mind that fears him much”) without losing the main ideas of Brutus’s optimism and Cassius’s fear of Antony. Note that the cut version need not be in poetic form – the cuts will lose the meter, in any case.

 

3. Divide students into groups of three, and give out the handouts with Antony’s three long speeches. (It is expected, and beneficial, that several groups will have the same speech. Note that the first speech is shorter than the other two.) Explain the assignment and that these speeches represent Antony’s reaction to Caesar’s murder – the situation the students wrote about in step 1. Tell students that they will present their speeches in a choral reading, then explain their cuts, during the class period.

 

4. Give students time to work in groups, circulating to help them and encourage them to practice the choral reading.

 

5. Have the groups present the cut versions of their speeches in choral readings, in order of the scene, with explanations of the main ideas.

 

6. Discuss differences between the groups’ cuts, and what the process showed about Shakespeare’s language. Discuss Antony’s character. Ask the students to compare the speeches to the students’ writing from the beginning of class.

 

7. Have the students to write, on index cards or paper that can be turned in, their predictions about what will happen next in the scene. Students should turn in these exit cards before they leave.

 

8. For homework or extension: 1) Students should choose one phrase they cut from the speech which they would like to add to their cut version, and explain why they chose that phrase. 2) Students should explain why Shakespeare included three of the phrases that they cut: What do those phrases add to the speech?

 

What You Need

 

Model on transparency with overhead, or re-written on board

Handouts for three speeches

Dictionaries and/or copies of the Folger text to use as resources

Index cards as exit cards

 

How Did It Go?

 

Did the students keep the main ideas in their cut speeches? Did the cut speeches make sense? If so, the students grappled with and actively understood Shakespeare’s language. Did the exit cards show reasonable predictions about the next scene in the play? If so, the students understood the importance of the scene and Antony’s character.