Lesson video

Hi, and welcome to the next lesson.

In this lesson, we're going to be analysing the opening scene of "Macbeth".

This is a really important scene, because this is when Macbeth meets the witches, and they tell him their prophecies.

Okay? And that's what drives the whole play forward.

So, before we get started, you might want to get a pen or pencil or paper, or anything that you'd like to write on.

And also, I'd like you to make sure you're in a quiet space, away from any distractions.

And if you've got your phone next to you, please put it away so that we can begin our lesson.

Brilliant.

So, now that you're ready, we can have a look at the agenda for today.

So, we're going to start with a quick writing warm up, and then we're going to move on, and look at the text type features of a play.

Then after that, we will look at the opening, and read some of the excerpts aloud, and check for vocabulary meaning.

Then after that, we will try and see, if we can picture the setting in our minds.

Okay, so as I mentioned before, you will need something to write on.

So, that could be book, a piece of paper.

You need a pen or pencil, and of course, you need your thinking heads.

So, let's start with our writing warmup.

Okay, so writing warm up is going to be looking at some word classes.

So, here on the screen, I've got nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

Okay? And I'm going to go through what each one means, and I'd like you to say.

When I do this, I'd like you to say it after me.

So, nouns.

A noun is a PPT, a person place or thing.

Great.

Adjectives.

An adjective describes a word, it tells you what it's like.

A verb is a doing or a being word.

If you do it, or you are it then the word is a verb.

Adverbs, an adverb describes a verb, often ends in L-Y.

Brilliant, okay.

So, now that we know all the word classes, we've had a quick recap on what they are.

Let's have a go at trying to put these words in their right word classes.

So, I've got dark, ragged, heath, hideous, huddled, closely, malignantly and laughter.

I would like you now to pause the video and have a go.

On your piece of paper, I'd like you to write down nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

And I'd like you to put the words that I've just read out under each of those world-class categories.

Off you go.

Brilliant.

So, let's have a look, and see if you've got those right.

So, for nouns, we should have heath, because heath is a place.

And if we think back to our wrap, a noun is a PPT, a person place or thing.

So, heath is a place.

Now laughter is a person place or a thing? Yes, it is a thing.

It's an abstract thing.

Okay.

And we've got our adjectives, dark, hideous and ragged, because they are describing words.

Verbs, huddled is a doing word.

And adverbs, they describe a verb.

So, malignantly and closely, they end in L-Y, but they also describe verbs.

So, malignantly describes how they laughed, and closely describes how they huddled.

Okay, so what I'd like you to do in a minute is, we're going to point to the part of the place.

So, you're going to point at your screen of when the feature pops up.

For example, the characters names are on the left.

I want you to point to the part of the screen where you think that might be.

That's right.

It's on the left.

And it says, first witch, second witch, third witch, okay? Next part, ready with your fingers to point.

Setting the scene.

Which part of the play could it be? That's right.

It's the first part.

It's the bit of writing that's in italics.

Next one, get ready with your finger.

New speaker, new line.

Yeah.

So, that's when you introduce a new speaker, you would do on the next line, okay? Just like that.

Okay.

The next part of the play, characters again, point to the screen.

That's right.

That says, "All." So, everyone would be saying that bit.

Stage directions, and then I've given you a clue it's in present tense and in italics.

Yes, it's that part, and that part.

They stare at one another and nod.

And then this one, no inverted commas for speech.

Wonder which part is the speech? See if you can point to the part that is the speech.

Exactly.

So, that is the part that the witches are saying.

Okay.

So, now we get to look at the opening scene in depth.

We're going to read aloud and then we're going to check for meaning.

So, let's read the introductory, the top part of that play, on that page we looked at before, that was written in italics, that means that the words are slightly slanted.

Okay? We're going to read that part first, and then we're going to read the rest later.

So, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video, and read on your own first, and then I'd like you to follow the words when I read.

Okay, so hopefully you've had a chance to just read through that.

I'm going to now read the words to you, and I'd like you to just follow on the screen.

The curtain rises on the heath under a dark ragged sky.

Thunder and lightning.

Three hideous, old women, huddled together, screaming with malignant laughter.

Are there any words in that opening that you will not sure about? So, I've had a bit of a thing myself, and I highlighted.

So I put it in bold, the words that I thought maybe I wasn't too sure about.

So, for example, I thought heath.

What could that be? Ragged, hideous, huddled and malignant.

Would you like to have a go at saying it? So, heath, ragged, hideous, huddled and malignant.

So, let's have a quick check of the meaning.

So, in that line, the curtain rises on the heath under a dark ragged sky.

Heath actually is an area of land that is not used for growing crops.

Okay? And it often has very few trees or bushes.

Now I've got a picture of a heath there.

We've also got ragged.

And a ragged sky means that it's rough.

It's uneven, it's irregular.

So, it's maybe a storm is brewing.

Okay? So that's how we would describe the sky if it was ragged.

So quick check, I'd like you to pause now, and I want you to write down, or you can just shout out at the screen, what you think ragged means.

A ragged sky means? That's right.

Uneven and rough.

What about heath? A heath means, an area of land with a lot of bushes and trees? Or an area of land with hardly any bushes or trees? Excellent.

It's an area of land with hardly any bushes or trees.

Okay.

The next part of the play, three hideous old women huddled together, screaming with malignant laughter.

Hideous means extremely ugly.

If you look at that picture, and that is a picture that I've taken off the animator tales of "Macbeth".

Okay? Which is what we're going to be watching.

We're going to watch some clips from that.

And the word huddled means that they're crowded together closely.

Malignant means evil in nature.

So hideous means extremely ugly, your turn.

Huddled means crowded together, your turn.

Malignant means evil in nature, your turn.

Okay? Quick check now.

What does huddled mean? Shout out.

Yes.

Crowded together.

Hideous means? Louder.

Exactly.

Extremely ugly.

Okay.

The last bit I'd actually like you to write it down.

Okay? What does the word malignant mean? Malignant means.

Pause the video, write in a full sentence.

Malignant means.

Excellent.

Malignant laughter means evil in nature.

Malignant means evil in nature.

Okay.

We're now going to read the main body of the opening of the play.

I'd like you to pause the video and read all through on your own, then press play again, and I will read it through and you can follow.

Okay, so hopefully you had a chance to read that all on your own.

I will now read it to you.

And I'd like you to follow.

First witch, "When shall we three meets again in thunder, lightning or in rain?" Second witch, "When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won." First witch, "Where their place?" Second witch, "Upon the heath." Third witch, "There to meet with Macbeth." They stare at one another and nod.

All, "Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.

Thunder and lightning.

The witches vanish." So, one of the words from that previous slide that I picked up was Hurly burly.

So, if you look at the second line where the second witch says, "When the hurly-burly is done, when the battle's lost in and won." I picked up the word hurly-burly, 'cause I thought maybe that would be a word that we're not sure of.

Now hurly-burly is actually figurative language.

Okay? So, it's not a literal word.

It's figurative language meaning when the commotion on the battlefield is over.

So, it means commotion.

So, if you look at this picture, I thought this picture would be quite a good representation of what the word commotion means.

Commotion means chaotic, means everything's a bit of a mess, and there's a lot of noise, and a lot of action going on.

Okay? So, when the hurly-burly is done means when the chaos is done, when the commotion is done, okay? Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.

So fair is foul and foul is fair.

It's sort of Shakespearean language.

It's not how we would normally speak.

And that means good becoming evil and evil becoming good.

So, in this context fair means good and foul means evil.

So, it's switching round.

Okay.

So, for the last part of the lesson, I'd like us to now use the language, and the vocabulary that we've looked at to picture what the setting might look like.

Okay, what atmosphere does the setting create? What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video, to complete your task.

I'd like you to draw a picture of the opening scene.

The one that we've just read out of Macbeth with the three witches.

I'd like you to use the pictures below to help you to draw your picture.

So, you would draw a picture of the sky, that's ragged and dark and the heath.

And then you could draw your witches in your picture as well, huddling together, and screaming with malignant laughter.

And then when you've done this, you can annotate your drawing with the vocabulary that's on this page.

So, to annotate means just to label your picture with those words.

And then when you have finished, you can click play again to restart.

Okay.

So well done.

In this lesson, you have a learnt the four different word class categories, nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

We have looked at the text type features of a play.

We've read aloud the opening part of "Macbeth", and we checked for meaning.

And then lastly, you would have drawn a wonderful picture of the opening scene, and annotated it with key vocabulary.

Congratulations.

So, you have completed your lesson.

If you would like to, you can share your work with your parent or carer.

And in your next lesson, you will learn about words that are associated with dark and rainy weather.