Lesson video

Hello, welcome to today's lesson on "Macbeth" and the importance of kingship.

My name is Mr. Barnsley, and I'm gonna take you through this lesson which is gonna build on all the knowledge that you have so far of the plot of "Macbeth," of your understanding of Macbeth and his ambitious nature, and kind of help you flesh out your understanding of why being king, having the crown, and sitting on the throne of Scotland was so important for Macbeth.

By the end of today's lesson, you are gonna be able to write in a clear and concise manner about the importance and the role of kingship in "Macbeth." And we're gonna do that by looking at the character of King Duncan in a little bit more detail as well.

So let's start by unpacking five words, making sure we can get our head around and understand five words that are gonna be really key to unpacking the learning today.

These words are civil war, usurp, usurper, poignant, and treacherous.

Let's find out what they all mean.

So our first word is civil war.

Now, a civil war is a war that is fought between citizens of the same country.

So where you have two groups of opposing thoughts or ideas within one country, within the citizens of one country, and they are fighting each other, that is a civil war.

A second word is a verb, to usurp, and it means to take a position of power either illegally or through force.

So our third word, and you should be able to guess what this means, is a noun, a usurper, and that is someone who does take power either illegally or by force.

Our fourth word is an adjective, poignant, and something that makes people feel either sad or regret can be described as being poignant.

We often use this word when we're talking about memories, for example.

And our final word is also an adjective, someone who is treacherous is guilty of betrayal or deception.

So those five key words that I'm gonna challenge you to look out for in today's lesson, and try and use in your own discussions and writing are civil war, usurp, usurper, poignant, and treacherous.

So today's lesson is gonna be divided into three sections.

First, we're gonna look at the real King Duncan, the historical figure on which Shakespeare's character of Duncan is based upon.

Then I'm gonna be sharing with you some top tips to help you write in a clear and concise manner, particularly when you are analysing kingship.

And finally, we're gonna put all of that into practise, all of our knowledge into practise, and have a go at doing some writing about King Duncan, and how he represents the theme of kingship.

And we're gonna start by looking at the character of the real King Duncan.

So you should be aware that many of the characters in "Macbeth" are based on real historical figures, and King Duncan is no different.

However, Shakespeare did make quite a few changes when he created his character of King Duncan.

And as we are gonna see, there are many things about the real historical Duncan, which were different.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at these differences, and I'm gonna challenge you to think about why, why might Shakespeare have made these changes? So let's see what these changes were.

Firstly, we know in Shakespeare's play, Duncan is presented as an older fatherly figure.

However, in reality, he was only a couple of years older than Macbeth.

So start thinking about why, what might have been the impact in the play of making Duncan an older father-like figure? We also know that Macbeth was a part of his army, a respected, loyal, courageous warrior, or certainly at the beginning of the play.

And there were elements of that that were true.

The real Macbeth is thought to have fought alongside Duncan, but actually their relationship was believed to be much closer than just King and his loyal servant.

And actually, Macbeth is thought to be related to Duncan, potentially even as close as being his cousin.

But perhaps the biggest change that Shakespeare made was that we know in the play Duncan is famously murdered in his sleep by Macbeth.

However, in reality, yes, Macbeth is believed to be responsible for Duncan's death, but in a very, very different way.

Something that was much more common in 11th century Gaelic society, and that is that Macbeth usurped the crown through civil war.

That means Macbeth and his army ended up fighting against Duncan and his army, because Macbeth decided he wanted the crown.

And during this battle, Duncan was killed, and Macbeth took the crown that way.

Still sounds very horrific and very shocking to us today, but actually much more common to be happening at the time when people decided that they wanted to take the crown from a reigning monarch.

So important we start thinking about why Shakespeare made these changes.

Why don't you pause the video for a minute, have a think about why Shakespeare might have made some of these changes, and then when you are ready, press play, and we'll continue with today's lesson.

Okay, let's do a check for understanding.

I want you to look through the following facts about the historical, the real King Duncan, and I want you to tell me which one is not true.

Three facts two true, one is not true.

Can you identify the one that is not? So A, he was similar in age to Macbeth.

B, he had been Macbeth's enemy all of his life.

And C, Macbeth usurped his crown through civil war.

Take a moment, select your answer.

Congratulations if you picked answer B.

Obviously by the end of his life, Macbeth and Duncan had become enemies because Macbeth wanted the crown.

But for most of his life they worked very closely together, they fought alongside each other, and are believed to have been related.

Okay, so I challenged you earlier to have a think about why Shakespeare made these changes.

Now we're gonna put some of these ideas down into writing.

So why do you think Shakespeare changed the historical Duncan to the character we see in the play? Two things I want you to focus on here.

First is making sure your answer is totally focused around Shakespeare's purpose.

I know this might seem like a thing that you were always gonna do, the question says why, but I just want to remind you that whenever we are writing responses based on literature, this is one of the things that we should always have at the forefront of our mind.

Why did the author do this? Why did the author make the character say or do this? Why did the author use this language? Why, why, why, why, why? Always think of the author's message, the author's purpose whenever we are writing.

Secondly, I'm gonna give you a grammar grid, which I'm gonna share with you below in a second.

And I want you to help that to support you with your sentence construction to make sure that our response is written really clearly.

So there are three elements of the grammar grid that I'm gonna challenge you to use in your writing.

The first is using conjunctions for sentence expansion.

Whenever we are writing about a why, we need to be giving really clear reasons, justifications.

So conjunctions that we could use to help us do that are because, as, so, and therefore.

So I'd love to see you include those in your response.

Secondly, if we want to talk about the changes that Shakespeare made, we're gonna have to make comparisons between historical Duncan and Shakespeare's version of him.

So we're gonna use four sentence stems, which we should have all seen before, but these sentence stems are gonna help us make comparisons.

So these are whereas, whilst, despite, and although, and you'll see, I'll just give an example of that, the X and the Y, you are gonna replace with the two different versions of Duncan.

So whereas the historical Duncan is ta, ta, ta, Shakespeare's version of Duncan is ta, ta, ta.

And finally, we are gonna use modal verbs to help when we are offering our suggestions.

The reason why we use modal verbs is an acknowledgement that none of us can say for sure for definite why Shakespeare made these changes, we're making educated guesses.

So verbs like could, may, or might help us be a little bit more tentative, and acknowledge that we cannot say for sure why Shakespeare made these changes.

So I'd like you to pause the video now.

I'd like you to write a short response thinking about why Shakespeare made these changes, and then press play when you are ready to continue.

Okay, we are now gonna assess our work by identifying where we have met the following criteria.

So in your response, can you find an example where you have discussed Shakespeare's purpose? Can you find an example of where you've used conjunctions for sentence expansion to justify your thoughts? Can you find an example where you've used comparative sentence stems to compare the historical Duncan to Shakespeare's version? And can you find an example where you've used modal verbs to offer tentative suggestions to acknowledge that you are making an educated guess about Shakespeare's purpose? Pause the video, and see if you can identify these four things in your response, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Okay, I just want to very quickly share with you a suggested response.

Now we know in literature, let's be honest, there are many, many different ways we could respond to any question.

So what I'm gonna share with you is just one of many, but hopefully there might be some things that you see in there that you think you can take away, and potentially use in your writing in future.

So I'm gonna read it through for you.

"Although the historical Duncan was a similar age to Macbeth, Shakespeare presents him as an elder father-like figure, this might be because Shakespeare wants to make his murder more shocking.

Furthermore, despite Duncan being murdered in his sleep in the play, in reality, he died in battle during a civil war, which was a fairly common way for monarchs to be usurped.

Shakespeare could have made both of these changes to make Macbeth's crimes seem worse to his audiences as he wants his play to be a poignant warning against treacherous behaviour." And there are two sections of this response I really want to draw your attention to is these two highlighted in purple on the screen.

"This might be because Shakespeare wanted to make his murder more shocking," but particularly this final sentence, "As he wants his play to be a poignant warning against treacherous behaviour." Now, I'm drawing your attention to these two statements, because I want you to see how important it is, and what it looks like to have a really clear focus on the author's purpose.

I'm gonna be doing lots of analysis when I'm talking about texts, but I always want to dot these sentence around my responses which draw attention back to the author's message.

And I'm arguing that the main reason Shakespeare made these changes about Duncan is because he wants his play to be a warning about treacherous behaviour.

And one made to make that warning more poignant, more reflective, more emotional for audiences is to make Duncan a really sympathetic figure.

So make him older, make him like a father figure, and make him murdered in this cruel way where he could not have an opportunity to defend himself.

All of this makes Shakespeare's message, makes his warning stronger.

Okay, let's look, let's move now into the second part of today's lesson where we're gonna look at how we can write clear and concise analysis about kingship.

So in this section, I am gonna share three techniques to help you improve your academic writing, and this will help us in the end of the lesson when we're writing a paragraph about King Duncan.

So the first is we're gonna use embedded quotations judiciously.

The second is that we are going to use tentative verbs and adverbs when making inferences.

And the third is we are gonna use a technique, a noun, a positive to extend reader's understanding about a character in a succinct way.

So I'm gonna look at all three of these techniques in a little bit more detail now.

Okay, let's look at an example of an embedded quotation used judiciously.

So "Unlike Honourable Duncan, Macbeth has Macduff's innocent family 'savagely slaughtered,' illustrating his cruel nature." Let's have a look about what makes this a really good use of embedded quotation.

Well, first of all, this is actually a very short quotation, and it adequately proves the argument that Macbeth is cruel.

Sometimes we can be tempted to use quotations that are one or two sentences long, and they make our work really, they make our analysis really difficult to read.

But actually this two-word quotation does the job.

It adequately proves the argument that Macbeth is cruel.

And you can see I have neatly embedded this quotation.

This means it is part of my sentence, it's part of my argument.

Again, our work can sometimes become long and overly confusing when we have a sentence with our argument, and then we follow up with a sentence which says, this is shown in the quote, and we add our quotation.

If we embed the quotation into our argument, we've taken two sentences, and turned them into one, making our work much more clear, concise and succinct.

And finally, this quote doesn't actually need further language analysis.

We could, we could look at the adverb, savagely, we could look at the verb, slaughtered, and we could say some interesting things about them, but we don't always have to analyse every single quote we use for language analysis.

And it would be perfectly okay in this situation for me just to use this short quotation to help prove my argument and move on.

So I'd like to check for understanding.

I want you to tell me which one of the following sentences has correctly embedded the quotation.

Let's look at the three examples.

A "Duncan rewards Macbeth, colon, 'I have begun to plant thee, and will labour to make thee full of growing.

'" B, Duncan rewards Macbeth promising to 'plant,' and 'labour' to make him full of growing.

C, "Duncan rewards Macbeth, this is shown in the quote, 'I have begun to plant thee, and will labour to make thee full of growing.

'" I want you to select now which of these three answers you think correctly embeds a quotation.

Well done If you said B, first of all, we can rule out C.

C has gone down that method of here's an argument, "Duncan rewards Macbeth," and here's a second sentence.

Now A, it's starting to embed it.

It is all one sentence.

So if you picked A, I can totally understand.

However, B does it in a much more succinct and concise way.

B only select the key words from that quotation, "Plant," "Labour," "Full of Growing," because they are the ones that if I do want to do any language analysis are probably the words that I want to pick out and explore in more detail.

So I think B does is the best example of a quotation being correctly embedded.

Okay, our next top tip, using tentative verbs and adverbs can make or can be used to indicate that the inference we are making may not be one that is commonly held by everyone.

So thinking back to activity one, we can't always say for sure what Shakespeare was trying to argue, because we are not him, and we weren't around to interview him and find out.

So sometimes we have to be a bit more tentative, and we have to acknowledge that people might have different interpretations to us.

So tentative verbs as we've already looked at today, might look like, could, may, or might.

What does this look like in a sentence? "Well, later in the play, Macbeth becomes isolated from his former allies.

A contrast to Duncan who was nurturing towards his loyal servants.

This may be Shakespeare's crucial reminder of the importance of generosity and leadership.

So we can't say for sure, but we think Shakespeare uses Duncan in this way because he wants to give a reminder that it's actually really important to be generous as a leader." So "This may be Shakespeare's crucial reminder." "This could be Shakespeare's crucial reminder." "This might be Shakespeare's crucial reminder." All of those tentative verbs would work in this sentence.

Our tentative adverbs are perhaps, maybe, arguably.

What does these look like in a sentence? Well usually these might go at the start of the sentence, that's not always the case.

But let's look at an example here, "Arguably the greatest contrast between Macbeth and Duncan is the loyalty they show to their allies." Now there are many different contrasts between Macbeth and Duncan.

Their loyalty is just one of those.

But if I want to argue that this is their greatest, I need to acknowledge that someone else might have a different opinion to me.

So arguably, maybe, or perhaps all do a great job of acknowledging that just because this is my opinion that this is the greatest contrast, other people might have a different opinion to me.

Okay, let's do another check for understanding which of the following sentences does not use a tentative verb or adverb? A, "Shakespeare might be flattering at King James VI by hinting at his legitimate claim to the throne." B, "Perhaps Shakespeare is also subtly illustrating the qualities of a good leader to the newly crowned king of Scotland," sorry, king of England.

And C, "Shakespeare is illustrating that James VI of Scotland has a legitimate claim to the English throne." Which one of these is not using a tentative verb or adverb? Make your choice now.

Congratulations, if you picked C.

A uses the tentative verb, might, B uses the adverb, perhaps, and C is just making a statement.

They are saying Shakespeare is definitely illustrating this, and we can't say that for sure.

So well done If you picked C, My final top tip is using noun appositives.

Now noun appositives are an additional noun phrase that give more detailed information about a noun.

That sounds quite complex.

So let's have a look together, an example, and see what this actually looks like in reality.

These are useful for giving more information about a character, and keeping our academic writing succinct.

So it's about giving your reader a bit more information about a character, but without putting loads of two or three extra sentences in to do that.

Here is an example.

"Macbeth's ruthlessness is illustrated when he plots to murder Duncan, the nurturing and loyal king of Scotland, in his sleep.

So that clause in green is an additional noun phrase, it's a noun appositive.

If I take it out, so that's why it's surrounded by commas.

I can take it out, and the sentence makes sense anyway.

"Macbeth's ruthlessness is illustrated when he plots to murder Duncan in his sleep.

I then might have gone on to say, "Duncan was a nurturing man, he was also a loyal man.

, Duncan was also the king of Scotland." I could put all that information in extra sentences, but it's gonna make my writing seem really lengthy, and wordy, and unnecessary.

So by using a noun appositive, by putting this clause in the middle of my sentence just after Duncan, the noun that I am describing, the proper noun I'm describing, I give more information, but keep my writing succinct.

Let me share three more examples, so you can see how this is used.

So "Lady Macbeth, a Machiavellian Villainess, emasculates her husband." "Macbeth, the former Thane of Fife, is promoted to Thane of Cawdor by King Duncan." "Macduff, a loyal and brave warrior vows to avenge his family's murder." So in each of those three sentences, you can see that noun appositive has been placed after the proper noun, the character, and gives you more information about them.

Right, let's do a check for understanding, which of the following sentences users a noun appositive? A, "Banquo is a loyal ally to Macbeth, and is suspicious of the witches' prophecies." B, "Banquo, a loyal ally to Macbeth, is suspicious of the witches' prophecies." "Banquo, who is a loyal ally to Macbeth, is suspicious of the witches' prophecies." Select your response now.

Okay, congratulations if you said B, I think we can rule out A straight away.

There is no kind of extra clause in there.

We can't see any commas.

So we can see that this is not using a noun appositive.

Some of you may have picked C.

C was a little bit of a trick there.

C is a relative clause, a clause that begins with who, what, where, for example.

And whilst this will make our work more succinct than A, for example, it's not a noun appositive, a noun appositive usually starts with a determiner, so like a or thee.

And you can see that B is slightly more succinct than C.

So well done if you spotted that, and you picked B.

Okay, and second task today is we are gonna read a model answer, and underline and label at least two examples of each of the success criteria below.

These are embedded quotations, tentative language, and noun appositives.

I want you to pause the video now.

I want you to read the model answer yourselves, and underline, and highlight, and label where you see this success criteria in the response.

Okay, let's do some feedback.

Let's look at the model answer together, and see if we manage to find the three parts of the success criteria.

"So Shakespeare uses Duncan as a foil to Macbeth, showing that in his desperation for power, Macbeth, once King becomes too bloodthirsty, and forgets the need to inspire loyalty in his subjects.

Duncan rewards bravery in battle, promising to 'plant' and 'labour' to make Macbeth 'full of growing.

' Shakespeare's use of natural imagery presents Duncan, the honourable and noble king of Scotland, as a nurturing king, which is further illustrated through his use of praise.

More specifically, he inspires his subjects by stating 'Nobleness like stars shall shine on all deservers.

' Here Shakespeare uses a simile to compare nobility to stars, sources of light amongst darkness.

Illustrating how Duncan wants Macbeth to shine with greatness in his new role that he has awarded him.

However, Macbeth is instantly contrasted with Duncan when he uses the same images of stars asking them to hide their fires so he can commit immoral acts, like regicide, without his morals stopping him." A reminder that regicide is the act of killing a king.

So in this part of our response, we can see the use of embedded quotations.

So quotations said by Duncan, but also those said by Macbeth, and all of those have been embedded.

They're part of the sentence, and they're really well selected.

I'm not using any extra words, or any kind of extra long quotations that are not in helping my argument, not moving my argument forward.

I hope you also spotted in this section, this noun appositive, "The honourable and noble king of Scotland," giving us some more information about King Duncan there.

Let's continue to look at this response.

"Indeed, whilst Duncan acts decisively to maintain the status quo and the divine right of kings, Macbeth, by contrast, resorts to underhand tactics, an increasingly violent action to maintain his crown.

He's therefore known as a tyrant, a usurper, and in death as a 'dead butcher,' act five, scene eight.

Ultimately, Macbeth's tyrannical rule does not succeed as he does not inspire loyalty in his subjects.

And Malcolm, the rightful heir, ascends to the throne.

While Shakespeare arguably uses this narrative arc to flatter King James VI, by hinting at his legitimate claim to the throne, perhaps he may also be subtly illustrating the qualities of a good king to him.

Thus, through these different depictions of kingship, Shakespeare proves the need for compassion and gentleness as well as strength for a leader to be successful." Again, well done if you highlighted these embedded quotations, not just from the the scene with King Duncan, but from across the play.

Fantastic if you managed to spot the tentative language at the end when I was thinking about Shakespeare's message and giving alternative interpretations of Shakespeare's message, I use both of these adverbs, arguably and perhaps, to acknowledge that these are two different arguments.

People might have different opinions, so I want it to be tentative here.

And fantastic if you managed to spot the other noun appositive, "The rightful heir," a very short one here, but giving you more information about Malcolm, reminding the reader that Malcolm is the person who should have been sitting on the throne.

Right, I want you to pause the video now, and have a very brief discussion, and think about how these top tips have improved the quality of the paragraph.

Press play when you are ready to continue with today's lesson.

Okay, our final section today, we are gonna be writing about King Duncan.

Now, before we write, we always plan our response, and we are gonna use a single paragraph outline to plan today.

A reminder of how we use these, well, our outline for planning a paragraph is broken into three sections.

The first is a topic sentence.

Our topic sentence is where we outline our arguments for the paragraph.

We also make sure we try and include some key question vocabulary in that sentence.

But the main job is to outline our arguments for the paragraph.

Secondly is the supporting detail.

This is where we include any key language, form, structure, any context from the the text we are discussing.

We write these here, and these are gonna remind us what evidence we're gonna use to prove our topic sentence, our argument is true.

And our summary sentence is gonna be a sentence which summarises our whole argument in this paragraph, sharp focus as ever on a writer's purpose.

Right, let's do a very quick check for understanding.

I want you to match the section of the single paragraph outline, the planning grid to its function.

So what should the topic sentence do? What should the supporting details do? What should the summary sentence section do? Pause the video, match the responses, press play when you are ready for the answers.

Okay, congratulations if you said the topic sentence should outline your main argument.

Well done if you recognise the supporting details section should include any quotations or structural ideas, inferences about form or contextual information.

And well done if you identify that the summary section should summarise your argument.

Right, task three, I want you to imagine you've been set the essay question, "How has Shakespeare explore the theme of kingship in 'Macbeth?'" I want you to complete the supporting detail section of the single paragraph outline below.

So I have provided you with your topic sentence.

"Shakespeare uses Duncan as a foil to Macbeth, showing that, in his desperation for power, Macbeth, once King, becomes too bloodthirsty and forgets the need to inspire subjects".

I want you to pick four bits of evidence from the text that will help you prove that.

Okay, the summary sentence is also in the screen.

Pause the video and press play when you have completed this activity.

Okay, feedback.

Let's have a look at some of the supporting detail you could have included.

So you could have included lots of things, here are just some examples of things that I might have included to prove this topic sentence is true.

So I might have used how Shakespeare used the motif of nature to present Duncan as nurturing.

This is an argument about Duncan being a foil, so I want to find some contrast here.

How Duncan uses praise to inspire his allies.

So "Nobleness like stars." I want to talk about Macbeth's behaviour in contrast because this argument is all about a contrast, and that Macbeth can't be trusted, he's bloodthirsty, and he doesn't inspire loyalty.

And so I want to talk about his behaviour.

So "Stars, hide their fires," we see this very manipulative, treacherous side to him.

And finally, I really want to make sure I'm talking about this structural device.

Duncan is a structural device, he's a construct, he's a foil, and he's used to show the qualities of a good king.

Our final task today and shouldn't be a surprise.

I want you to now write up this paragraph that you have just planned.

I want you to make sure you're doing this in a clear and concise manner.

So our success criteria today are to make sure you include comparisons between Duncan and Macbeth and their approach to kingship.

I want you to make sure you analyse either some language, some form, or some structure.

I'm gonna suggest you focus on the motif of nature, that might be something that's fresh in your mind at the moment.

I would really like you to have a sharp focus on Shakespeare's message about kingship.

And I'd like to include any other contextual information you feel is relevant, and I want you to try and use those three top tips for clear and concise writing.

Pause the video now, and press play once you have finished this activity.

Okay, it's now time to assess our work.

So I want you to read through your work, and identify where you have done the following, where you've made comparisons between Duncan and Macbeth's approach to kingship, where you've analysed either language, form, or structure in your response, where you have mentioned Shakespeare's message about kingship, where you have included any other contextual information that you think is relevant, and where you have written it in a clear and concise style.

So pause the video and press play when you have assessed your own work.

Okay, we have now come to the end of today's lesson.

So I want to summarise and wrap up the learning that we've done today.

So firstly, we have learned that King Duncan was based on a historical figure, but we know that Shakespeare adapted this historical context and he encouraged audiences to be more sympathetic to his version of King Duncan.

And we believe one of the reasons he did this was to make sure his play had a very poignant warning against treason and treacherous behaviour.

And we also looked at some top tips to help us write clearly and concisely, and this included embedding our quotations and using noun appositives.

So thank you for joining me for today's lesson.

Well done on all of your hard work today.

Don't forget, we do have a quiz to test all of your knowledge, and I hope you join us for another lesson in this scheme of work.

Thank you.