Hello and welcome to today's lesson, "Macbeth and the Witches' Prophecies".

My name is Mr. Barnsley, let's get started.

Okay, so by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to explain how Act One, scene three illustrates Macbeth's early desire for power.

As ever, we're gonna start with our keywords of today's lessons.

There are five words you can see on the screen.

They are perturbed, intrigued, receptive, culpable and susceptible.

The definitions of these words are about to appear on screen.

I want you to take a moment to look through them 'cause you are gonna challenge yourself to recognise them when they appear in the lesson, but also use them in your own discussions and writing.

Let's have a look at those definitions now.

Okay, so there are two learning cycles in today's lesson.

Firstly, we're gonna be looking at Macbeth's response to the prophecies.

And in the second learning cycle today we're gonna be looking at Macbeth's culpability.

So let's start by looking at act one, scene three.

So to do that we are going to have to remind ourselves all about this scene.

So we're gonna reread Act one, Scene three from Macbeth.

We're really gonna focus, however, on lines 119 to 150.

So they're the lines we're gonna look at in the most detail.

And as you are rereading this scene, I want you to have these two questions in mind.

How does Macbeth respond to the witches' prophecies and how does his response differ to Banquo's? So pause the video, reread the scene with these two questions in mind, have a bit of a discussion and then press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back, I heard some really interesting ideas as you were discussing there.

I really liked those people who managed to pick out that the were some differences between Macbeth and Banquo's reactions.

Banquo was very perturbed, like uninterested, disturbed by the witches' prophecies.

Macbeth definitely showed some signs of that as well.

But well done to those of you who picked up on hints that Macbeth might have also been a little bit intrigued, a little bit interested about what he was hearing.

So let's do a quick check for understanding then.

True or false, Macbeth and Banquo have similar, have a similar response to the prophecies.

Is this true or false? Pause the video and make your selection and press play when you are ready to continue.

Well done to everyone who said false, yes, there might have been some similarities, but it would not be true.

It's false to say that they had a similar, their responses were the same.

So how could we justify our responses there? Well, A, was it that whilst Banquo is horrified by the witches' prophecies, Macbeth is excited about becoming king and he starts plotting.

Or is it B, whilst Banquo is horrified by the witches' prophecies, Macbeth is conflicted.

He is both excited, but he's also a little bit terrified as well.

Pause the video and make your decision now.

well done to everyone who said B, yes, we do see an element, a similarity between Banquo and Macbeth.

We do see that Macbeth is perturbed, a little bit terrified by the witches' prophecies, but there is a sense of excitement and that's the key thing that we want to focus on in today's lesson.

So thinking back to that scene, let's find some quotations that are really gonna help us prove that Macbeth is conflicted.

That he's both perturbed, but he's also intrigued.

Let's start with perturbed.

Let's start by those quotations that present a similar reaction to Banquo.

So we see he say, "Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair." This idea that his hair is standing on end.

And think about why might your hair stand on end? Like what makes, what kind of emotions or feelings make you feel like that? Macbeth also says, "If chance will have me King, why Chance may crown me without my stir." He's very much saying, look, I wanna leave this to fate.

I don't wanna have to get involved in that.

If I'm gonna be king, brilliant, but I don't wanna have to do anything about it, I'm gonna leave it to chance.

I'm gonna leave it to fate.

And he also sees this quote, "My seated heart knock at my ribs." So we can imagine his heart beating really quickly in his chest, something that happens when you're feeling anxious or nervous.

So I think we could use all of these quotations to highlight that Macbeth feels quite perturbed by the prophecies.

However, on the other hand, there is pieces of evidence that suggests Macbeth is intrigued by the witches' prophecies.

So one of these is a question they ask themselves.

Why do I yield to that suggestion? Why am I interested by what the witches are saying? Hang on a minute.

We've seen this quotation before.

Why "my seated heart knock at my ribs." So we said that this, his heart beating really quickly might represent anxiety and and nervousness, but at the same time, his heart beating quickly could also represent a sense of excitement, a sense of intrigue.

He also says "two truths are told as happy prologues to the Swelling Act." So he, he acknowledges that the witches have already got some things right within their prophecies and he calls these happy prologues.

A prologue is something that occurs before something else.

So the fact that he describes these as happy, that adjective is very interesting.

It tells us that he's already pleased that some of the witches' prophecies have come true or are true.

Suggesting that the idea of becoming king is something that also makes him feel quite happy.

And not a quotation here, but something we could talk about when we're talking about structure is the fact that Macbeth speaks in asides during this scene, which means the things that he's saying are not being shared directly with Banquo.

They're being said to himself, but they're being said aloud so we, the audience can hear them.

That's really interesting.

That tells us things straight away that Macbeth knows some of his thoughts, some of his ideas shouldn't be shared with his friend Banquo.

So let's have a discussion.

Let's check We've understood and picked out the key ideas there.

Pause the video and I want you to have a discussion.

What does Macbeth's reaction tell us about his ambitious nature? And what qualities of a tragic hero are we already seeing present here? So thinking back to some of the other lessons in this unit when we thought about characteristics of tragic heroes, which of them are we seeing starting to arise here? So pause the video, have a discussion and press play when you're ready to continue.

some lovely ideas there.

Great discussions, so well done all of you who are picking up that act one, scene three is actually very important for showing that Macbeth already had these ambitious tendencies.

The fact that he's interested by the witches' prophecies, that he wants to yield to them, that they make his heart race, that he describes them as happy prologues.

All of these are signs that Macbeth already is very, very ambitious in nature.

And some may say, linking it to the qualities of a tragic hero, that this is his hamartia, this is his fatal flaw.

Okay, it's a really interesting discussion there.

Let's have a look at another discussion question then, shall we? Why then do you think it's so important? Why did Shakespeare decide to include Banquo in the scene? Why is it important for the audience to see Banquo's reaction alongside Macbeth's? Pause the video, have a discussion and press play when you are ready to continue.

Yeah, really interesting discussion there.

Well done to everyone who said that actually Banquo's reactions make Macbeth's reactions stand out, when Banquo is so loyal, so obviously loyal to his king, it makes Macbeth's early ambition and early signs of disloyalty stand out, they're heightened because we contrast them, we compare them to Banquo's response.

Okay, time for a check for understanding.

Which of the following quotations could not be used to justify the inference that Macbeth is intrigued by the prophecies? So which of these quotations could not be used? Is it A, "Why chance my crown me without my stir." Is it B, "My seated heart knock at my ribs." Is it C? "Why do I yield to that suggestion?" Or is it D, "Twp truths or told as happy prologues." Pause the video, make your choice and press play when you want to find out the answer.

Okay, well done if you selected the first one, the first quotation really shows that Macbeth is slightly nervous about these prophecies.

He doesn't really want to think too deeply about what they're suggesting that he might do, that actually, he'd like to leave this to fate.

If you picked B, you might have picked B 'cause we talked about a kind of a racing heart showing signs of nervousness or anxiety.

But remember, it could also show signs of excitement.

And obviously C and D are both examples of Macbeth being very intrigued by the prophecies.

Okay, first task of today's lesson and we're gonna have a more detailed discussion here.

So let's just get our quick thoughts out there as we do when we're doing a more detailed discussion, quickly think about what are the early signs that Macbeth is going to be depicted as a tragic hero in act one, scene three.

So here you are putting together your knowledge of conventions of a tragedy and characteristics of a tragic hero with what we have discussed already in act one, scene three, putting that all together.

So pause the video, have a quick discussion and press play when you are ready to come back and formalise your thoughts.

Some lovely initial ideas there.

Now it's time to formalise these.

Remember we really like to practise formalising our thoughts when we are discussing 'cause that will really help us when it comes to writing our ideas down later.

So we're gonna use this discussion grid on the screen to support us with formalising our discussion.

So two things I'm gonna challenge you to do today, using conjunctions to justify and using specific examples from the text.

So conjunctions we might use are because, as, since, but, yet, however, so, or therefore, so plenty of different conjunctions we can use.

An example of this might be Macbath's intrigue towards the witches' prophecies suggests he is an incredibly ambitious person, therefore this scene could be foreshadowing his hamartia.

Second thing I'm challenging you to do today is use examples from the text.

So phrases like for example, or more specifically or more precisely, namely, are all great ways of starting our sentences and introducing some specific quotation or plot points that we want to use to justify our ideas in more detail.

So more specifically, when Macbeth questions why he yields to that suggestion, Shakespeare depicts him as a character who is potentially ruthless in his ambition.

Okay, time to pause the video, build on those quick thoughts that you had in your initial discussion.

And let's formalise these, linking our understanding of the conventions of tragedy characteristics of a tragic hero with our understanding of this scene.

Act one, scene three, how or what are the early signs that Macbeth is going to be depicted as a tragic hero? Pause the video and press play when you are ready to continue.

Fantastic, really great to hear you discussing so enthusiastically.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you could have said.

So you might have said, Macbeth is perturbed by the prophecies, yet this does not stop him contemplating them coming true.

Shakespeare presents him as being receptive to external influences.

For example, his heart knocks at his ribs.

It could illustrate the witches prophecies, unnerve him.

Alternatively, this could depict his excitement.

Right, moving on to our second learning cycle of today's lesson, and this one is entitled Macbeth's Culpability.

So pupils have been asked to discuss who they believe is the most culpable for Macbeth's downfall.

Let's have a look at Laura's response below.

Now Laura says, evidently, Lady Macbeth's emasculation of her husband, particularly in Act one, scene seven is the greatest reason for his downfall.

She manipulates him, she uses his ambitious nature to get what she wants.

Over to you two parts of this discussion.

How might Laura use evidence from Act one, scene three to justify her response? So just thinking about act one, scene three, how could Laura use evidence to justify her response? But I also want you to take this second part now.

How might act one, scene three suggest that actually Laura's response is a little bit too simplistic? So two parts to today's discussion, pause the video and press by when you're ready to continue.

Lots of great ideas there and well done for finding, it's really important that we can use evidence from across the text to justify our opinion.

So even though Laura is talking about act one, scene seven, she can definitely use evidence from other scenes to justify what she's saying.

And I think well done for those of you who managed to find some evidence from Act one, scene three, we'll look at that in a minute.

But also I could hear lots of people now starting to think about why Laura's ideas maybe are a little bit simple and a little bit one-sided.

So let's have a look at the first point then.

Well, act one, scene three is really useful for illustrating this idea that Macbeth is ambitious.

We know this from the quotation, "Yields to the suggestion that he will be king." So therefore it starts to set the scene that Macbeth is gonna be susceptible to external pressures.

Okay, we know he has this ambitious nature, so therefore, when Lady Macbeth emasculates him and questions whether he's ambitious enough, we already know that he's gonna be susceptible.

This is gonna be a technique that's gonna work really well on Macbeth.

So act one, scene three can be really useful in setting the scene for understanding what happens in Act one, Scene seven.

So for that purpose, act one, scene three is really useful for proving Laura's point.

However, it is probably this argument that Laura says is that it's the greatest reason.

It's probably the most questionable because at this point in the play in Act one, scene three, lady Macbeth has not even been introduced.

Okay, we've not met Lady Macbeth, but we're already seeing that Macbeth is intrigued by the witches' prophecies, that they excite him.

And he's already starting to think about the potential that he can become King.

We know that the idea makes his heart, his seated heart knock at his ribs.

So I think this is suggesting that Macbeth is already a man who is considering regicide.

So I think we could argue or it could be argued that to say Lady Macbeth is the greatest reason is perhaps a little bit too simplistic.

Now we're gonna look at Andeep's response.

I want you to think about how Andeep's response shows more nuance than Laura's.

So Andeep says, as soon as Macbeth heard the witches' prophecies, he ceased to be an innocent man.

He stopped being an innocent man.

To both fear the thought of the crown, yet to also immediately consider regicide, it depicts Macbeth as ruthlessly ambitious, even before the calculated manipulation from his wife.

So the fact that yes, we do notice that he's afraid of the witches' prophecies, but we know he's already considering regicide, that shows that he's very, very ambitious man.

And additionally, the contrast with Banquo's horrified response to the witches only serves to further demonstrate that Macbeth was never an innocent man.

It wasn't his wife that took his innocence away.

It was the prophecies and his own internal thoughts.

Okay, go on then, pause the video.

Have a discussion then how does this response show more nuance than Laura's? And press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, some really good ideas there.

So the nuance here is that he's weighing up, he's evaluating more than one side.

He's not just going down the route that Lady Macbeth is fully responsible.

He's acknowledging here that there is more than one person culpable here.

And actually, yes, he's gonna acknowledge that Lady Macbeth plays a role, but he's considering that Macbeth is not innocent in all of this.

And I really like that that kind of looking at the culpability of two people here makes this slightly more nuanced than Laura's.

So how would Andeep use act one, scene three to justify his interpretation, which quotation's gonna be useful here? Pause the video, have a discussion and press play when you are ready to continue.

Well done, I heard lots of you using some of those quotations that we'd looked at in learning cycle one, particularly the ones that suggested Macbeth felt intrigue towards the prophecies.

Okay, a check for understanding now, which of the interpretations below is the most nuanced? Okay, the most nuanced in discussing who was culpable for Macbeth's downfall.

Okay, so we're looking for nuances here.

So let's look at them one by one.

So A, Macbeth is completely responsible for his own downfall.

Act one, scene three is evidence that he was considering regiside before Lady Macbeth's intervention.

B, Lady Macbeth is Machiavellian in her manipulation of her husband.

She deliberately targets his ambitious nature in Act one, Scene seven.

C, whilst undoubtedly Lady Macbeth's emasculation in act one, scene seven had an impact on Macbeth's decision, act one, scene three illustrates that he was an ambitious man who was intrigued and excited by the prophecies.

Which of these three responses shows the most nuance in discussing who was culpable for Macbeth's downfall? Pause the video, select your response, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Yes, well done if you said, C.

C, they're starting to weigh up that both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth hold some responsibility for the decisions that Macbeth makes throughout the play.

Right, we are gonna have a look at and Andeep's idea in a little bit more detail, and you are gonna turn it into an analytical paragraph.

So one of the ways that we can plan our analytical paragraphs is using single paragraphs outlines, which is the grid below.

Let's have a quick reminder.

You might have used these before when you've been doing analytical writing or any kind of writing, let's have a little bit of a reminder how they work.

So the grid below always reminds us that we need to start with a topic sentence.

And a topic sentence is a sentence which is gonna outline the argument that we're gonna cover in our paragraph.

Under that, we are gonna write in note form the key things that we want to include in this paragraph.

So these might be a list of the language, the form, the structure that helps us prove our point.

We wanna make sure that our evidence though is listed in a logical order.

So we're not just kind of jumping around the text from scene to scene, that we're kind of taking our evidence in a logical order.

We might want to make note of any context we're gonna use.

So any historical or social context that we want to use, we might make a note of in here.

But a key thing here is, this is quick, this is about planning.

We just want to do this in notation form.

We're not writing in full sentences at this point.

And our closing sentence is a reminder that we're always gonna summarise our argument to make sure that we've definitely supported our topic sentence.

So it's a good note to remind ourselves that we've gone full circle and our paragraph really does fully argue what we are trying to say.

So let's have a look at Andeep's single paragraph outline.

We're gonna use this to write our own paragraph.

So his topic sentence is, whilst undoubtedly Lady Macbeth's manipulation pushes Macbeth to regicide, it is clear from act one, scene three, that Macbeth is not an innocent man.

His early interactions with the witches suggest he's already considering murder.

So, which kind of supporting details am I gonna use here? Well, I'm gonna use "Live a coward in thine own esteem." From act one, scene seven, this is an example of Lady Macbeth manipulating, remember, I want to prove all of my topic sentence.

So I want to talk about Lady Macbeth's manipulation, but then I'm gonna move on to act one, scene three and talk about how Macbeth is already considering it.

So I want that quotation "Yield to that suggestion." I might play on this idea that Macbeth feels excitement, not just fear from "Seated heart knock on my ribs." And I also want to maybe bring in that contrast to loyal Banquo.

And I might talk about the Chivalric code here and the way that kind of noble men were supposed to behave and how that is different for Banquo and Macbeth.

So you can see Andeep has got lots and lots of ideas there that are gonna help prove his topic sentence.

And his closing sentence is gonna be ultimately the fervour, which is kind of the excitement in which Macbeth responds to the prophecies suggests that he is just as desperate for the crown as his wife is.

So pause the video and you're gonna give yourself plenty of time to write this analytical paragraph up, starting with a topic sentence and using all of that supporting detail to really justify your responses.

Pause your video and press play when you are ready to go through some feedback.

Okay, really, really well done there.

Some great work.

I could see you are working really, really hard on that.

Now, I want you to take a moment for some self-reflection.

So you're gonna reread your work and I want you to identify where have you done the following? Where have you included from any evidence from act one, scene three that illustrates Macbeth's culpability, that illustrates his guilt.

And where have you given a nuanced response by discussing either act one, scene seven, and Lady Macbeth's culpability.

So where have you started to weigh up that it is not just Macbeth who's responsible, it is not just Lady Macbeth, but actually a combination of them both.

Pause your video and press play when you have checked your work.

Okay, well done for another great lesson.

We covered some really interesting ideas there, and you did a fantastic job writing all those up at the end of today's lesson.

So there is a summary of what we have covered in today's lesson on the screen.

Just take a moment to read through that now.

Thank you so much for joining me for today's lesson, "Macbeth and the Witches' Prophecies".

Do make sure you look at some of our other lessons in this unit as we continue to look at the idea of Macbeth as a tragic hero.

Thank you very much, see you soon.