Lesson video

Hello and welcome to the Oak National Academy for English.

My name is Mr. James.

And in today's lesson, we're going to be learning about one of the most famous plays in human history written by one of the most famous playwrights who ever lived about one of the most famous men who ever lived.

Yes, it's Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

Now in today's lesson, you will need number one, a pen, number two, some paper and number three, your brain.

But hopefully it looks a little bit better than the brain on this guy.

So if you haven't got these things, pause the video now, get a pen, get a paper, engage your brain and pop back in a minute.

So, what will we be doing in today's lesson? Well, let's have a look.

First of all, we're going to meet a character called Brutus and a character called Cassius.

Now the play's about Julius Caesar, but we don't really see much of him in today's lesson.

Number two, we're going to learn about the word honour.

Number three, we're going to learn about the word ambition.

Number four, we're going to read the opening of the play, and last but not least, we will answer some questions on the play itself.

So without any further ado, let's get started.

The first character we're going to meet is Brutus.

Now I also said, we're going to learn the word honourable.

And as you can see from the screen, Brutus is honourable and you can see from his picture, he's standing there looking very pleased with himself.

On the other hand, we're going to meet a character called Cassius, who is ambitious.

Let me just move myself out of the way.

You can see Cassius, he's ambitious and he's looking sneaky in his picture.

So I've got Brutus honourable, Cassius ambitious.

Now let's investigate this word honour.

We've got two definitions actually below, the first one says, if you have honour, that means you do what is right.

So an honourable person will be trustworthy.

For example, you'd like to do what is right.

Number two, if you are honourable, that means you are deserving of respect and you should be admired.

So we can see the relationship between these two words.

Now we're going to investigate honour in ancient Rome.

So, in ancient Rome, there was a few different things that would make you honourable.

Number one was you had to tell the truth.

I've mentioned this briefly already.

So to the Romans, someone who lied or acted deceitfully, that means in a way that tries to pull the wool over someone else's eyes was a coward.

If you lied, you were a coward.

Romans believed that you should always keep your promises, even those promises you've made to your enemy.

So telling the truth really important in ancient Rome, if you want to be honourable.

Now, number two, military victories, scoring military victories, fighting for Roman Wars, especially if you are a military leader was considered a great honour.

And you'll notice that these things actually today are still considered honourable.

To tell the truth is an honourable thing to do, to win victories or to be in the military is often something we consider honourable.

Now, what was the third thing that was considered honourable in ancient Rome? Now this was loyalty to Rome.

Now this is slightly different from today.

Maybe we don't think of honour as necessarily about being loyal to your country although some people might.

But in ancient Rome, this is an important part of being honourable.

So Romans believed that you should act in the common good.

That means that you should do what is best for your country, Not what is best for yourself.

Now it's time for a question.

In a moment, I'm going to put four examples on the screen, and I want you to decide which two you think are example of behaving honourably in ancient Rome.

So let's have a look, option one, tricking your enemy into defeat.

Number two, giving your life in a military victory.

Number three, working as part of the Senate.

Remember the Senate is something we learned about last lesson.

It's where the Roman politicians lived or worked I should say lived, they didn't live there well they might've slept there, they worked there.

And number four, telling a small lie to get what you want.

So we've got four options here.

Which two do you think are examples of honour in ancient Rome? Have a think, five seconds.

Did you get it right? It's option two, giving your life in a military victory and number three, working as part of the Senate.

We know to give you a life in a military victory was considered honourable and doing good for your country was also considered honourable and working for the Senate was considered to be doing good for Rome.

Let's move on.

We're now going to look at the word honour in some sentences so we can see how it's used correctly.

So the first sentence says, a person with honour will tell the truth even if it means he will cause himself harm.

Number two, another correct example.

Jane found 20 pounds on the pavement.

It was very honourable of her to take it to the police.

Now this is honourable because she's choosing to take the money to the police rather than keep it for herself, she's being honest.

And number three, Some jobs such as soldiers, teachers, judges, doctors, and nurses are considered particularly honourable.

Yes, even us teachers have honourable jobs.

And again, these are jobs that are considered to be helpful for society.

Educating young people, upholding the law, helping people with their health, they're honourable things to do.

Now we're going to have a look at some sentences that use the word honour incorrectly.

And here's the first one, Freddie's white lie was honourable.

Now this is not correct because it's not honourable to lie.

So we could make this correct by saying, Freddie's white lie was not honourable, or we could say dishonourable, which means not honourable.

Sentence two, Julia has a lot of honour.

Now we just wouldn't quite phrase it like this.

We would say Julia is honourable, not Julia has lots of honour.

And the third incorrect sentence says, you should give your teachers lots of honour.

Now again, we just wouldn't quite phrase it like this.

We would say you should honour your teacher, or we might say, you should give your teacher respect, you should respect your teacher.

So pause the video to complete this task.

Write a sentence about a family member or a friend that uses the word honour.

Now you can pause it now, if you think you can do that, or if you don't just wait a second, and I'll give you an example.

There you go, if you needed the example, pause it now and have a go at the question.

Okay, welcome back.

How did you do? I'm sure you wrote some great sentences.

Now we're going to do the same thing, but this time we're going to use the word honourable.

So can you write a sentence about a family member or a friend that uses the word honourable? If you think you can go ahead and do it, pause the video now and write your sentence.

If you think you need a bit of help, wait a second and look at my example below.

There we go, if you needed the example, now pause the video and go and write your sentence.

Okay, welcome back.

Again, I'm sure you wrote some great sentences, and you can be really proud of the work you've done.

Now we're going to move on.

This time, we're going to look at the word ambition.

I said at the beginning, we're going to look at honour and ambition.

We've done honour, now we're going to look at ambition.

So we've got two sentences here.

The first one says Cassius is ambitious.

And the second one says, Cassius' ambition causes him to commit evil deed.

So we've got the word ambitious and ambition.

Now, if you have ambition to do something, that means you want to do it very much.

A person who is ambitious will be very determined to do the things they want to do.

So if you're really ambitious to be a premier league footballer, you're going to train every day, you're going to train as hard as you can because you really want to achieve it.

If you are ambitious, that simply means you're a person who has lots of ambition.

So quite straightforward, and again you can see the link between these words.

Now, something we need to be aware of with ambition though, is there are two different kinds of ambition.

The first type of ambition is good, it's positive.

It just means working very hard to achieve something, but there's a more negative meaning to ambition.

Ambition can sometimes cause people who want to be successful to cheat or do harm to other people in order to get success for themselves.

And it's this kind of ambition that really we're more interested in, in Julius Caesar because Cassius is a bit of a sneaky character and his ambition often gets the better of him and he uses it to do bad things.

So which two options show examples of ambition gone wrong? So which two examples here show people using their ambition for bad things? Option one, Summer wanted a good job and she worked really hard to achieve it.

Option two, Ben wanted to be Prime Minister, so he made promises he couldn't keep.

Number three.

Matt was so desperate to win, that he swore the referee.

And option four, Phil practised every day until he became a champion runner.

Now have a think, five seconds.

Which one do you think? Or which two sorry, do you think are examples of ambition gone wrong? Okay, did you get the answer? It was again, number two and number three, Ben is letting his ambition get the better of him, because he's making promises he can't keep, he knows he can't keep in order to become Prime Minister.

And Matt, well he wants to win the game so badly that he's being rude to the referee.

So he's letting his ambition cause bad behaviour.

Two and three.

Number one, well, it's good to work hard.

Number four, it's good to practise every day.

So let's have a look at some examples of ambition being used correctly in a sentence.

Sentence one, most premier league players have the ambition to play for their country, because most of them do.

If they're English and they play for Arsenal, they want to represent England as well as Arsenal.

Number two, you have to be very ambitious if you want to become a professional footballer.

That's because so many people want to be a professional footballer and you've got lots of competition.

So you have to be really ambitious and work really hard at being a footballer if you want to become a professional footballer yourself.

Number three, most people think it is not good if your only ambition is to have power, money or fame.

Now, some people are like this.

They just want lots of money or they just want to be famous or they just want power for themselves.

But we tend to think these are not good qualities to have.

It's better to want to be famous because you've achieved something great rather than simply being famous.

Now here's an example of ambition being used incorrectly in a sentence.

Jamal was ambitious to eat lots of chocolate.

Now this is not the kind of thing we would normally say.

We might say Jamal had the ambition to get fit and healthy.

It's not an ambition to eat lots of chocolate, because it's really easy to do.

The harder thing is to be fit and healthy.

The second example of ambition used incorrectly is, Kathryn was ambition to write a great novel.

Again, we're using the word slightly incorrectly here.

We would say Catherine's ambition was to write a great novel.

And last but not least, I am really ambition to ride my bike.

Again, it's just a strange sentence.

You could say, I am really excited to ride my bike, or perhaps you could say my ambition is to win the race.

Perhaps you're riding your bike in a race.

They would be correct.

Now just like before, I want you to write a sentence about a family member or a friend that uses the word ambition.

If you think you can do that now, great.

Pause the video and write your sentence.

If you need a little bit of help, just wait a second, and look at my example below, then pause the video and write your sentence.

So there's my example.

If you've waited for it, pause the video now and write your own sentence.

Welcome back, how did you do? I'm sure you've got some great sentences.

Now, we've got another task coming, this time it says write a sentence about a family member or friend that uses the word ambitious.

If you think you can do it now, pause the video and write your sentence.

If not, look at my example, pause the video now and write your sentence.

Welcome back, and yet again, I'm sure you've got some great sentences written down on your paper.

We're now ready to begin looking and reading the play it self.

So, here's a painting of Julius Caesar, and this painting depicts something that was going to happen later in the play.

Now I'm not going to leave this on for too long.

But I'm just using it to whet your appetite about what is to come.

Now, let's have a look at some of the things that are going to happen in act one, scene two, which is where we're going to pick up the play.

So, first off, there are celebrations as Caesar enters Rome.

Now Caesar has just want a great military victory.

He's coming to Rome and the crowds are celebrating.

Remember winning a military victory is very honourable and the crowds are really praising Caesar.

The second thing that happens is our characters, Brutus and Cassius do not attend the celebrations.

They're nearby watching on, but they don't attend the celebrations.

Number three, Brutus worries like Caesar is becoming too powerful.

He is worried that he's becoming like a king.

And remember last lesson, we talked about how in Rome, there was lots of power for the Senate, and they didn't have kings and Queens like we had in Britain for a long time.

Number four, Brutus worries that Caesar will become king or become like a king.

He thinks he's too powerful and the crowd might want to make him that king.

And he thinks this would be bad for Rome.

And number five, Cassius wants to assassinate Caesar.

Now he doesn't say this, but we know that he wants to buy some of the language he uses although he doesn't say it outright.

So let's do a quick task before we go on.

Pause the video, see if you can write down these sentences, filling in the missing gaps.

Off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

How did you do? These are the correct answers.

Number one, celebrations as Caesar enters robe.

Number two, Brutus and Cassius do not attend, they don't go to the celebrations.

Number three, Brutus worries that Caesar is too powerful.

Number four, Brutus worries that Caesar will become king or like a king.

And number five, Cassius wants to assassinate Caesar.

And remember assassinate means kill, So, Brutus and Cassius.

Let's just revisit these two characters.

In the scene, Brutus is honourable.

He cares about what is best for Rome.

Brutus cares more about honour than power.

But let's have a look at Cassius.

In this scene, he is too ambitious.

He is jealous of Caesar, he's jealous of Caesar's power.

He wants it for himself.

He desires power, Cassius desires power and does not care about honour.

Now, quick questions pause the video and think about this.

Who cares more about honour than power and who cares more about power than honour? Okay, welcome back, what did you get? Number one, Brutus, is Brutus who cares more about honour than power and number two, it must be therefore Cassius, who cares more about power than honour.

Cassius is ambitious.

So, what we're going to do, is we're going to start reading a few bits of the play, just a small extract of it.

And then we're going to answer some questions after we've read.

So the first person who speaks is Cassius.

And remember Caesar has just come into Rome, and there's lots of celebrations going on because he's won a great military victory, and Cassius and Caesar are off to the side watching the celebrations but they're not attending them.

And Cassius says, "Listen to me, dear Brutus.

Sometimes it's hard for people to understand themselves, so let me show you who you are.

Imagine I am your mirror and I will show you your true reflection." Now here, Cassius is saying that they can talk through Brutus' worries.

He's realised that Brutus is concerned about something.

We know Brutus is worried about Caesar becoming a king, because Caesar's becoming too powerful.

And he's saying, oh let's talk through your worries, and all the able to help you through them, I'll be your mirror.

Now we getting these words underneath in Italics and these are called stage directions.

And these tell us something that's going on on stage.

It says trumpets play off stage, and then a shout is heard.

So these are part of the celebrations in the background.

Brutus respond to Cassius.

He says, "Why do the people shout? I'm worried they want to make Caesar the king." So he tells Cassius exactly what he's thinking and exactly what he's worried about.

Brutus is concerned that Caesar is becoming too powerful to which Cassius responds.

"You are afraid of that? You must not want him to be king? Brutus says, "I don't Cassius, Even though I do love Caesar very much.

But why do you keep me here so long? What is it that you want to tell me? If it's good for all the Romans, I'd do it even if it meant my death, I love honour more than I fear death.

Now this is really important, because Brutus is telling us lots about himself here.

Number one, he's telling us how much he loves honour, but he's also talking about the fact he's worried about Caesar.

And he's saying, if it's good for Rome, if something's good for Rome, I would do it because I'm so honourable even if it meant my death.

So we can see just how important honour is to Brutus.

Next up, Cassius says, "I know this quality of honour in you Brutus, it's as familiar to me as your face.

In fact, honour is what I want to talk to you about." Now here, Cassius is paying Brutus a compliment.

He's flattering him, he's saying, "Oh, I know you're honourable Brutus, I know you're honourable." And it's complimentary because Brutus really cares about being seen as honourable.

He says, "You're always as familiar to me as your face." I really recognise it, everyone knows how honourable you are.

And then he says, "In fact honour is what I want to talk to you about." He's getting Brutus interested by saying honour is what I want to talk about.

Now, we get some more stage directions after this.

A shout offstage and Trumpets play.

So again the crowd is cheering.

Now Brutus hears the cheering off stage, and he says, "Oh no! more shouting.

I think all this applause is for some new titles awarded to Caesar." Now Brutus is worried that Caesar is being given more power.

That's what it means by more titled.

Again, he's worried that Caesar is becoming more like a king and becoming more powerful.

Let's carry on.

Cassius replies by saying, "Why, Caesar strides over the narrow world like a giant, and we small men walk into his huge legs and look forward only to die dishonourably as his servants.

Men can be masters of their own fate.

It's not destiny's fault, but our own fault, that we are servants." And he says 'Brutus' and 'Caesar'.

Why is Caesar so special? Why should that name be honoured more than yours? Write them together, your name is just as good.

Say them, your name is just as nice to say.

Now in the name of all the gods, I ask you what food does Caesar eat that makes him grow so great.

Now some really interesting things here, that Cassius is saying.

First off, we get a metaphor.

Now they are not really servants, Cassius and Brutus, but he's calling them servants.

He's using the metaphor because he wants Brutus to be thinking about is it good that Caesar has all this power? We're like servants compared to Caesar.

Of course they're not really servants, but he's using the metaphor to try and manipulate Brutus because we know Cassius wants to assassinate Caesar, and he's going to try and convince Brutus to join in his plan or his conspiracy.

Then he says, why is Caesar so special? And here we get another thing coming out.

We can see Cassius is a bit jealous of Caesar.

What's so special about Caesar.

Why should he have all this power? And we know that Cassius is ambitious and he wants that power for himself.

So, let's see how Brutus responds to this.

He says, "I have no doubt that you love me." Because Cassius has been paying him all these compliments.

Then he says, "I think I understand what you want me to do." Very interesting.

He says "What I think about this and about what is happening here in Rome, I'll tell you later.

So he's saying, allow me to think about it.

"For now, don't try to persuade me anymore.

I ask you as a friend.

I'll think over what you've said." Now, Brutus is picking up on what Cassius wants him to do.

Now I've mentioned it a couple of times, but think about it.

What is it that Cassius is trying to persuade Brutus to do? And what's Brutus worked out.

Did you get it? Cassius is trying to persuade Brutus that they should assassinate Caesar.

So we've read the short extract and now we're going to answer some questions.

Now the first question will be based around this short quotation.

Brutus says, "Why do the people shout? I'm worried they want to make Caesar the king." Now look below and you can see the question.

The question is, what does Brutus say he is worried about? And why is he worried about this? In a minute, I want you to pause the video and write your answer.

But remember, there's a why question in here, so you're probably going to need to use the word because to give you a reason.

Pause the video and write your answer on your paper.

Off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's have a look at how well you did.

Here's an example of something you might have written for your answer.

Brutus is worried that the people of Rome are going to make Caesar their king.

He is worried because that means the power in Rome will be taken away from the Senate.

And remember we talked earlier, we talked last lessons sorry about how Romans thought it was really important that power remained in the Senate and was spread between a number of people, rather than just being in the hands of a king or an emperor.

So, if you didn't get that, you can pause the video now and perhaps improve your answer in a different colour, or we write it with your pen.

If you did get something like that, great work, well done.

Now let's have a look at question two.

Again, it's a quotation from Brutus.

Now Brutus says, "What is it that you want to tell me?" He's speaking to Cassius.

"If it is for the good of all Romans, I'd do it even if it meant my death.

I love honour more than I fear death." So look below, and here's your question.

From the quotation above, what do you think Brutus cares about most? And how do you know now? Now pause the video, write your answer on your paper and come back to me when you're done.

How did you do? Let's have a look.

So here's the kind of thing you may have written.

Brutus cares most about honour.

This is clear because he claims the honour is more important to him than his life.

He would be prepared to die to maintain his honour.

Again, we can see just how important honour is to Brutus.

Now I'm sure most of you got that answer, and if you did great work, if you didn't pause the video and change your answer, so it's correct.

Now let's have a look at question three.

This time we have a short quote from Cassius, and he asks, "Why is Caesar so special?" Now, look below and you can see your question.

It says, Cassius seems jealous of Caesar when he asks, "why is Caesar so special?" But here's your question, what is Cassius jealous of? Now, pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Okay, welcome back, how did you do? Well, let's have a look.

Here's the kind of thing you might have written for your answer.

Cassius is jealous of Caesar's power.

He thinks there is nothing special about Caesar and that Caesar does not deserve to rule Rome.

So that's why Cassius thinks Caesar is, or questions why Caesar is so special.

Question four.

Brutus says, "I think I understand what you want me to do." So, look below, here's your question.

What idea is Cassius trying to put into Brutus' mind and why is he trying to do this? And if you can see if you can use the word ambition in your answer.

Off you go, pause the video, write your answer.

Okay, welcome back, and let's see how you did.

Here's an example of the kind of thing you might have written.

So Cassius is trying to suggest to Brutus that Caesar is too powerful like a king, and that he needs to be assassinated.

Caesar needs to be assassinated.

Cassius is doing this because his ambition makes him jealous of Caesar.

He wants to take the power for himself.

There's an example of the kind of thing you might have written.

Now this one was a bit more tricky.

So perhaps a few of you might want to have a few things that you can add to your answer.

If you didn't and you got all that brilliant.

If there's anything you want to add, pause the video now and improve your answer, with you pen.

So we're on the final question.

Now for this question, we've got the same quotation as we used for the last question.

Brutus is saying to Cassius, "I think I understand what you want me to do." but the question we're going to answer about this is different.

So here's the question.

Cassius wants Brutus to help him assassinate Caesar.

Do you think that Brutus will like this idea? Now, if you can try and include the word honour or the word honourable in your answer, pause the video, pick up your pen and have a go.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's have a look how you did.

Now there's quite a number of possible answers you could have written to answer this question.

So let's have a look at some acceptable answers.

Here's the first one, number one.

I do not think that Brutus will like Cassie's idea because to have honour in ancient Rome, you needed to treat everyone with respect, even your enemies.

So the person who would write this is saying Oh, I don't think that Brutus will like it because you have to treat your enemies with respect, and even if he think Caesar is an enemy, Brutus wouldn't kill him because that's not treating him with respect.

So that's the first possible answer.

Now possible answer number two, I think that Brutus will like Cassius' idea because Caesar is becoming like a king, and that is bad for Rome.

To be honourable in ancient Rome meant you should do what is in the best interest of Rome.

So this pupil is saying, well perhaps because Caesar is becoming bad for Rome, to kill him would actually be a good thing, it would be in the interest of Rome.

It's quite a controversial idea, but you could make the argument if you want.

Number three, here's another acceptable answer.

I do not think that Brutus will like Cassius' idea because Caesar has just won a great military victory and that was considered honourable in ancient Rome.

So again, another people given a different reason why they don't think that this idea of Cassius' will be liked by Brutus.

Those are all acceptable answers, but let's have a look at what a great answer to this question might have looked like.

Now I'm just going to get rid of myself from the screen because there's quite a lot of text here.

So here's a great answer, and I'll read it out to you, so you can get an idea of what's going on.

It's difficult to tell whether Brutus will like Cassius' idea.

As we know, Brutus loves honour, but killing Caesar could be considered both honourable and dishonourable.

For example, if Cesar is becoming like a king, that could be bad for Rome.

So killing Caesar could be considered to be acting honourably in the best interest of the Roman people.

On the other hand to be honourable also means treating your enemies with respect and assassinating Caesar would definitely not be treating him with respect.

In the end, Brutus will have to decide which part of honour he thinks is more important, doing what is in the best interest of Rome or treating your enemies with respect.

Now that's quite a good answer, I mean if anyone got something like that, I'd be really impressed.

I'm just going to give you a quick moment to update your answer if you want to.

Guys, you've made it to the end of today's lesson, you've done some great work and I'm really, really proud of you.

The only thing left to tell you is that in the next lesson, we're going to be looking at the same scene, but this time we're going to be looking it at in the original Shakespearian language.

Today, we were just looking at it in a modern version.

So we're going to get really in to Shakespeare's language and we're going to be really good at it because we've already learned about the scene in modern English.

If you've enjoyed today's lesson, share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and with #learnwithOak Now guys there is just one more thing for me to tell you before I go, you've done really well today, you've learned loads, so make sure you complete the quiz down below after the video finishes, it will show you all the brilliant things you've learned during today's lesson.

So once again, I'm really proud of you.

I can't wait to see you next time at the Oak national Academy for English.

Great stuff.