Lesson video

Hello and welcome to the Oak National Academy for English.

My name is Mr. James and once again, I'm going to be teaching you Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

So in today's lesson, what are we going to be learning about? Well, first we're going to meet finally the character of Julius Caesar himself, secondly, we're going to meet his great friend, Mark Antony third, we're going to investigate the word suspicious, fourth, we're going to read the text and number five, we are going to answer some questions on the text, but before we do that, let's make sure you have all the equipment you need.

Number one, make sure you have a pen.

Number two, make sure you have some paper and number three, make sure you have your brain and hopefully as always, your brain is a little bit better than the brain on this guy.

Now if you don't have any of these things, pause the video and go and get them now, when you've got them unpause the video and we can get on with the lesson.

Welcome back, now you've got your pen and paper, what I would like you to do is write down today's title, it's on the screen now so pause the video and with your pen, write the title on your paper, off you go, okay, let's get going.

As I said, the first thing we're going to learn in today's lesson is about Julius Caesar.

Now there's a picture here and Julius Caesar is the man on the left and on the right it's his great friend, Mark Antony.

And as you can see they're both looking quite strong and powerful in this picture, but who was Julius Caesar? Well, let's remind ourselves of a few facts, we've got some true or false questions here and we're going to go through them one by one, so first of all, let's look at the first question, it says Julius Caesar lived in ancient Rome around 2000 years ago.

Now make a decision you've got about five seconds, is that true or false? Three, two, one and it is true, he did live in ancient Rome about 2000 years ago.

I'm sure you got that right, well done.

Now for the second question, it says Julius Caesar, won lots of military victories and returned with lots of loot, five seconds, is that true or false? Three, two, one and it is true yet again he did, he did win lots of military victories and he did return to Rome with lots of loot that he distributed amongst the Roman people and that made him very popular as I'm sure you can imagine.

Now, question three, Julius Caesar was very powerful and often ignored the Senate true or false? Five seconds off you go, and it is true, of course it is, he was very powerful and this allowed him to ignore the Senate.

We have three true in a row, is it going to be a full sweep for true in this selection? So question four, true or false Julius Caesar assassinated, Cassius and Brutus, did he do that? Five seconds, three, two, one, and oh no, it's false, this one, I'm sure you knew it was false.

So it's not a clean sweep.

Four true, three true, one false right, let's move on.

Now there's something very important we need to be aware of before we go any further, the first thing is that the man Julius Caesar is not the protagonist in the play "Julius Caesar." Now the protagonist is the main character.

So despite the fact the play's named after him and despite the fact he's very famous, Julius Caesar is not actually the protagonist, the main character in the play.

The main character is in fact Brutus so bear that in mind.

The second important fact we need to know is that while Julius Caesar lived 2000 years ago in ancient Rome, the play was written 500 years ago by William Shakespeare.

So Julius Caesar had been dead for 1500 years by the time Shakespeare got around to writing the play.

So two really important things, and let's test a bit of your knowledge on these things and a couple of other things, so question one, is there a character called Julius Caesar in the play Julius Caesar? Five seconds to make a decision, yes or no? Yes there is, I'm sure you've got that, it's very easy let's move on.

Question two, is the character called Julius Caesar the protagonist? That means the main character in the play Julius Caesar five seconds, is he the main character? Two, one and no he isn't, I'm sure you got that one as well.

Julius Caesar, despite having a play named after him is not the main character in the play, Brutus is.

Number three, when and where did Julius Caesar live? Five seconds, he lived 2000 years ago in ancient Rome, well done.

Question four, is it question four? I think, when and where did William Shakespeare write the play Julius Caesar? And he wrote it 500 years ago in Elizabethan, England.

I'm sure you got that one well done.

What happened around 500 years ago in Elizabethan, England? five seconds, three, two, one, and William Shakespeare wrote the play Julius Caesar.

What happened around 2002 years ago in ancient Rome? Three, two, one, the real person called Julius Caesar lived, he was alive 2000 years ago in ancient Rome, right? We're doing really well so let's move on to the next question, it says, is there a character called Julius Caesar in the play Julius Caesar? Five seconds, three, two, one, and yes of course there is a character called Julius Caesar in the play Julius Caesar.

And is the character called Julius Caesar the protagonist in the play called Julius Caesar? Is he main character? Five seconds and no, he isn't that's Brutus who I've just told you, answer to this next question, it says, who is the protagonist? The main character in Julius Caesar I've just told you it is Brutus, okay.

Really important we remember that as we move forward.

Okay so the next question says, who was Mark Antony? And as I've said, Mark Antony was Caesar's great friend.

He is the man here on the right, now he's a great friend of Caesar, but he's also very loyal.

So that's important.

And he becomes really important later in the play.

Now I'm not going to say too much about him now because he's not massively important in this scene, although he is in the scene, but he does become really important in the play later.

So why is Caesar so suspicious now? I told you at the beginning of the lesson, we're going to investigate the word suspicious and the reason is because Caesar is a bit of a suspicious character.

And if you look at him and Antony here, you can see actually they are looking a little bit suspicious, aren't they? 'Cause they look off into the distance.

They look like what's going on over there? They certainly look like they're suspicious of something or someone.

Let's investigate this word suspicious.

Now I'm sure many of you know, this word already suspicion suspicious, but we'll have a look at it anyway, just in case some of you don't.

So suspicion and here's an example of the word in use, Caesar is suspicious of Cassius, okay? Now, if you are suspicious of someone, you do not trust them and you are careful because you think they are dishonest that is what suspicious means.

So let's have a look at some sentences that use the word correctly.

Firstly, it says Pablo was suspicious of the man who was hanging around the door of his shop.

So there's just a random man hanging around Pablo's shop, hanging around the door and Pablo looks at him and he thinks he's behaving strangely perhaps there's something suspicious going on.

Here we say Grace suspected her sister of stealing her dress, so it's slightly different version of the word, but it means the same thing.

Grace thinks her sister has stolen her dress so we could say she suspects it.

And last but not least we've got Laura was suspicious of her brother's sudden caring behaviour.

Now this is suspicious because all of a sudden her brother seems to be acting in a way that's different from usual, so Laura is thinking, that's a bit suspicious, I wonder why he's doing that.

So suspicion is obviously often a result of someone behaving differently from how they usually do.

Now I want you to pause the video and complete this task, it says, write a sentence about a family member or friend that uses the word suspicious.

And just below that you can see an example that I've done for you, it says I was suspicious of my brother's motives when he suddenly started being kind to me.

So pause the video and have a go at your own sentence off you go.

Okay welcome back, I'm sure you've got some great sentences about your family or friend that uses the word suspicion or suspicious.

Okay let's move on.

Let's have a look at what we've done so far.

Now these are all the things we said we were going to do at the beginning of the lesson, well we've already met Julius Caesar, we've met Mark Antony and we've already investigated and learned the word suspicious.

So we're absolutely ruffling through this lesson.

Next up, we're going to read the text and then we're going to answer some questions on it so let's get moving.

So we're still in Act one, scene two and we're thinking about Caesar's suspicion.

Now, just before we do, let's have a look at what happens in this scene.

Number one, Caesar, Antony come on stage.

So we haven't met them yet and they're going to come on stage after Brutus and Cassius, we're talking a minute ago, Brutus and Cassius finished talking, then Caesar starts whispering to Antony then Caesar says that Cassius is dangerous and lastly Anthony says, "Cassius has a good reputation," he says, "No, he's not dangerous, "there's nothing to worry about," right? What I would like you to do is one by one I want you to read through these statements that we've just looked at and fill in the missing gaps.

So you've got a great idea of what's going to happen in the scene before we read it so pause the video, fill in the gaps and off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's see how you did, well number one is Caesar and Antony come on stage, that's what happens first, secondly Brutus and Cassius finished talking.

Thirdly, Caesar starts whispering to Antony.

Number four Caesar says "Cassius is dangerous" and number five, Anthony says, "Cassius has a good reputation." Now I'm sure you did really well on those and well done for working hard.

So let's have a look or let's just remind ourselves as the characters that are in this scene, the two in the middle are, who are they? Yeah, well done.

We've got Caesar on the left and Antony on the right and the top left of your screen, you have Brutus, yep Well done and in the top right of your screen, Cassius, of course is, excellent work guys.

So some quick questions then we're going to get started.

What does Brutus care about more than power? Five seconds, three, two, one and of course he cares about honour more than power, great work well done.

Number two, what does Cassius care about more than honour? Five seconds, three, two, one, and power, he cares more about power than honour, he wants some of it for himself and the final question, who is Caesar suspicious of? We've only just learned this, who is Caesar suspicious of, do we think? Five, four, three, two, one, he is suspicious of Cassius 'cause remember he said, he thinks Cassius is dangerous, which tells us he is suspicious of him and perhaps he is right to be suspicious of Cassius based on what we already know, let's find out.

So we begin with, from stage directions, it says Caesar enters with his followers that means Cesar comes on stage and then Brutus says, they're in a different position by the way, Brutus and Cassius, they're not on the same bit of the stage 'cause they're in different parts of the area, okay? Brutus says to Cassius, "The celebrations are done "and it looks like Caesar is returning," to which Cassius replies, "As they walk by grab Casca." Now Casca is another Senator and he is with Caesar and all the people with Caesar.

So Cassius says," as they walk by grab Casca "and he'll tell us if anything important happened "in his usual sour manner." Now sour is a metaphor for miserable, Casca as you can see is a bit of a misery guts and so sour is a metaphor for that, it's kind of like talking to Cassius is a bit like biting into a lemon, it's not very pleasant because he's miserable and sour.

Okay, let's move on.

Brutus says," I will, I will grab Casca," and then he says, "But look, Caesar looks angry "and everybody else looks as though they've been told off "Carpunia's face," that is Caesar's wife, "is pale and Cicero's eyes are as red and fiery as they get, "when senators are arguing with him in a capitol." So does Caesar seem cruel here? Let's ask that question, does he seem cruel here? Like the kind of man who could potentially become a tyrant, maybe if he does seem cruel why do you think he seems cruel? Think about that because we're going to return to that idea later.

So anyway, Brutus and Cassius have been talking on one side of the stage in one part of Rome, and then we move over to listen to Caesar and Antony and Caesar says "Antonio" he doesn't call him his proper name, this is like Shakespearian banter, he says Antonio to which Anthony replies, "Caesar," perhaps he almost sounds a bit miserable, isn't he? Perhaps he doesn't like Caesar using his nickname, then Caesar replies to Antony and when he does, he whispers, that's interesting isn't it? He whispers, it's almost a kind of thing you won't do if you were were suspicious of someone and you didn't want people to hear what you were saying, I don't know maybe, anyway so Caesar starts whispering to Antony and he says, "I want the men around me to be fat," now this is one of my favourite lines in all of Shakespeare, because it just seems so random, it always makes me laugh but actually it is quite important and we are going to return to it but next lesson, we're going to look at what Caesar might mean when he says, "I want the men around me to be fat," for the meantime though, we'll just kind of enjoy it because it's funny.

It's just a funny thing to say, I want men around me who are fat, then he says "They should be healthy men "who sleep well at night that Cassius over there "looks lean and hungry.

"He's always thinking men like him are dangerous." now lean and hungry that's interesting isn't it? That's a metaphor for ambitious, old Caesar, he knows what's up with Cassius, he knows that there's a bit of ambition sneakiness going on with Cassius.

Now, lean and hungry is a metaphor for ambition because we tend to say, if people want success, they are hungry for success, yeah? They want it badly as in someone who's trying to get food because they're hungry, they're desperate for food, they're desperate for success.

Anthony listens to what Caesar says and he whispers and reply, he says, "Don't be afraid of him Caesar he's not dangerous.

"He's a noble Roman with a good reputation." So Antony doesn't seem to agree with Caesar, he says, no, Cassius he's fine.

Perhaps not the best advice there from Antony.

So Caesar, he listens to this and then whispers again and reply to Antony and he says, "I wish he were fat," he's obsessed with this old Caesar, "but I'm not afraid of him "and yet if I did fear anyone, Cassius would be the man," this is strange, he says, "I'm not afraid of him "but if I was afraid of anyone it would be Cassius," right? He reads a lot, he's always watching and he sees the hidden motives in what men do, that sounds interesting.

"He doesn't like plays like you do.

"He doesn't even like music, he never smiles "and when he does, he does so in a sarcastic way, "as if he hates himself for smiling, "he's the kind of man who will never rest "until he has the highest rank "and therefore he's very dangerous, "but I'm telling you what other men should fear "not what I fear myself, I am Caesar after all, "come over to my right side because this air is death "and tell me your thoughts about Cassius." Well, there's some very interesting stuff here, as you can see, first of all, let's have a look at what Caesar means when he says about the hidden motives, Cassius being able to see the hidden motives in what men do, what it means is that Cassius is always scheming.

Scheming means planning something nefarious, that means planning something that is a little bit bad essentially.

And he also, Cassius also understands the games that people play to try and get power.

So the things people do, the schemes that they undertake, the little sneaky things that people will do, the sly things perhaps in order to get power for themselves and the reason perhaps Cassius understands that is because he himself is involved in it, so that's the first thing.

And the second thing is that he talks about Cassius, Caesar talks about Cassius being the kind of man who will never rest until he has the highest rank, so Caesar understands that Cassius's ambition for power won't be satisfied until he gets that power for himself until he is the most powerful man in Rome.

That's what he means by highest rank, the most powerful man in Rome.

So that is the extract, now let's look at some questions and some quotations taken from the extract.

So here is a quotation is from Caesar, and he says, "He's the kind of man who will never rest "until he has the highest rank." So we've just talked about it, so hopefully you'll be able to give us a great answer.

So the question is, what does Caesar think Cassius's ambition is? And is he correct? So I want you to pause the video, write down your answer on your paper and when you've written it un pause the video and we'll go through the answer, off you go.

Okay welcome back, let's have a look at what the answer is.

So the box in the bottom is what you should have written, something like this, Caesar thinks Cassius's ambition is to take Caesar's power for himself.

Caesar is correct about this.

So fairly straightforward.

Hopefully you've got something similar to that, if you didn't, you can take a different coloured pen or perhaps the pen you're already using and correct your answer.

Well, if you've got it correct let's move on.

So the next question uses another quote from Caesar, this time Caesar says, "That Cassius over there "looks lean and hungry.

"He's always thinking, men like him are dangerous." Now this time, the question we're going to answer is as follows, Caesar says Cassius is quote, dangerous, what is it about Cassius that Caesar thinks is dangerous? And then it says, use the word ambition and suspicious in your answer.

Now, before you have a go at answering this, we're just going to go through the quote together to give you a little bit of help.

So let's have a look, the first thing we're going to look at is lean and hungry.

Now can you remember, what did I say about lean and hungry? Was it a metaphor for? Yes it is a metaphor for ambition or ambitious.

It suggests someone who's desperate for success like a hungry person is desperate for food.

So Caesar's suggesting that Cassius is desperate for success or desperate for power by describing him as lean and hungry, and he also says, "Cassius is always thinking." Now thinking here is interesting because it's what Cassius is thinking about or what Caesar assumes Cassius is thinking about that we find interesting.

Caesar is assuming that Cassius is always thinking about how he can get more power and he's, when he says thinking, he almost means scheming right, he means scheming rather than thinking, especially after he just described him as lean and hungry, that kind of changes what we think about this word thinking, okay? And is what he's describing Cassius like a tiger, who is ready to hunt, just waiting for his moment to strike so he can get power for himself and that's very interesting, isn't it? Because we know what Cassius's plan is, what is it? Yeah I'm sure you got it, Cassius's plan is to recruit Brutus into an assassination attempt against Caesar, so Caesar seems to know exactly what's going on, so he's suspicious, I'd say he's right to be suspicious because Cassius is a bit like this tiger who's on the screen now, right? Let's move on, and I want you to use the information on the screen and that we've just talked about to answer the following question, Caesar says Cassius is dangerous, what is it about Cassius that Caesar thinks is dangerous and try and use the words ambition and suspicious in your answer, pause the video, have a go at answering the question and come back when you are done, off you go, Okay welcome back and how did you do? I'm sure you wrote some great answers, let's have a look at the kind of thing you might have written and we're looking in the bottom box on the screen now this answer says, Caesar thinks Cassius is dangerous because he is suspicious of Cassius's ambition.

He describes Cassius as lean and hungry, which signals to the audience and Caesar thinks Cassius might want to take his power he criticises Cassius for always thinking, suggesting that Caesar suspects Cassius is scheming and trying to find ways of gaining power for himself.

Now, how similar was your answer to this answer? Did you manage to use both suspicious and ambition? If you did that's great work, well done.

Now you might want to pause the video and look at what I've written here and use it to either improve or change your answer.

If you do pause the video now and do that, if you don't, that's not a problem, you maybe you've got a great answer already and we can move on.

So let's look at the next question, the quotation is this Caesar says "He's always watching and he sees the hidden motives "in what men do," And it says, answer the following quotation, using the information above, what is Caesar suggesting about Cassius? And we want to use the word manipulate in our answers, so let's have a look at this quotation, firstly Caesar says Cassius is always watching and what he means by this is Cassius is always observing other people, one of the things about why he's observing other people he's always trying to watch how they behave, see what they do perhaps so that he can manipulate back.

And then he says, "he's always looking for the hidden motive," or he understands and he sees the hidden motives in what men do.

And what Caesar means by this, is he understands what motivates people and he can use this knowledge to manipulate.

So by watching people, you can see what their motivations are, for example, by watching Brutus, he has managed to understand how much Brutus can honour and we've already seen him trying to manipulate Brutus using that information, haven't we? So again, Caesar is absolutely spot on if not on the mark, when he's analysing Cassius's character.

So use the information to try and answer this question, what is Caesar suggesting about character? About the character of Cassius and use the word manipulate in your answer and if you look on the right there's some other vocabulary you might want to use in your answer, you've got sneaky, sinister and suspicious, that all the answers, right? Pause the video, have a go at answering the question and come back when you are done.

Okay welcome back.

Now let's have a look at the kind of thing you might have written, again we're looking in the bottom box, that says Caesar is suspicious of Cassius because he always seems to be watching people and is able to understand their hidden motives, this makes him sound like someone who is sneaky or sinister.

Caesar seems to think that Cassius can use his knowledge to manipulate people.

Caesar is correct about it, for example, Cassius understands that Brutus loves honour and he uses this to manipulate Brutus.

So how was your answer? Was it similar to this? Perhaps it was, if it was great work, perhaps you want to pause the video now and use some of this information to improve your own answer, if you didn't click pause, improve your answer and come back when you done.

Right, so here is another question this time the quotation says is Brutus who's speaking, and he says, "Caesar looks angry "and everyone else looks as though "they've been told off," and the question says, look at the quotation from Brutus, what kind of leader does Caesar seem like? And in our answer, we want to try and use the word tyrant.

Now we're not ready to go through this quotation because I think you can probably do it without any help from me, so pause the video, look at the quotation and answer the question off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's have a look at what you've got.

So you might have written something like this, the quotation from Brutus, suggest Caesar might be a cruel leader because he is angry, other people around him and they seem a little scared, this might hint that Cassius is right, perhaps Caesar does have the potential to become a tyrant.

So even though Cassius is trying to manipulate Brutus and even though, Cassius just wants power for himself, he might still be right about Caesar, he might still be correct, that Caesar does have the potential to become a tyrant, that's really interesting.

Well guys, we're near the end of today's lesson and I'm really proud of you because we've rattled through and you've done some great work.

I know some really tricky questions there at the end, but I'm sure you got some great answers.

Now there's just one more thing for me to remind you of and just one more thing for you to do, and that final thing is to make sure you complete the review quiz, you need to click the button that's somewhere down below and make sure you do the quiz so you can see everything that you've learned in today's lesson.

All that's left for me is to say good bye, I've really enjoyed teaching you today, it's been a massive privilege and I can't wait to see you next lesson, to learn some more about Julius Caesar, great work.