Teaching Macbeth

When I met with my supervisor before I began student teaching, I told him I was an unabashed lover of Shakespeare and that I would have become a Shakespearian scholar if I'd felt the world needed one more Shakespearian scholar. He rewarded my passion for Bill (as I like to call him) by "letting" me teach all of the Shakespeare that needed to be taught that year. Included in this assignment was the teaching of "Ye Old Scottish Play," Macbeth, to two classes of "average" senior English.

Students in these classes had one goal in mind: graduation. Few of them were college bound and even fewer saw any point in studying some dead British dude whose writing boarders on incomprehensible. They didn't need Shakespeare at technical college or their full time job, so why bother? I set out to change their minds with the blind enthusiasm that only a new teacher can have. I was sure that Macbeth, arguably Shakespeare's darkest play full of witchcraft, warfare and murder most foul would win them over.

Since reading Shakespeare can be about as compelling as looking at Bach’s sheet music, I tried to make the play come to life. My props were a wooden samurai sword, a ladder borrowed from the janitorial staff, and a large trashcan borrowed from the athletic department (they used it for ice and drinks, not refuse). We alternated between listing to the play on tape, choosing students to read a particular part for a given scene, and me summarizing shorter, less significant portions of the play.

As King Duncan discusses the exploits of "brave Macbeth" upon the battlefield, I climbed to the top of my ladder and shouted out the battle described in the text. The students, forced to look up at their clearly unhinged student teacher balancing on a wooden ladder, found it hard to zone out and nap. Whenever the witches made an appearance, I'd center my pantomime around my cauldron/trashcan. The witches tell Macbeth that he will become king of Scotland and the promise of power is enough to drive Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the king.

After Macbeth becomes king, his murderous streak doesn't stop; he next goes after his good friend Banquo along with Banquo's son Fleance. The witches told Macbeth that he would be king but that it was Banquo’s heirs who would be king in the future. I ran around the classroom chasing "volunteers" playing Banquo and Fleance. The students, even the one's running from my murderous wooden sword, couldn't help but chuckle. Banquo is killed but Fleance gets away. However, both my students returned to their seats unscathed.

Macbeth, sensing things unraveling fast, goes again to see the witches. Through their spell-casting (with me, all the while, churning my cauldron/trashcan and cackling), they show Macbeth three images: "an armed head," "a bloody child" and "a child crowned, with a tree in his hand." Through the power of my overhead projector, I showed my class the same images. The prophecy accompanying these images are, respectively: beware of Macduff, no man born of woman can harm Macbeth, and Macbeth shall remain king until the nearby Birnan Woods come to Macbeth's castle. These prophesies are the only part of the play the student had to memorize.

Let me warn you now that I am about to give away how the play ends. The army of Macduff and his comrades, who have been plotting to overthrow the assassin king, prepare to attack Macbeth in his castle. To conceal their numbers, they take up branches from the trees of Birnan Woods and march on the fortress. I brought in a pine branch that day and carried it around, tied to the end of my wooden sword. As the army marches on the castle, it looks like the forest is moving. Macbeth's delusions of invulnerability are finally undone when he faces Macduff and learns that "Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd."

After we'd finished the play, a student approached me and said, "I don't get it. How can someone not be born of a woman?" I said, "From the womb untimely ripped is another way to say that his mom had a c-section."

The student's eyes lit up, "So he wasn't, like, born born." I smiled and nodded.

As she walked away, she said, "That's so cool."

And I knew I’d succeeded.