1. Connector: Quotation Blast
4 minutes
5 quotes
‘The Lady of the House of Love’

2. ‘Macbeth’ Exploring Contexts
LO: To explore a range of contexts linked to ‘Macbeth’ and make insightful and perceptive links to the play.

3. Condensing the Contexts Review: Context Focus Outcomes:
Exam Link: In your exam you will be expected to make significant links to social, historical and cultural contexts (A04).
Big Picture:
Reminder of plot
What is context?
Information Stations
Condensing the Contexts
Review: Context Focus
Outcomes:
All will have explored several different contexts for the play.
Most will have explored the significance of different contexts with the opening of the play.
Some will analyse and evaluate how different contexts can help the audience understand the play further.

4. What do I mean by context?
Think, pair, share.
Come up with a definition of your own about what context means and why it is important.
Context

5. Information Stations
You will be working in 3 groups today focussing on the following contextual areas:
Witchcraft and the Supernatural
Dreams, fantasies and the sleep of reason
The Gothic
King James
Elizabethan World Order
The Position of Women
The Gunpowder Plot
Your job will be to read and understand the information at the various stations. You need to remember and choose the most important parts. Relate this information back to your group so you can answer the questions.

6. Condensing your research:
In your group, decide which 5 pieces of contextual information are the most important in relation to the plot of ‘Macbeth’: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

7. Context Focus: Act 1 Scene 1
Why does Shakespeare open ‘Macbeth’ with the three witches? What would be the impact on the audience?
Outcomes:
All will have explored several different contexts for the play.
Most will have explored the significance of different contexts with the opening of the play.
Some will analyse and evaluate how different contexts can help the audience understand the play further.
Remember to explore a Shakespearean audience and a modern day one.
What is the impact and effect on the audience – describe how they would feel and what they might expect from the play.

8. Why does Shakespeare open ‘Macbeth’ with the three witches
Why does Shakespeare open ‘Macbeth’ with the three witches? What would be the impact on the audience?
Review
Shakespeare deliberately establishes the beginning of the play with a focus on the witches in a Gothic, barren and isolated setting. This would have been an extremely powerful opening for a contemporary audience as many at least questioned the existence of witches and the supernatural, particularly given the persecution of so-called witches for acts of treason throughout James’s reign in Scotland.
The appearance of the witches is woven throughout the narrative and creates a dark, eerie, foreboding atmosphere. A contemporary audience would have expected the witches to then play an integral role in the fate of Macbeth’s development as a character, whilst also evoking fear and terror at their presence on the stage.
Add to the above by considering the following:
The distance between the moorland and society
The appearance of the Witches
Pathetic fallacy
A sense of confusion
The Witches’ use of rhyme
Use of paradox
Sense of disarray

9. Homelearning Listen to the 13 minute audio clip I have emailed to you.
Create a mind map based on the ‘Witches and the Supernatural’ in Macbeth.