Macbeth: Lady Macbeth as a Machiavellian villain
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Threads
Why this why now
This unit uses and builds on pupils' understanding of Shakespearean tragedy and outsiders from 'Othello'. It also develops their understanding of a Shakespearean tragic hero, and enables them to draw comparisions between the characterisation of Othello and Macbeth. This is pupils' first opportunity to read a Shakespeare play in full, as well as delve into all of the key characters and themes. This unit gives pupils a strong grounding in the play which sets them up for the deep dive units 'Macbeth: a tragic hero', 'Macbeth and masculinity' and 'Macbeth: the role of guilt'.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Pupils can make clear inferences about texts
- Pupils can comment on the language choices of an author
- Pupils can comment on character development as part of structural analysis
- Pupils understand that the social and historical context of text impact on our interpretation of it
- Pupils can write clear topic sentences
- Pupils can select evidence from a text to support their analysis
- Pupils can structure their arguments, using single paragraph outlines
- Pupils have an understanding that power corrupts
- Pupils can use noun appositives to give greater detail about characters
- Pupils can use conjunctions to explain their inferences
Threads
Why this why now
This unit uses and builds on pupils' understanding of Shakespearean tragedy and outsiders from 'Othello'. It also develops their understanding of a Shakespearean tragic hero, and enables them to draw comparisions between the characterisation of Othello and Macbeth. This is pupils' first opportunity to read a Shakespeare play in full, as well as delve into all of the key characters and themes. This unit gives pupils a strong grounding in the play which sets them up for the deep dive units 'Macbeth: a tragic hero', 'Macbeth and masculinity' and 'Macbeth: the role of guilt'.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Pupils can make clear inferences about texts
- Pupils can comment on the language choices of an author
- Pupils can comment on character development as part of structural analysis
- Pupils understand that the social and historical context of text impact on our interpretation of it
- Pupils can write clear topic sentences
- Pupils can select evidence from a text to support their analysis
- Pupils can structure their arguments, using single paragraph outlines
- Pupils have an understanding that power corrupts
- Pupils can use noun appositives to give greater detail about characters
- Pupils can use conjunctions to explain their inferences
Literature
Macbeth: Lady Macbeth as a Machiavellian villain
In this unit, pupils read and analyse 'Macbeth' by focusing on the role of Lady Macbeth in the tragedy. They start by reading the full play, before moving on to a close analysis of key characters and themes. They then zoom in on Lady Macbeth and develop an essay on her as a Machiaevellian villain.
26 lessons in unit
slide decks, worksheet PDFs, quizzes and lesson overviews. You can select individual lessons from the Macbeth: Lady Macbeth as a Machiavellian villain unit and download the resources you need, or download the entire unit now. See every unit listed in our AQA secondary english curriculum and discover more of our teaching resources for AQA secondary english programmes.