Fahad Shafat 1/15/2020 Period 5

1/15/2019

Sophomores 2020

Fahad Shafat

Period 5

Blogger #20

    Today in class, Ms. Fusaro had been absent for a conference Iris had to record the last Macbeth Act V Group Projects by Group 5 (King Duncan Donuts’ Gift Card) and Group 6 (Voldemort). Group 5 had to present Scenes 6 & 7. 

Cesar as Macbeth and Julissa as Siward in Scene 7.

• They started out their presentation by playing out Celtic battle music in order to establish the medieval feeling of the setting in Macbeth regarding how according to the stage directions, drums are playing. Malcolm (played by Riya), Siward (played by Jayden), and Macduff (played by Meghan). In this scene, the three are preparing to go to war with Macbeth, in which they had been covered with branches from Birnam Wood to camouflage themselves.  Now, it is officially time for them to battle, as Siward refers to Macbeth as a tyrant, which indicates the urgency for Macbeth to fall. 
• Scene 7 then starts with Macbeth (played by Cesar) speaking to himself in which he thinks about how trapped he really is, for this inevitable war. Then, Young Siward (played by Julissa) enters who accuses Macbeth to be a tyrant, worse than the devil in hell. Enraged by these comments, Macbeth kills Young Siward and hey exit the classroom.
• Macduff enters again, speaking solely to the audience, as he’s looking only for Macbeth, calling for this ‘tyrant’ to come out, believing that if he fails to kill him, he shall forever be haunted by the ghosts of his wife and kids, victims of Macbeth’s tyranny. MacDuff is shown to rely on the concept of fortune in finding and killing Macbeth.
• Siward and Malcolm, with the former noting how easily they’re winning as their enemies aren’t really trying, due to the fact that Macbeth isn’t really that popular amongst his army. 

    This had been the end of Group 5’s acting, now moving on their lesson with the following on their first slide:

Aim: Students will be able to analyze scenes VI & VII of Act 5 in Macbeth at a new level of depth with the help of their peers.

Key Quotes:

• We had to turn to our groups to discuss and interpret these key quotes. My group Big Mac, in which Abanob said by MacDuff mean that he is going to kill Macbeth all by himself. Our group earned 10 points for Abanob spring these thoughts with the class.
• The next three slides showing the analysis of these quotes had been quite interesting, as they showed the group’s own annotations of these words.

                                         


                               


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• The group moved on to the next slide to discuss all the characters in Scene VI & VII, with Cesar describing the roles of Macbeth & Siward, explaining what they had one, and what did it mean for them.
• Jayden went on to discuss the character Young Siward, how his murder by Macbeth is done to convey how Macbeth has been consumed by hubris, believing himself to be invincible. 

                                          

• They then showed the high-level questions that had asked us to define “harbingers” in the key quotes provided. My group discussed that harbingers indicated some type of doom for Macbeth in this situation.
• Someone from Group 3 (Mickey D’s) said that ‘harbingers’ meant an announcers, earning 20 points for her team
• Harbingers are people who signal or warn others of something/someone approaching, in this case, being the English Army, led by Malcolm & MacDuff to kill Macbeth. considering what an intense moment that is being built up for, make the harbingers more significant and somewhat ominous. 

• Group 5 later gave out a slip of paper with two questions asking to explain how the key lines they discussed had helped characterize MacDuff in this scene and whether or not his emotional demeanor makes him more, or less, “of a man” than Macbeth himself.

                               

• Macduff being emotional was considered a turning point for his actions, with us, knowing that he’d eventually kill Macbeth and finally gain ultimate peace by avenging his family.

Next, it had been Group 6’s turn to present Act V, scene viii. There had been dramatic music playing for the battle between MacDuff and Macbeth (which I thought, just like the music in Scene 6, had been well suited for this scene).

• First, we see (Rachel) Macbeth walking in the classroom with MacDuff coming into the classroom in an infuriated mood, ready to challenge Macbeth. Macbeth refuses to surrender, acting very cocky. They start using their sword props fighting each other across the room, taking it out in the hallways and coming all the way into the room through the other side, in perhaps the most intense moment out of all of the presentations. 
• Ross (played by Julia) and Siward (played by Michelle) enter. Ross lets Siward know that his son, Young Siwardhad died honorably in challenging Macbeth, as Young Siward was referred to as “God’s soldier”.

• Then, MacDuff re-enters the room with the prop of the king’s decapitated head on a stick, representing Macbeth's end. MacDuff then ends the scene with a monologue discussing of having freed Scotland of tyranny and to punish those who helped Macbeth (and the story itself.)

Group 6 had now moved on to their lesson with their 5 questions for groups to discuss and answer.

   

• Cesar from Group 6 (King Duncan Donuts Gift Card) said how Macbeth was showing to be very overconfident, as Macbeth had been underestimating. Meghan then got picked on and added on to Cesar. (Group 6 earned 20 points because of Cesar’s and Meghan’s answers).

• Cesar said that Ross must have started it pretty neutral in the beginning, but must have slowly realized that Macbeth had been the wrong side to choose, thus (while not having stood against Macbeth) joined in the coronation of Malcolm as the New King of Scotland. (His group earned 10 more. points).

• Shaina pointed out from the key quotes as it showed how everything was really starting to catch up with him, earning 10 points for Voldemort.

• Michelle at the board pointed out from lines 32-39 how Macbeth was showing that unchecked ambition, in which Macbeth knew that he would lose according to the prophecy given to him, but instead he tried to defy it

• Voldemort then went to analyze key quotes said by MacDuff (lines 4-7), in which they show how much he know loathes Macbeth and believes that Macbeth should face the consequences for his actions. For the other key quote, that we’re said by Macbeth (lines 32-39), they had conveyed the unchecked ambition within him, as he still refused to surrender. Macbeth aims to do whatever it takes to succeed.

SCENE 8 (Lines 4-7) said by MacDuff

SCENE 8 (Lines 32-39) said by Macbeth

                   

The lesson ended with a 10-question Kahoot, that took some time to start with, due to issues with logging in. The questions and answers had been:

1. How did Macbeth’s confidence change throughout the scene?

    Answer: He starts to have doubts but still fought 

2. What does Macduff call Macbeth in the beginning of scene viii?

Answer: Hellhound

3. What does “Accursed be that tongue that tells me so. For it hath cowed my better part of man” show about Macbeth?

    Answer: Macbeth’s cowardly side

4. Which quote shows Macbeth’s arrogance & pride?

    Answer: “I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’’s feet”

5. How was the second witch’s prophecies fulfilled?

    Answer: Macbeth was defeated by someone not born of a woman

6. Who becomes the rightful ruler?

    Answer: Malcolm 

7. How was MacDuff born?

    Answer: C-Section

Question 8 from Scene 8 Kahoot

8. Macbeth was deceived by the witches’ prophecies 

    Answer: True

9. Macbeth ends up dying because the soldiers murdered him

    Answer: False

10. What is Macbeth’s tragic flaw throughout the play?

    Answer: his ambition

• Daniela won 3rd place, Laura had won 2nd place, and Kevin won 1st place. Thus, his team, Mickey D’s had won 30 points.

Reflection:

    Today marked the end of the presentations of the MAcbeth Act V Group Project, in which we got to see Groups 5 and 6 act out and teach their scenes to the class. Our class got to learn almost exactly on how the events in these scenes went down, with the props and students’ acting. For example, in Scene 8, how enraged Shaina, acting as MacDuff had been to fight Macbeth, played by Rachel, as the former had shown a lot of boldness in her emotion, speaking at a loud volume, confronting Macbeth’s actor, Rachel. I just really liked the way how they fought each other, even taking it outside in the hallways and back into the classroom, that made this scene so intense. Alongside the music that had been used, that really fit into the battle, for as the scene went along, the music played in a more serious way, that elevated the tension felt. This helped me understand why we had to do this project, being to demonstrate our knowledge of Macbeth through a more creative way that ties different skills required, such as acting, analyzing, staging (use of music) and etc. In order to see how well can students bring life to scenes from the literature that really helpful to someone reading that same piece of literature. I will use what I’ve learned in the future to better understand pieces of literature in the future that I’m going to be reading. For instance, me trying to see  how significant of a role certain characters in a scene really are, by looking more closely at their lines of dialogue like what our groups did for these presentations.