Aim: How do The Witches set the mood and foreshadow events for the play?
To start the lesson, we looked back at what a paradox is from the older lesson’s slides.
Paradox: A situation or statement that seems impossible but actually may be true, with both parts of the paradox being true, but only separately.
In the visual example provided, there are two buttons. The blue button says that the other is false, and the red one says the other is true. This is an excellent example of a paradox because it shows how it is impossible for both of them to be right at the same time, because if the red button is false about the blue button being true, then it leads into an impossible scenario when it is attempted to be visualized, but if you look at only one button, it may be correct, because it does not have a contradictory situation.
Paradox in Literature and Act 1 of Macbeth
Along with the paradox example, we were provided with a video explaining examples of paradox in Act 1 of Macbeth. In the video, the speaker, Ms. Brown talked about how the purpose of paradox in literature is to point out conflict, illuminating characteristics by contrast, and can also be used to describe main ideas and themes with complex ideas.
In the video, Ms. Brown also gave examples of paradoxes such as the simple example of saying “Jumbo shrimp”. Jumbo is often used to describe big things, whereas shrimp is used to describe small things, so it creates a paradox as they cannot be true together.
An example of paradox in Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1 is the quote “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”. This paradox gives a description of the setting and world where there is conflict over ideals and morals. This quote is also an Antithesis, where an author puts two contradicting ideas together to create contrast, which is also a form of Juxtaposition!
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Do Now
To start off with the new lesson, we talked about our character traits, our imperfections, and our perfections, and explained why we think they are imperfections or perfections.
This is a video I found on youtube to help explain what character traits are, how they are used in writing, and various examples to help understand!
For this pair share I believed my character traits were hardworking, awkward, intelligent, determined, and creative.
The reason why I believe that out of all my traits, I consider being awkward and hardworking to be flaws, is because being awkward makes it hard to socialize with people and make friends. I consider being hardworking to be a flaw in some ways because I don't really give myself time to relax, and I end up being really stressed, which is negative.
I believe my intelligence, determination, and creativity are all my perfections rather than imperfections, because they have all led me to good things so far in my life. For example, my intelligence and determination has led to me working hard and achieving a lot because of my intelligence, as well as developing a very creative mindset on how to solve problems.
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My partner’s character traits were optimistic, intelligent, ambitious, awkward (like me!), impatient, and absent-minded.
Their character flaws were that they were very impatient, because they rush goals and perform worse because of it, and also awkward because they are not the best at socializing. They also described themself absent-minded, as they feel they lose focus and stop things before they finish them.
My partner believed their optimism, intelligence, and ambition were positive traits for them because it has led to them having good mindsets for the future, working hard to accomplish goals with that positive mindset, and using their intelligence to accomplish very hard goals.
When we shared out to the class after the pair shares, a student shared that they had a lack of discipline because they stop things before they finish them. Another shared that they were unconfident, expressing that they struggle to share their thoughts by raising their hand.
Peterson shared how hard of a worker she was, explaining how it can be considered positive because of how much she gets done, but also negative because of how much time of her day is spent working and stressing out. A classmate also shared how it could negatively impact health mentally and physically.
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Characterization
Then we talked about characterization, and a recap of direct and indirect characterization, with a student reading out the definitions.
Direct Characterization: Where the writer directly tells us a character’s traits, motives, and what they are generally like. Ex: “I am so selfish and rebellious!”
Indirect Characterization: Where the writer shows us through actions, appearance, events, and reactions how the character is like. Ex: “He picked up the stray kitten and fed it.” Shows that the character is caring.
Under the definitions of characterization was the STEAL method. This acronym stands for Speech, Thoughts, Effects on others, Actions, and Looks.
Speech - What does the character say, and how do they speak of it?
Thoughts - What is revealed about the character by their own thoughts?
Effect on others - What is revealed about the character by the reactions of other people, and their effects on other people?
Actions - What does the character do that reveals something about them?
Looks - How is the character presented to the eye?
After talking about the STEAL method, Ms. Peterson provided us with valuable information regarding Macbeth. She said that when dealing with plays, there is more direct than indirect characterization, with characters telling how they feel and expressing it clearly more often than not.
Reading
Then we went on to the reading. We read out Macbeth- Act 1, Scene 2, where we chose students to read characters’ lines to the class. These characters were: Duncan, Malcolm, Captain, Lennox, and Ross. This scene was about 2.5 pages.
In this scene, a wounded captain and King Duncan talk about their battle with enemy forces led by Macdonwald. The captain tells Duncan that Macbeth and Banquo fought bravely and heroically without mercy, describing how Macbeth brutally killed Macdonwald after charging through the enemy forces. The scene ends with the thane of Ross entering and telling the king that the traitorous thane of Cawdor had been defeated, with the king declaring that the thane of Cawdor be put to death with his title being given to Macbeth.
Teamwork
After we read, we worked collaboratively to assess character traits of Macbeth, Banquo, and Macdonwald, assessing what they might mean about the type of characters they will be in the future.
When we read the scene, we noticed Macdonwald was called merciless and rebellious, which was an example of direct characterization, whereas indirect characterization was shown by Macdonwald being traitorous because he was described to have rebelled and betrayed his own side.
We thought that both Banquo were directly characterized as being brave, determined, and hardworking. We talked about how they were indirectly characterized as persevering, as they worked even harder as the battle went on and were at disadvantage and exhausted. Both of them were also indirectly characterized because they were both captains, showing their leadership traits.
We also talked about how Macbeth charged through the enemies and sliced Macdonald top down and cut off the head with the main foe, showing Macbeth's mercilessness and bravery indirectly.
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At the end of the scene, the class talked about how the Traitorous Thane of Cawdor is ordered to be executed by the king, with his title given to Macbeth. We hypothesized that this could be an example of foreshadowing Macbeth becoming a traitor, despite his valiance and dedication to the king in battle.
Nearing the end of class, teams worked together to answer questions regarding the Macbeth reading.
To answer how the captain proved himself to be useful according to Malcolm, we talked about how the captain fought against the people holding Malcolm in capture, saving him from death from the rebels who captured him, or would have used him against his own people.
Then we talked about how Macbeth is depicted in the scene with the witches compared to the battle. In the scene with the 3 witches, we talked about how Macbeth is depicted as being like a pawn and someone to be controlled, whereas in this scene he is shown as a valiant and strong leader, and incredibly powerful, which shows a lot of contrast to what we thought he was like, as he was one of the main forces in the battle fighting Macdonwald.
Finally, we talked about how Macdonwald was depicted and his fate at the end of the battle. We talked about how Macdonwald was depicted as a rebellious, traitorous, and merciless man. His role in the rebellion concludes by him being brutally cut vertically, then being beheaded by Macbeth, after Macbeth charged through the enemies. This represents the winning of the battle because Macbeth destroyed the leading force, and Macdonwald lost the battle along with his life.
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(End of period, unfinished team discussion.)
This lesson was a very valuable lesson to analyze ourselves, as well as characters in literature. I learned how character traits which I thought were positive could also be viewed as flaws. For example, Ms. Peterson taught us about how hard of a worker she is, but also explained how it could be viewed as a flaw because of how much stress it causes her, as well as spending all day working. We learned this because we were going to analyze characters in Macbeth and their character traits. I will use this information because when I talk with people, we can talk about our character traits, and talk about how to improve on the negative aspects of those character traits, since nobody is perfect, even with so-called “positive” traits. We also learned how to apply our knowledge of indirect and direct characterization to figure out who the characters in a book are by closely analyzing the text, using the STEAL method. This can help us in the future because it provides a lot more insight to who those characters are and how they think than just skimming through the text., as well as on the ELA section on the SAT or future heavily analysis based ELA tests.
The Big Mistake: Why Hard Working People Fail – Sadhguru
This is a video I found relating to my reflection. In this video, Sadhguru talks about how the well known popular traits such as hard-working and intelligent seen as positive can actually have negative aspects and be flaws to your character. I feel it resonates with this lesson about the aspects of characteristics.
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