Lesson Plans for Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
We’re in the midst of studying Julius Caesar this year.
The boys are happy to be doing a play that has nothing to do with marriage or love, but rather with stern and noble Romans.
Shakespeare doesn’t need to be intimidating or complicated. It’s really just about enjoying a good story together, as with any other read-aloud!
Here are the resources we’ve been using while enjoying Julius Caesar together.
Step 1: Introduce Julius Caesar
I always begin a new play by reading aloud a picture book version, even with the 12-year-old. Personally, I am not fond of either Lamb’s or Nesbit’s retellings – Victorian & Shakespeare don’t mesh well – but there are still many other options out there that communicate Shakespeare in a compelling and clear manner.
This time we read the version presented in the collection The Best-Loved Plays of Shakespeare.
While they listened, they also colored a page from the Great Scenes from Shakespeare Dover Coloring Book.
Step 2: Memorize Julius Caesar Famous Lines
Which speech to memorize with Julius Caesar was a no-brainer.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
I printed the selection out in large font on several pages of paper in the way Ken Ludwig recommends in How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare – I say a line and the children chorus it back. I speak it as if I am playing Mark Antony, dramatic and pathetic; sometimes they mimic my presentation, sometimes they dead-pan it, sometimes they create their own interpretation.
We open each Shakespeare time, twice a week, by reciting this speech. So in the 6-8 weeks that it takes us to study the whole play, we will all likely have memorized it. And, I believe Ludwig is right: memorization is a key to the heart.
Children who know Shakespeare grow to love him.
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Step 3: Watch a Play Movie or Production
Before we read the full, real, unabridged text, we watch a movie production. It helps us all keep characters straight and follow the action better.
After all, Shakespeare was written to be played and seen, not read. It is drama, and drama is best performed.
We watched the version with Charleston Heston.
Step 4: Listen to Julius Caesar
We do read Shakespeare, but it is good to remember it is drama. I find it most effective to listen to an audio performance of the play, complete with different voice actors and some music transitions between scenes. We follow along in our own paperback copies (we get some from the library and some cheap Dover copies and some have been collected from thrift stores and library sales), but it is so much easier to understand what is being said when the person reading it aloud knows what it means and how to express it well.
Step 5: Play Julius Caesar
In the past we have used the Masterpuppet Theatre set to act out favorite scenes.
This time when we are finished listening to the play, my plan is to have them draw their own comic strip version of the story and share their favorite scenes or talk about mistakes people made throughout the play.
Remember that prior to high school, our goal is simply to introduce the stories and Shakespeare as something to enjoy together. There will be no fear or intimidation when they’ve grown up with the assumption that Shakespeare is fun and normal rather than difficult and enigmatic.
Shakespeare Lesson Plans
As we study Shakespeare plays together in our homeschool, I am making available our lesson plans and resource lists. Here are the links to each of the plays we’ve studied so far. Included in each one is a downloadable pdf set with not only the lesson plans, but also the printable quote cue pages we use for memorizing select lines from each play!
- How to teach Shakespeare to kids in 5 easy steps
- Comedy of Errors Lesson Plans
- Henry V Lesson Plans
- Hamlet Lesson Plans
- Julius Caesar Lesson Plans
- Taming of the Shrew Lesson Plans
- The Tempest Lesson Plans
- Macbeth Lesson Plans
- Merchant of Venice Lesson Plans
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream Lesson Plans
- Much Ado About Nothing Lesson Plans
- Mystie chats about enjoying Shakespeare in your homeschool on Your Morning Basket with Pam Barnhill