Lesson 3.1.2 - How Can Power Affect a Person?

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​Lesson 3.1.2: How can power affect a person?

By Katelyn Murk

Essential Question for Unit 3

How much of life is up to fate? How much power do you have to change your circumstances? The legendary tale of Macbeth asks these questions as audiences watch a man's misfortune play out before them. Shakespeare's Macbeth is a tragic tale of power, ambition, and unintended consequences.

In this unit, you will read the play and view video clips of actors' performances of the play. At the end of the unit, and after collecting plenty of evidence along the way, you will argue who is most at fault for Macbeth's demise: fate, the supernatural forces around him, his wife, or simply Macbeth himself. Overall, this unit's question is: How does power affect people?

Unit 3 Readings

• Macbeth - a play by William Shakespeare

• "Sonnet 94" - a poem by William Shakespeare

• "Is the Word 'Macbeth' Really Cursed?" - an article about superstition

Unit 3 Assessments

Aside from the daily lessons, you will complete the following assessments in unit 3:

• 1 quiz

• 1 exam

• 1 project

• 1 essay

Time for a Knowledge Check!

The following questions will assess what you ALREADY KNOW before we start this unit.

If you do not know the answers to these questions, it is okay! We will review all of these details throughout the unit.

Match

Match the terms with their correct definitions.

• a speech a character gives alone on stage to reveal their inner thoughts

• a brief comment made by a character directly to the audience, unheard by other characters

• when the audience knows something that the characters do not

• a play that ends in disaster, usually due to the downfall of the main character

soliloquy

aside

dramatic irony

tragedy

• soliloquy

• 
  

  aside

• dramatic irony

• tragedy

Multiple Choice

Which of the following best describes iambic pentameter?

• a stanza that uses only rhyming couplets

• a line of poetry with seven stressed syllables in any order

• 
  a line of poetry made up of five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables

• 
  a type of figurative language used to exaggerate emotion

Multiple Choice

Which of the following best summarizes the following lines from Act 1, Scene 1 of Macbeth?

• Macbeth is praised by King Duncan for his bravery in battle.

• The witches plan to meet Macbeth after the battle, hinting at future events.

• Lady Macbeth reveals her ambitions for Macbeth’s rise to power.

• The witches praise Macbeth for his role in the battle.

Multiple Choice

Which of the following best describes the meaning of connotation?

• 
  the dictionary definition of a word

• 
  the number of syllables in a word

• a word's emotional or cultural associations beyond its literal meaning

• 
  a type of rhyme used in poetry

Multiple Choice

An apostrophe is a punctuation mark, but it is also a literary device. What is an apostrophe when acting as a literary device?

• a rhetorical device where a speaker directly addresses an absent person, a personified idea, or an inanimate object

• a figure of speech where a writer plays on the emotions of the reader

• another name for a comparison of two very unlike objects

• a device in a drama where an actor purposefully lies to the audience

Previewing Unit Topics

On the following slides, we will preview topics that we will cover in unit 3. You will need to decide if you agree or disagree with each statement.

Poll

It is important to always think about and prepare for the future.

• Agree

• Disagree

Poll

I am superstitious.

• Agree

• Disagree

Poll

I believe that I have total control over my life through my actions and decisions.

• Agree

• Disagree

Poll

I believe that I do NOT have total control over my life because of fate - things outside of my actions and decisions that determine what happens to me.

• Agree

• Disagree

Poll

Too much power always corrupts a person.

• Agree

• Disagree

Vocabulary

When breaking down the meanings of unknown words, it is important to review many different factors, such as...

Multiple Choice

The word "reason" means: "a cause, explanation, or justification." Does this word have a positive, negative, or neutral connotation?

• positive

• negative

• neutral

• It depends!

Word Cloud

What are some other words that can be related to "reason"?

Multiple Choice

The word "unnatural" means not natural or not existing in nature.

The adjective unnatural comes from the Latin word naturalis, meaning "by birth" or "according to nature."

It can be broken down into two parts:

The prefix un- means "not."

The root word natural means "occurs in nature."

What is the connotation of this word?

• positive

• negative

• neutral

• It depends!

Multiple Choice

Fortune cannot be broken down into different word parts and means "chance or luck as an external force" or "a large amount of money."

It comes from the Latin word fortuna, which means "fate" or "luck."

What is the connotation of this word?

• positive

• negative

• neutral

• It depends!

Word Cloud

What is a word associated with "fortune" that has a NEGATIVE connotation?

Draw

The noun treachery comes from the Old French word trechier, which means "to cheat." Treachery cannot be broken down into different word parts and means "an act of deliberate betrayal of trust, loyalty, or faith."

Treachery has a negative connotation because it implies betrayal, deception, and malice. It also holds a heavy emotional and historical impact.

Emotionally, treachery feels like a personal attack and evokes feelings of anger and hurt. Historically, treachery is tied to power struggles where one person may try to overthrow someone in charge.

Draw an image that represents the word treachery.

Match

Match the sentence to the word that will best complete it.

• 
  

  The spy’s _____ led to the downfall of the entire army.

• 
  

  After years of hardship, sudden _____ smiled upon the family when they won the lottery.

• The eerie silence in the forest felt deeply _____, as if nature itself had paused.

• 
  

  His ability to twist the truth with clever _____ made him a dangerous lawyer.

• In the heat of the moment, she lost all sense of _____ and acted purely on emotion.

treachery

fortune

unnatural

equivocation

reason

• 
  
  

  treachery

• 
  

  fortune

• unnatural

• equivocation

• 
  

  reason

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