Lady Macbeth defends herself: Persuasive Writing

This lessons asks students to plan how they could write convincingly in role, using persuasive techniques to develop their ideas whilst referring to their knowledge of the play Macbeth. The lesson is good writing practice for AQA English Language Paper 2, section B and of course the Literature Paper 1. Students would need to know the whole play in order to complete this task.

The lesson starts by asking students to list persuasive devices (I have used the DAFOREST acrostic here but you could change to which ever you use). They are then asked, initially in pairs, to plan for the following task:

Imagine you are Lady Macbeth.
You have been put on trial for the involvement in King Duncan’s murder.
You must convince the judge that you were not responsible for the murder…
It was all your husband’s fault!

There is a slide which suggests some ideas and a planning sheet to help them articulate their ideas using the devices discussed previously. This could be taught across two lessons (1 to plan and 1 to write it).

There is an opportunity to either peer or self assess the plan or the written argument at the end of the lesson which refers to the exam's success criteria.