Lady Macbeth - Act 1 Scene 5

A lesson to guide an understanding of Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth, working step by step through “the raven himself is hoarse…”
This lesson begins by checking understanding of a soliloquy, before picking apart the details.
Analysis is structured as a series of questions on particular words or lines in the text, rather than simply telling pupils what to write. I find that this helps to spark conversation and engages pupils better, rather than having them desperately trying to copy everything down!
There are some sentence starters for a paragraph exploring her plot towards the end, as well as links to different film versions of this speech. A forewarning - the Kate Fleetwood version of this scene gets a bit racy when Macbeth arrives!! I also pair this with the 1971 Polanski version of the scene, which I can’t find anywhere on Youtube, but I think most English departments have a DVD copy somewhere. With the film versions, pupils are encouraged to consider which lines stand out, and how the actress has presented Lady Macbeth’s character.