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| “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!” |
Our Charlotte Mason co-op, Truth, Beauty, Goodness performed Julius Caesar for Family Night last week. In honor of the Bard’s 447th birthday, I wanted to share with you some pictures and explain how we went about the play. From the audience’s response as well as the children’s, I would say this has been our favorite and best play to date!
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| “Beware the ides of March!” |
We met 6 times over the course of 12 weeks. Students were to listen and read one act, then come back to co-op and present their narrations. At the end of this post is an outline of the variety of narrations assigned, each student presenting at least once and with a narration that was within their developmental capacities. The students were to listen to the scene only once at home, then prepare their narrations. Oh, my, did they shine! It was one little girl’s first written narration (age 9) – she was so proud to read it to us (she wrote a diary entry as a young girl in the mob scene at the funeral). The videotape of the news reporter in a toga, reporting the assassination as it unfolded, was spot-on.
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| Gentle Portia and Brutus |
Portia finds out the conspirator’s plan
and says to the servant Lucius,
“Go to the capital- an errand for thee.”
“But why?” says the servant Lucius.
“For word from my husband, Brutus.
He left ill in his mind this day.
But don’t go yet – I hear a noise!”
Lucius says, “I cannot stay!”“Quiet! Listen more closely.
Ahh-the soothsayer comes this way!”
“I hear it now!” Lucius cries,
“What brings you here today?”“I go to warn Caesar at the capital.
He has not arrived there yet.
He ignored me on the streets one day-
That I am sure he’ll regret.”“I must go,”says the soothsayer,
I’ll be trampled to death –
Senators, praetors, citizens-
Did I mention their foul breath?”
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| “We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied!” |
Hi Nancy!
You shared this on FB in response to a question I had about narration ideas. We are doing Hamlet with a group and we have many new families that have never done Shakespeare so I’m looking for engaging narration ideas! So far the kids have enjoyed the play!
I tried to access the document but was unable to download it. Can you email it to me?
Thanks again!
Hi, Melissa!
Can you please check this link? It’s the same that’s on the post. If it doesn’t work, I will certainly email it to you.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WKzDFxrEIAmWr9b_2FjLvLw4U8lWAV-d/view?usp=sharing
Just send me an email at sageparnassus@gmail.com if you can’t access it.
Also, did you see my post on Hamlet?
https://sageparnassus.com/grapple-them-to-thy-soul-resources-for/
You can see how we narrated that play.
Warmly,
Nancy
I will check out the Hamlet post as well! I tried the link again and wasn’t able to access it for some reason, 🙁 It says file not found.)
I’ll email you!)
Thank you, Mrs. Kelly, for all your Shakespeare encouragement! Can you share a bit more about how much the children performed? How to edit for length? Are there edited scripts already created that one could purchase?
Dear Michelle,
Thanks for stopping by! Generally, the students perform for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the program. We prefer to perform a long scene or an Act unabridged. We have performed entire plays but with abridged scripts. Lori Lawing has some good scripts (which is what we have used) and I’ve heard good things about Joyce McPherson’s The Shakespeare Scriptorium available on Amazon.
Warmly,
Nancy
Love the ideas! Working with As You Like It with RCHA and am working on getting creative. Thanks for the inspiration. Heather
PS. I'm so glad you submitted this to the CM blog carnival!!
yay! we thoroughly enjoyed Julius Caesar last term (way back, now! 😉 as you know.
I think this kind of handling of the play (narration + creative presentation) will certainly help it to live on in their memories for much longer than normal. I bet it was SO cool!
Congratulations! 🙂
See you soon @ CLUSA!
amy
Awesome….love how we can adapt our narrations to each project and piece of literature. Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.
I was/am so proud of all their hard work on this play! It was really fun to watch and see how well they grasped Shakespeare (who has always been daunting to me.) Great work Nancy!!
Anita- Your mom told me the angry crowd was one of her favortie parts 🙂
Bobby Jo
Super! Shakespeare has been part of our homeschooling since the beginning, starting with Lambs' Tales and now with the actual plays. I'm looking at what your co-op did with great interest – and I appreciate "how-to" ideas from fellow homeschoolers.
I've never read or seen Shakespeare's Julius Caesar myself. Applause to your co-op kids! (I hope to catch up with them!)
What a blessing to have other homeschooling families to share in this with!
Thanks for posting those narration suggestions by act. The narration in verse was a joy to read.
Teaching that next year!
I'm sure it was most lovely…even the killing.
One of our students did a computer graphics video of this play that led him to SCAD that led him to Digital as a profession , working on Narnia and Peter Pan …..
This is great! We are going to do Romeo and Juliet this week. Thanks for the ideas.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare! My mom, who attended our family night, especially enjoyed the play. She said, "It was wonderful! I'm so glad I came."