MYPNA_TE_G12_U3_web.pdf

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Comprehension Check

Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. What three things do the witches predict for Macbeth and Banquo? What information
   does the messenger bring to Macbeth?


2. What does Lady Macbeth fear about her husband?


3. Notebook Confirm your understanding of the text by writing a summary of Act I.

RESEARCH

Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly research

that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of

the play?

Research to Explore Conduct research to find representations of Macbeth or Lady

Macbeth in a work of visual art.

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276 UNIT 3 • FACING THE FUTURE, CONFRONTING THE PAST

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TEACHING

Comprehension Check

Possible responses:

1. The witches predict that Macbeth will be the
   Thane of Cawdor, that he will become king,
   and that Banquo’s children will be kings. The
   messenger tells Macbeth that the king has made
   him the Thane of Cawdor.


2. Lady Macbeth fears that her husband is too kind
   to carry out the assassination.


3. Sample response: The witches predict that
   Macbeth will be named the Thane of Cawdor
   and King of Scotland. Macbeth learns that the
   king has put the Thane of Cawdor to death and
   has given him the title. Macbeth becomes very
   aware of his ambition and Banquo warns him that
   predictions can be harmful as well as beneficial.
   At his castle, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from
   Macbeth and decides that Macbeth must fulfill
   the witches’ prophecies. Macbeth ponders what
   to do, but eventually acknowledges his ambition
   and succumbs to Lady Macbeth’s insistence to
   murder the king.

Research

Research to Clarify If students struggle to

come up with a detail to research further, you

may want to suggest they focus on the witches’

predictions, or one of the soliloquies in Act I.

Research to Explore Suggest that students

research the paintings of Henry Fuseli, Alexander

Johnston, John Wootton, or John Singer Sargent.

AUTHOR'S PERSPECTIVE Elfrieda Hiebert, Ph.D.

Frequency of Concepts in Narrative Texts In

describing character traits or problems, skilled

authors rarely repeat the same word, other than to

achieve unity through repetition. Instead, authors

use different words to create an interesting style.

For instance, authors use a variety of words to

describe setting, such as lagoon, swales, or bog.

Specifically, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,

L. Frank Baum describes what Dorothy and

her companions see on arriving in the Emerald

City with these words: brilliance, dazzled, and

glittering. Word variety also helps authors build

characterization in jobs (actor, lawyer, expert) and

roles (adult/relative, female, male). Especially in

stories, the concepts represented by rare words are

often known by common words that most students

understand, such as down and blah for the rare

words lethargic, listless, slothful, and sluggish.

However, the more complex the text, the rarer the

words that describe a particular concept will be. For

instance, in a complex text, rather than describing a

character as calm, the author might use phlegmatic.

However, be sure that students understand

that words such as these in a concept network

have subtle differences in meaning and cannot

necessarily be substituted for one another.

276 UNIT 3 • FACING THE FUTURE, CONFRONTING THE PAST

LIT17_TE12_U03_A1C_WC.indd 276 16-03-29 11:07 AM