Julis+Caesar+Movie+project+—+S.+Swindells

OBJECTIVE: To reinforce understanding of Caesar by re-writing and performing the play. Students are allowed to change the setting and time, but all names of the characters must remain the same, and all major elements of the plot must be kept in the movie!

TIME: 4 weeks.

Handouts on Shakespearean language, history of Caesar and Rome (Romulus and Remus, Lupercal festival, etc.). To make the point that Shakespeare's plays were once popular media, students usually are very engaged and interested when I ask them to imagine a classroom 400 years in the future. The teacher asks students to take out their Tupac Shakur readers (if they're still using books, that is) and this is met with a collective groan from the classroom. "Mrs. Jones, Tupac is soooo boring! OMG, it makes no sense! I can't understand any of it... it's like a foreign language!" How could this happen to the popular hip-hop poet of the '90s? The English language is constantly evolving. Our slang, expressions, and colloquialisms that seem so simple to us now will someday be obsolete and archaic to a new generation of young people. Students always seem amazed to hear that Shakespeare is not Old or Middle English (and I give them examples of each, prompting some students to say, "This sounds like German"), but it is written in modern English, just an earlier version with language that was in popular use on stage in the time.
 * 1st week:**

My students begin by watching three versions of ACT I (one with Marlon Brando and two with the students from my previous two years). Discussion is usually pretty free flowing when students compare and contrast the three versions of the act play. What decisions did each director make about what to keep and what to cut, or how to present the scenes visually? This is reinforced for homework, which is to read selected passages we discussed in class from the actual play in their textbooks at home (but I keep the reading pretty light, since I focus more on the performance aspect in this unit).

We spend a day on each Act (though some spill over into the next day, we make up time on Acts IV and V and usually finish watching all three evrsions of the entire play in five days).

I make a grid of every classs day for the next few weeks. This will become our film schedule. I assign each of my five classes one of the five acts of the play, based on the strengths I see int he group. The one with the most actors might do Act III, while the rowdy, often unfocused group will dow ell with Act V and the battle scene. Students sign up for roles, including: Writers, Director, Camera, Props, Make-up, Acting (I ask for volunteers until we fill every role in the act), Editing.
 * Weeks 2-4:**

The writers have a few days to get going (usually I have hand-picked the creative writers and asked them to start thinking about this in advance) and the rest of the class spends a few days talking about ideas, locations, and what props they will need to bring in. Teacher must continually guide them toward making decisions at this point.

We fill in the schedule for the next three weeks so that each scene is practiced, prepared and filmed in a span of two or three days (it helps to know that ACT I scene i takes less time than act III, scene iii, but it really isdn't too hard to get everything filmed in class over the next few weeks).

When the movie is finished, the editing group for each class meets with me during X period after school and using Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, we put the scenes in order, make transitions, overlay the music and subtitles, make the credits, and finalize the project.

The entire movie is presented to the class over two days. Don't forget to include some of the outtakes!

Some obvious drawbacks: There are alway a few students who leave my class thinking Caesar was shot by an angry student council when he, as the student body president, abused his power. Others sometimes think Caesar was the captain of the hockey team, or whatever adaptation that particular group of students chose for their modern version of this play.

For the most part, however, students capture the general idea and all the characters names and roles in the play. My students score very highly on the Caesar questions on the final exam each year.