100 for 100 Macbeth, by Stuart Pryke and Amy Staniforth
One of the most formidable teacher-resources for any text in recent years was Stuart Pryke and Amy Staniforth’s Macbeth: a compendium of subject knowledge, resources and pedagogy in John Catt’s ‘Ready to Teach’ series. Now from the same authors comes 100 for 100 Macbeth: 100 Days. 100 Revision Activities, which is directed at students, and similarly formidable at over 360 pages, and in its level of variety, challenge and support for GCSE students.
The tasks are flagged as 20-minute ones to be done each day in the months leading up to an exam, and indeed students who do all will truly be extremely well-prepared. In fact, saying that this book is for students is only part of the story, since we teachers are likely to find many of the resources effective in class too.
The activities form a rich and interleaved mixture. The main characters of the play are covered, and frequently returned to. For instance, on Day 90 we have the fifth look at Lady Macbeth, with the student annotating the sleepwalking scene in Act V while being directed to a theme (light), motifs (hands, handwashing, illness) and symbols (blood), and then a second task to examine a statement and for-and-against points on it.
There are also activities on key vocabulary (such as regicide, tyranny, rhetoric and hubris), context (the Diving Right of Kings, the Great Chain of Being, witchcraft), and themes (morality, sin, masculinity and so on), as well as a Quotation of the Day - absorbing those over 100 days will definitely deepen the students’ knowledge. The variety of approach will also be attractive to them, and to teachers who might use a task in class, such as the modified versions of Kate Jones’s retrieval practice ideas on Day 40 ( a retrieval grid used with a timer for considering questions on Macbeth’s character) and Day 61 (helping students explore and recall the word ‘mercurial). There are also frequent points at which students are asked to assess their own level of understanding, as well as extension suggestions.
And there’s still more, with a link at the end of the book to no fewer than 198 pages of Answers and Guidance on all 100 Days.
Teachers of the Leaving Certificate in Ireland frequently have Macbeth on the rota for that examination, and indeed we return to it from September 2024 for examination in June 2026. This book will provide a rich source of ideas and support for both the students and the teachers who will be studying it in those two years, and though this is for GCSE I think all of the material is also helpful for the Leaving Certificate. The activities are right in line with what I have been recommending in revision webinars on Hamlet and Macbeth in the last couple of years for Tralee Education Support Centre: revision techniques which are flexible, not too long, low stakes and which generate thinking about the text. I’ll be doing the same for King Lear with another free webinar at 7.00pm on Wednesday 16th October: book here.