Macbeth: The Big Question

A 15-page, one-to-two lesson, ready-to-teach KS3 & KS4 Shakespeare, PSHE & Citizenship resource

When does ambition stop driving us forward and precipitate our downfall?

Give your students a fresh way into one of Shakespeare’s most studied plays with this practical KS3 and KS4 teaching resource exploring ambition, influence, success and the choices we make in pursuit of them.

Starting with Macbeth, students investigate what shapes a person's ambitions, from family expectations and social status to friendship and peer pressure, before bringing the question firmly into the 21st century.

What happens when our idea of success is shaped by the people around us? And what happens when social media, comparison and other people's expectations begin to distort what success looks like?

By connecting Macbeth's choices with pressures young people can recognise today, the resource helps students explore Shakespeare's play while developing their own opinions, listening to alternative viewpoints and constructing reasoned arguments.

From Shakespeare's dagger to the pressures of social media

Students first explore the positive and negative sides of ambition before becoming “detectives” investigating the source of Macbeth's ambition.

Using the included 10-event story summary, they identify the moments when Macbeth's ambition grows, when other people influence him, when it leads him to wrongdoing and when he begins to doubt his own decisions.

They then explore an extract from Macbeth's famous dagger speech, before staging the moment themselves and imaginatively relocating Macbeth's predicament to the world of modern social media.

The result is a lively route into questions about ambition, influence, comparison, manipulation and what we consider to be success.

What's included?

• A complete Big Question teaching sequence centred on How can ambition be someone's downfall?
• Clear learning objectives, success criteria and differentiation
• A 10-event summary of Macbeth to establish the story
• An extract from Macbeth's “Is this a dagger…” speech
• Practical activities for exploring ambition and influence
• Discussion activities connecting Macbeth with 21st-century ideas of success
• A creative performance task bringing Macbeth's predicament into a social-media context
• Freeze-frame and thought-tapping activities for exploring the story
• A plenary inviting students to consider the advice they would give Macbeth
• A follow-up balanced argument writing task
• Links to KS3/KS4 Citizenship and Personal Wellbeing.

Make Macbeth matter beyond the exam

This resource gives students another way into a play they may already be studying in English: not simply “What does ambition mean in Macbeth?”, but “What does ambition mean for us?”

Students are encouraged to consider how expectations, relationships and outside influences can affect someone's choices and to compare Macbeth's experience with the pressures surrounding success in contemporary life.

The final discussion asks students to advise Macbeth on how he might avoid his downfall, before considering what that advice might look like if Macbeth were a young person navigating the 21st century.

Along the way, students practise discussion, close reading, creative interpretation, performance and balanced argument, making this a useful resource across English, Drama, PSHE and Citizenship.

Shakespeare's ambition. Their world. One very big question.

Ideal for KS3 and KS4 English, Drama, PSHE and Citizenship teachers, whether you're introducing Macbeth, teaching it in depth or looking for a fresh way to revisit its central themes.

Add it to your teaching toolkit and turn Macbeth's fatal ambition into a conversation your students can connect to their own world.