The Library In the Margin
Self-paced · Start anytime

Shakespeare’s shortest, fiercest tragedy. A brave general hears a prophecy and murders his way to a crown he cannot hold. We read the play aloud, together, act by act, watching ambition and guilt pull a good man down — and asking, in every scene, how much is fate and how much is his own hand.

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A Living Literature & Language course — the whole play, read aloud.
A full feast
Literature · Language Arts · Nature Study · Art, Music & Poetry
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The Shape of the Term
Fifteen weeks, read aloud
The living rhythm
A Read week, then a Deep-Dive week — the same rhythm all term. Each week opens with the Habit of Attention, carries a Find It · Follow It · Frame It passage and a short writing lesson.
Weeks 1–10 · Into the Dark
We read the tragedy act by act, alongside Machiavelli’s The Prince and a home book carried all term — watching the tragic question sharpen scene by scene.
Weeks 11–15 · The Culmination
Watch a production, argue the play in a debate that becomes your thesis, write one Follow-the-Thread essay, and paint a watercolor square for the class Quilt — the Tragic Heroes wall.
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The Threads We Keep
Practices that run all term
  • Read aloud, togetherThe play is meant for the ear — we read it act by act, out loud, before we say a word about it.
  • The Habit of AttentionA line worth keeping and one small practice to open each week.
  • Find It · Follow It · Frame ItThe three moves of close reading, on one passage a week.
  • The Lively Art of WritingOne craft move a week — the hand and the ear, trained together.
  • Machiavelli’s The PrinceThe lens book we read the tragedy through — power, ambition, and what it costs.
  • Narration & the commonplace bookTelling back what we’ve read, and keeping the lines that stop us.
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The Capstone
Follow the Thread
One character, followed to the end.
Across the last five weeks each student follows a single thread — Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, a question that won’t let go — closely enough to learn what was actually there. It gathers into a debate, a thesis, one essay, and a painted square for the Tragic Heroes Quilt.
A staged production A debate → your thesis A Follow-the-Thread essay A watercolor square · the Quilt
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The Honors Path

An honors strand runs through every week — an invitation, not a requirement. A few of the ways it might look this term:

  • ✦ A deeper reading of Machiavelli beside the play — where The Prince justifies what Macbeth cannot.
  • ✦ An independent close reading of a single soliloquy — the language under a magnifying glass.
  • ✦ An extended composition that sets a second tragic hero beside Macbeth.

And it all gathers into a portfolio at the end — a record of the work a student can carry into college applications.

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