Julius Caesar Final Project Ideas

Well, we're on the terminal stretch of the schoolhouse year now… We still have a couple of weeks left, but it'due south by and large testing, exams, and work days. When do kids go out in your area?!?

Anyway, today, I'grand sharing the Roman Election project I've done for the last two years equally a terminal assessment for my sophomores after educational activity Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It has become one of my very favorites, and my students love it too. Plus, it is perfect for evaluating their agreement of the characters in the play AND their ability to use persuasive techniques and appeals. If y'all teach Caesar, I strongly recommend some variation of this action!!

To begin, I take my students take a fun quiz (I used this one) to determine which Julius Caesar character they are well-nigh similar. This is mostly ridiculous, but they had fun with it, and I used it as the basis for their small groups for the project.

Speaking of groups, students were and so divided into four large(ish) "campaign teams" based on the four major characters/leaders from the play: Marker Antony, Marcus Brutus, Gaius Cassius, and Julius Caesar (Spoiler Alert: for the purpose of this activity, we have to pretend he wasn't killed).

The Campaign Teams are given the post-obit assignment and told to complete all four components of the project by "Election Mean solar day" —

Imagine you are the campaign team for your assigned grapheme's race for "President" of the Roman Empire. 😉 Information technology is your job to create an effective campaign that advocates for your candidate (and against his opponents).

You are responsible for brainstorming and producing the following entrada components in pocket-size groups:

One-page Candidate Profile (20 points)
Campaign Poster (20 points)
Positive Campaign Commercial + Analysis (40 points)*
Negative Campaign Commercial + Assay (twoscore points)*

*Parts one and two will be done by the larger group as a whole. Parts three and 4 will be split between members of each group so that every student works on Ane COMMERCIAL only.

I ask for specific data on the one-page profile similar a catchy campaign slogan, a political platform/ the issue virtually important to him, a list of his strongest leadership qualities, specific evidence (i.e. a quote) from the play showing the graphic symbol's leadership abilities, and a quick listing of reasons why the other three candidatesaren'tgood for the job. (I also give them this link to run into examples from Clinton & Trump'due south campaign in 2016: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-page-trump-clinton-resumes-2016-vi)

The Campaign Affiche must have a photograph of the candidate, the slogan, and a quote from the play that communicate's the candidate's political philosophy/goals for Rome. It is too scored based on neatness and creativity. (Once more, I provide this link to sample campaign posters for inspiration and review: http://world wide web.huffingtonpost.com/entry/presidential-entrada-posters_us_569e635fe4b0cd99679b6001)

Both the one-page contour and the campaign poster is due a week prior to "Election Twenty-four hour period" and so that other students (in my case, the freshmen and junior classes) have time to review them. This likewise kicks off "campaign season" where students are allowed to start distributing buttons, stickers, and other bribes and hanging boosted posters and flyers around the classroom. (This is everyone's favorite part and really hypes up the fun-level and excitement leading upwards to the election.)

Finally, the major part of the assignment is actually Two campaign videos – but I ask the larger groups to carve up in half to complete this. One grouping makes a Positive Entrada Video highlighting their candidate's best traits and leadership qualities, and the other grouping creates a Negative Campaign Video that "throws shade" at the three opposing candidates. (Once again, I include this link for examples of campaign videos from the most recent Presidential election:

See examples of positive and negative campaign videos from the most recent election here: https://newrepublic.com/political-advertizing-database)

The goal of these videos is, starting time and foremost, to be persuasive. Students are required to include appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos AND turn in a brief write-up of the persuasive techniques they used in their commercial. This is printed and submitted with their videos on the terminal day of the unit.

Note: I'm evidently pretty spoiled here because, since my students are all part of the Mass Communications speciality middle, they take admission to some pretty great cameras and editing equipment. BUT, you lot'd be surprised how well students practice with videos fifty-fifty just using their phones, iMovie, Movie Maker, etc. I'd really recommend trying to include this portion of the project if at all possible – just, beware, it can take some time if y'all're assuasive them to do it in class.

Election Day itself is really pretty simple. I pull all three of my classes together (once more, this is easier for me than it would be for many), we watch all the commercials (8 total), and I pass out little ballots for anonymous voting. The squad that "wins" gets bragging rights (very important for high schoolers) and 5 points actress credit on the final grade for the project.

So, there you get.

This projection really is so fun, and I'thousand always surprised how much my students go in to it. It also really does serve as a great review of the play and the elements of persuasion we've been learning all year.

Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment if you have questions about implementing this in your classroom!

Until then,

Eastward