For this project we were learning about Shakespeare’s play called Julius Cesar. My group and I were given a character from the play to research. We had to answer many questions about a man called Gaius Cassius, who helped in the assassination of Julius Cesar. Some of the questions that needed to be answered were why was he important to the play, what is his historic importance, where did he live/work, when did he live, and who was he. Through multiple sights and sources, my group found out this information. These are some of the links to the sites that we used: link1 link2 link3 link4 link5 link6 link7 link8

After this research, my group and I were told to trace out a body on a piece of paper, cut it out, and cover it in symbols, drawings, and paper cut outs that reflected our research. The task seemed easy enough, that was until they followed up by saying that we were not aloud to use any words or text on the body. My group then began to get to work, starting with getting the body cut out and ready for drawings. When cutting out the body, my group and I used red paper to symbolize the wars that Gaius Cassius fought in. We also cut out the body in a position where he had a hand on his hip and another over his lip as if he were motioning you to be quiet. We decided to cut him out in this position because he was said to have always been quietly scheming.

Next, my group added symbols, drawings and cut outs onto the body, which were placed based on their meaning. For example, we put trees and roads on his legs to symbolize his travels and how is legs got him their. We put a cut out brain on his head with some little drawings in it of telescopes, books, and glasses. This symbolized his his study of philosophy. We placed a cut out drawing of a baby on his chest to symbolize his baby boy(his son), and beside that, we put a big shield with a megaphone on it that symbolizes his talent in public speaking and how he could project his voice all across Rome. A key part of the body was a picture frame that had two people whispering to each other on the inside. This symbolized the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar, which was a huge part of Shakespeare’s play, and therefore a huge part of this project. On the arm of our body was a bloody sword that represents how depressed Gaius Cassius was near the end of his life when he ordered someone to kill him, ending both his life and his story.

After we added all that we could to the body, one of my group members created a script that explained our research and our body. We then briefly looked over our lines and presented all of our work. The rest of the class did this same thing with a different character from Shakespeare’s play. I think that I learned a lot from this project, about Gaius Cassius, Julius Caesar, and even a little about Shakespeare. I learned that Gaius Cassius studied philosophy, spent time in the war, was one of the leaders in the plot to kill Julius Caesar, and ordered somebody to kill himself. I learned that Julius Caesar killed Pompey, had great power, and was from Rome. And last of all, I learned that Shakespeare was from Britain and is famous for making plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet.

If I were to redo this project, I would definitely fix a few things and do some things a little bit differently. Some of those things would be to practice my script a little more to improve my performance, to make some of the pictures bigger that represent key points in the play, and pay more attention to the criteria so that we don’t miss anything like how my group forgot to add a spine(it was part of the criteria). With this being said, I still thought that this was a fun project and I learned a lot from it!