The Future Is Known. Now What? Using Macbeth to Explore the Social Complexity of the Climate Crisis and COVID-19

The English classroom is an indispensable site to critically engage the social complexity of the climate crisis and COVID-19. A question comes up, however, about how to plan for such critical engagement when teaching canonical literature that is seemingly removed from the specific concerns of the current moment. The focus of this article is on planning with canonical works to meet the current moment. Using Macbeth as a focal text, I offer a seven-step heuristic for generating lesson plan ideas that critically engage the social complexity of the climate crisis and COVID-19. The heuristic is based on juxtaposition, defined as a literary interpretive stance that opens space for readers to make creative leaps between old texts and new contexts.