Free Resources for Julius Caesar

Erica Margaret
Sep 9
4 min read

Updated: Sep 21

The Practical EnglishTeacher is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

I have not taught Julius Caesar for a long time but man-oh-man do I wish I was teaching it right now. When I taught it to my 10th graders back in 2015, this conversation about the quest for absolute power was an abstract idea but NOW, in the U.S., in 2025, it more relevant than ever. It's almost a political statement to teach it. It's Julius Caesar's time to shine but alas, I do not have sophomores this year.

Julius Caesar is part of the 10th grade curriculum. I liked teaching the first three acts, and because we were always pressed for time, eventually I ONLY taught the first three acts (and then summarized the rest).

Whenever I teach a play, I always do Reader's Theater. There are 100 ways to do Reader's Theater correctly, but essential the kids are acting out lines/scenes they have been assigned. Some teachers ask kids to rewrite the scenes in modern day or in another setting, but since I was working with honors kids and I wanted them to engage the language, I always let them revise their scenes (cut out lines, etc.) but not change the language itself. All of the handouts and directions that I would give the kids for this activity are below.

I always started the unit by activating background knowledge and introducing students to the "big ideas." For Julius Caesar, that big idea was always "power". Who has it? How do you get it? How do you keep it? And I also used it as a chance to introduce my 10 advanced kids to AP/IB skills.

The materials below are in the general order that I used them. Although since I taught Julius Caesar a few times, I did not use every handout every year. Please enjoy these free resources for Julius Caesar.

Pre-Reading Materials

The pre-reading materials serve a few purposes: some of them are to set up the theme of "power," some of them introduce the plot, characters, and Shakespeare's writing, and some of them warm up the kids for their "acting" gigs.

Character & Plot Handouts

Shakespeare's Language

Theme Prep Handouts (Power)

Acting Preparation

Materials to Set Up Readers' Theater

Basically for Readers' Theater, you assign a group of kids to each scene and give them time to edit/prepare the scene. Then have each group act of their scene in order. The handouts below are the directions that I would give the students, the different scenes and how many kids you might need, and summary charts for the audience to use after each presentation.

For Teacher

Readers Theater Assignment for Acts 1-3 (These are the notes I would use to figure out how many kids to assign to each scene.)

Handouts for Students

For "Audience"

Vocabulary Handouts for Julius Caesar

Act 1 Materials

In terms of class timing, I would usually give students 30-45 minutes a day for the first few lessons to prepare their scripts, and the rest of the time we would be doing introductory or analysis work. These are the lessons and handouts I would use for Act 1, mainly focusing on ethos, pathos, logos.

Act 2 Materials

Similar to Act 1, we would spend part of the class doing Readers' Theater and the other part working through analysis.

Act 3 Materials

At this point, we are feeling pretty tired of Julius Caesar so I have kids present the last scene assignments, we study one speech and then wrap up from there.

After Reading Julius Caesar

Choice Book Activities forJulius Caesar

I hope that some of these free Julius Caesar materials were helpful to you!