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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Foster engages students in MacBeth competition

A curse on the play Macbeth states that if the word “Macbeth” is said in the theater, bad luck would be placed on all the actors in the play.

English teacher Mercedes Foster has taken this superstition and created a Macbeth competition for her sophomore English classes that will result in a party for the winning class.

The rules of the competition state that whichever of her two classes, period seven or six, can say Macbeth in the classroom the fewest amount of times, wins a party. In addition, Foster said that the losing class will have a writing assignment,

However, Foster later admitted that there will be no writing assignment.

The competition will only be played while Foster’s classes are reading Macbeth, and the word can be said while they are reading the play, but not during regular class time.

“There are always horrible examples of things happening to people that were involved in those productions,” Foster said, “such as actors getting severely injured or even dying.”

The only way to get rid of the curse would be to go outside the theater, spin around three times, curse or say a line from the play Macbeth, said Foster.

“Realistically, if the score is close, both classes will have a party,” Foster said. “I don’t want the one kid who accidentally said it to feel so bad.”

Foster said she came up with the idea of the competition out of desperation.

“When I told a [previous] class about the curse they got excited because they thought that if they said it, they got to go outside the classroom and curse,” Foster said.

“So, I made it into a competition because I knew they would take it more seriously.”

There are ways to reference Macbeth without actually getting docked points for the competition.

Sophomore Odessa Blackmore said, “we have to come up with weird alternatives to say, such as MacB, McMeth, Macbeezy etc.”

The students also love the competition, and not only because of the reward involved.

“I’m glad she’s doing it. I like that it has a modern twist on a timeless tradition,” Narter said.

Foster is also glad she is holding this competition because it has a good impact on the classes.

“It encourages a sense of unity among the two classes and that’s always a positive thing, especially if there are a bunch of cliques in the class,” Foster said.

Foster is having difficulty with not saying ‘Macbeth.’ She has said it over fifteen times in the past week.

“Mrs. Foster tries to compete as well; she does say it often more than once per class, and she still count it. Last I checked, she was at [26] times of saying it,” Blackmore said.

The two classes are extremely cautious and are  tied; the score is one to one, between period seven and period six, said Foster.

Foster said, “I like having two classes and putting them against each other. For fun, of course.”

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