Year 8 Curriculum Area

What concepts will we be The Gothic

covering this half term? You are answering the following question across the term: How is the Gothic Genre
used to explore fear of scientific and technological advancements? How do writers
present fear of the unknown?
You will study the Frankenstein play by Phillip Pullman
 You are completing work based on Gothic context.
 You are studying a range of different Gothic texts alongside – including poetry and
a range of fiction and analyse the language in them.
 You will learn how to write descriptively based on the Gothic genre conventions
and styles.

Here are your power words for the unit:

countenance; decrepit, desolate, grotesque, harrowing, malicious, oppressive, pensive,
phenomenon, wretched, aghast, derision, dissemble, dilapidated, gesticulation,
macabre, malevolent, profound, repulsions, supposition.

What resources can you Here is some information about the Gothic genre:
use to support your Definition of Gothic Literature (thoughtco.com)
learning?

Tasks to complete so we 1. You will complete some context work based on how the Gothic genre
can assess your developed.
understanding/ Key 2. You will complete some research based on key discoveries and advancements
Performance Indicator within the Gothic period.
tasks 3. You will be read a short piece of Gothic fiction and complete the questions
based on this; this will enable you to analyse the ideas within the text.
4. You will be studying some Gothic poems and deconstructing them by looking at
different ideas within one of the poems you choose.
5. Writing task – complete some creative writing based on the Gothic genre.
6. A punctuation task based on a Gothic text will help you improve your technical
writing skills.
7. You will use this task to complete work on the power words.
What can you do if you If you have any questions, please email your class teacher or contact via SMHWK
need help/ support? Alternatively, email apearson1@netherthorpe.derbyshire.sch.uk
 Lesson 1: Introduction to the Gothic Genre
The Gothic literary genre: When did it develop?

The English Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic
Story (1765). Contemporary readers found the novel electrifyingly original and thrillingly
suspenseful, with its remote setting, its use of the supernatural, and its medieval trappings,
all of which have been so frequently imitated that they have become stereotypes. The novel
was so enormously popular that it was quickly imitated by other novelists, thereby initiating
a genre. The genre takes its name from The Castle of Otranto's medieval–or Gothic–setting,
as well as the subtitle; early Gothic novelists tended to set their novels in remote times like
the Middle Ages and in remote places like Italy (Matthew Lewis's The Monk, 1796) or the
Middle East (William Beckford's Vathek, 1786).

Early novels in the gothic horror subgenre heavily feature discussions of morality,
philosophy, and religion, with the evil villains most often acting as metaphors for some sort
of human temptation the hero must overcome. The novels' endings are more often than not
unhappy, and romance is never the focus. The battle between humanity and unnatural
forces of evil (sometimes man-made, sometimes supernatural) within an oppressive,
inescapable, and bleak landscape is considered to be the true trademark of a gothic horror
novel.

The Victorian era (1837-1901) produced some of the most well-known examples of gothic
horror with the publication of such novels as Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859) and
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and novellas such as Joseph Sheridan Le
Fanu’s Carmilla (1871) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde (1886).

Although the genre was named after the gothic castles and crumbling medieval ruins so
prevalent in early novels, many modern gothic novels have moved away from this
traditional setting towards more contemporary locations, such as the haunted house
featured in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959) or the Bramford apartment
building in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967). As long as the environment invokes a
disturbing sense of unease and/or terror within the reader, then a Gothic novel could be set
in any location.

Most critics, literary historians, and readers see Gothic fiction as continuing to the present
time; though it has undergone great changes, the themes, effects, and conventions of the
earliest Gothic novels are alive and well, appearing in novels, movies, TV dramas and
cartoons, and computer games.
TASK: Read the information above and answer the following questions. Use your own
words where you can.

1. What is said to be the text that first began the Gothic tradition, and what year was it
published? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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2. Why did readers enjoy this novel? (try to use your own words in your answer) ……
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3. What does the following sentence from the text mean? “The novel was so
enormously popular that it was quickly imitated by other novelists”
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4. What are typical Gothic novel endings like? ……………………………………………………………….
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5. Which historical period produced many Gothic texts?...................................................
6. What was the Gothic genre ‘named’ after? ……………………………………………………………….
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7. How have modern Gothic novels changed in terms of settings compared to the
classic novels? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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8. What does a Gothic location have to do? …………………………………………………………………..
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9. How is the Gothic genre being continued in the modern day? …………………………………..
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10. Can you think of any Gothic novels/ TV shows/ Films that are from your lifetime?
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Lesson 2: Gothic Era Research task

Many Gothic novels aimed to shock and surprise the readers. Writer’s would often draw on
events that were happening in the world at the time and twist and develop these into ideas
that would frighten their readers.

What was life like during the Victorian Era? You should consider:
- Advancements in technology
- Role of religion
- Role of science/ scientific discoveries
- What life was like for someone with a disfigurement/ disability
- Impact of the industrial revolution
- Different social classes
- Belief in ghosts/ spirits/ supernatural

TASK: Using your technology (ipads/ Phones/ computers) complete a 15 minute research
task to find out information about the bullet points above. You should write your notes in
the box below.
 Lesson 3 : Language Analysis of the Gothic text

TASK: Read this extract from Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. This is the reader’s first
meeting with the monster that Victor Frankenstein had created. As you read, annotate
with key words, ideas and images that come into your head.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein:

(Description of the creature)

"It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld my man completed; with an

anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected instruments of life around me that

I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet, It was already

one in the morning, the rain pattered dismally against the window panes, and my

candle was nearly burned out, when by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light I

saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open. It breathed hard, and with a convulsive

motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotion at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch

whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in

proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! — Great God! His

yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair

was of a lustrous black and flowing; and his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these

luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed

almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his

shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips".

TASK: re-read the Frankenstein extract and answer the following questions below:

1) What examples of pathetic fallacy (where the weather links to the character’s
emotions) has Shelley included in this extract? …………………….
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2) How does Shelley set the scene?
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3) Think about what life was like in the Gothic era ( think back to task 2 on page 2.)
How are ideas shown in this extract?………………..
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4) Choose 3 key words from the text and explain how they have been used:
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 Lesson 4: Poetry Analysis

TASK: Write down your initial thoughts, ideas, images, emotions, etc. when you think of
fog.

TASK: Read the following short poems:

From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T.S. Eliot
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
Fog
By Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Gray Fog
by Sara Teasdale

A fog drifts in, the heavy laden

Cold white ghost of the sea—
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.
I watch the fog float in at the window
With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.

Discussion points:
- What do these poems have in common?
- How does each writer present the fog?
- What language or structure techniques do the writers use?
- Which poem do you find most effective and why?
- Which poem do you feel is the least effective and why?
- What mood or atmosphere is created by the fog?
- Is the fog portrayed as weather, or something else?
- Are there any similarities between the poems?
- What are the differences?
 TASK: Choose one of the poems and deconstruct it using the template below. This means
you need to pick apart word by word in order to understand how the writer created their
poem.

The poem’s title suggests…. The tone of the poem is…..

The fog is presented as being…

The poem is written in (narrative

voice- first person/ third person..)
and the effect of this is…
The poem I have chosen
to deconstruct is:

Key words stand out to me

(and why) are …

This poem is effective because…

The writer’s views on fog are..

Lesson 5: Creative Writing task

TASK: for each of the following words, come up with a range of synonyms/ ambitious
vocabulary/ phrases/ poetic devices (simile/ metaphor etc.)

Help: Look at the next picture to inspire you.

● Sad

● Dark

● Empty

● Scary

● Quiet

● Walk

● Ground/ floor
TASK: Write half a page of description based on this image. You can write in 1 st person,
but aim to make it as descriptive as possible (no big plot events/ speech)
HELP: Use the words above/ 5 senses to get you started.

Creative writing- creating an effective mood or atmosphere.

Gothic writers must rely on the quality of their description in order to build mood,
atmosphere and increase tension. Just like ‘scary’ films, you have to have the quieter,
calmer ‘spooky’ parts, to make the larger events and jump scares more effective.

TASK: Self- assessment:

1) Highlight the sentence that you think is the most frightening within your work.
Once you have done that, write the sentence in the box.

2) Once you have written your sentence into the box below, annotate it to show how
it is helping to create a frightening or spooky atmosphere.

Write your sentence in this box:

 Lesson 6: Gothic Punctuation Task

The extract below is from a story by Edgar Allan Poe called The Tell
Tale Heart. This is about a villainous character who takes his
neighbour’s life and then hides his victim under the floorboards. The
police arrive to question him and he reveals he has done this
because he can hear a heart-beating but no-one else can:

The grotesque heart continued to beat!

Intensely- dramatically- furiously as the
officers paced towards me; they were
closing in around me. I couldn’t escape –
there was nowhere to go! Suddenly, I
remembered something: a latch down to the
cellar under my foot but how could I distract
the officers? I hatched a plan…

Why have the exclamation marks been used?

What’s the effect? (How does it make us feel as a reader?)

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What is the reason for the dashes? What does it suggest about the
narrator’s feelings towards his neighbour’s death?
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What about the question marks? What does this reveal to us?

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Writing task: Write a descriptive paragraph where you decide what

happens next by writing as if you were the narrator in this story.
Make sure you choose punctuation that shows something about the
narrator’s feelings or adds meaning to your writing.
 Lesson 7: Power Word Task

For each of the words in the following list, complete

the table. Use one row per word:
countenance; decrepit, desolate, grotesque, harrowing, malicious, oppressive, pensive,
phenomenon, wretched, aghast, derision, dissemble, dilapidated, gesticulation,
macabre, malevolent, profound, repulsions, supposition.

Power Word My own The word in a Synonyms

definition sentence and antonyms