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Year 9 Intro to GCSERemote Learning Booklet

This booklet includes all your English lessons for the next five weeks commencing Monday 15th June 2020.

This unit begins to get your read for GCSE English. It has a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry, upon which you can practise your analytical skills. This can be printed off if you have access to a printer

or it can be completed on a computer. Tasks are clustered around themes and lessons, however you can proceed through the activities at your own pace.

In addition to this work, it is recommended that you continue to read independently, just as you would in your normal English lesson time. If you are looking for inspiration, there are many wonderful writers referenced in

the booklet. However, the most important thing is that you read something that you find enjoyable, stimulating and challenging. There is a ‘KS3 reading booklet’ in the folder which you can

use alongside reading if you wish to complete extra work.

Name:

Class:

Teacher:

Overview of the unit

Week beginning June 15th: Lessons #1, 2, 3 (The Sound of Thunder) Week beginning June 22nd: Lessons # 4, 5, 6 (Poetry) Week beginning June 29th: Lessons # 7, 8, 9 (Poetry) Week beginning July 6th: Lesson # 10, 11, 12 (Intro to 19th century and gothic) Week Beginning July 13th Lesson # 13, 14, 15 (The Monkey’s paw)

Week beginning June 15th: A sound of Thunder – by Ray BradburyThe following activities are designed around a short story by Ray Bradbury. This is a science fiction short story set in 2055, when time travel allows the common man to experience the past in ways never before thought possible. Eckels, an avid hunter, pays $10,000 to travel back to the age of dinosaurs to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Lesson 1:

This activity should take you 40-45 minutes – you need to read through the story and complete the comprehension questions which appear at the end of the text:

A Sound of Thunder Ray Bradbury The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC.SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST. YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.WE TAKE YOU THERE.YOU SHOOT IT.

Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.

"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"

"We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except the dinosaurs." He turned. "This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He'll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there's a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return."

Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.

A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irishblack, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand.

"Unbelievable." Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. "A real Time Machine." He shook his head. "Makes you think, If the election had gone badly yesterday, I

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might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won. He'll make a fine President of the United States."

"Yes," said the man behind the desk. "We're lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we'd have the worst kind of dictatorship. There's an anti everything man for you, a militarist, antiChrist, anti-human, antiintellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it's not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith's President now. All you got to worry about is"

"Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.

"A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry."

Eckels flushed angrily. "Trying to scare me!"

"Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We're here to give you the severest thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest game in all of Time. Your personal check's still there. Tear it up."Mr. Eckels looked at the check. His fingers twitched.

"Good luck," said the man behind the desk. "Mr. Travis, he's all yours."

They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was daynightdaynight. A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared.They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years blazed around them.

"Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?" Eckels felt his mouth saying.

"If you hit them right," said Travis on the helmet radio. "Some dinosaurs have two brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those. That's stretching luck.

Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go back into the brain."The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them. "Think," said Eckels. "Every hunter that ever lived would envy us today. This makes Africa seem like Illinois."

The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur. The Machine stopped. The sun stopped in the sky.

The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns across their knees.

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"Christ isn't born yet," said Travis, "Moses has not gone to the mountains to talk with God. The Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitlernone of them exists." The man nodded.

"That" Mr. Travis pointed "is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fiftyfive years before President Keith."

He indicated a metal path that struck off into green wilderness, over streaming swamp, among giant ferns and palms.

"And that," he said, "is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use,It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an antigravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there's a penalty. And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."

"Why?" asked Eckels.

They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds' cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar and an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the color of blood.

"We don't want to change the Future. We don't belong here in the Past. The government doesn't like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time Machine is finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species."

"That's not clear," said Eckels.

"All right," Travis continued, "say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?"

"Right"

"And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!"

"So they're dead," said Eckels. "So what?"

"So what?" Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fiftynine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or sabertoothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might

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never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!"

"I see," said Eckels. "Then it wouldn't pay for us even to touch the grass?"

"Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong. Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in farflung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don't know. We're guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we're being careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can't introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere."

"How do we know which animals to shoot?"

"They're marked with red paint," said Travis. "Today, before our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed certain animals." "Studying them?"

"Right," said Lesperance. "I track them through their entire existence, noting which of them lives longest. Very few. How many times they mate. Not often. Life's short, When I find one that's going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his side. We can't miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how careful we are?"

"But if you come back this morning in Time," said Eckels eagerly, you must've bumped into us, our Safari! How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get throughalive?"

Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.

"That'd be a paradox," said the latter. "Time doesn't permit that sort of messa man meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There's no way of telling if this expedition was a success, if we got our monster, or whether all of us meaning you, Mr. Eckels got out alive."

Eckels smiled palely."Cut that," said Travis sharply. "Everyone on his feet!" They were ready to leave the Machine.

The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium and night fever. Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.

"Stop that!" said Travis. "Don't even aim for fun, blast you! If your guns should go off " Eckels flushed. "Where's our Tyrannosaurus?"

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Lesperance checked his wristwatch. "Up ahead, We'll bisect his trail in sixty seconds. Look for the red paint! Don't shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the Path!"

They moved forward in the wind of morning.

"Strange," murmured Eckels. "Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they don't exist. The things we worried about for months, a lifetime, not even born or thought of yet."

"Safety catches off, everyone!" ordered Travis. "You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings, Third, Kramer."

"I've hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but now, this is it," said Eckels. "I'm shaking like a kid."

"Ah," said Travis. Everyone stopped.

Travis raised his hand. "Ahead," he whispered. "In the mist. There he is. There's His Royal Majesty now."

The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs. Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door.Silence.A sound of thunder.

Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus Rex. "It," whispered Eckels. "It......"Sh!"

It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight.

It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit area warily, its beautifully reptilian hands feeling the air."Why, why," Eckels twitched his mouth. "It could reach up and grab the moon."

"Sh!" Travis jerked angrily. "He hasn't seen us yet."

"It can't be killed," Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. "We were fools to come. This is impossible."

"Shut up!" hissed Travis."Nightmare.""Turn around," commanded Travis. "Walk quietly to the Machine. We'll remit half your fee.""I didn't realize it would be this big," said Eckels. "I miscalculated, that's all. And now I want

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out." "It sees us!""There's the red paint on its chest!"

The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.

"Get me out of here," said Eckels. "It was never like this before. I was always sure I'd come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I've met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of."

"Don't run," said Lesperance. "Turn around. Hide in the Machine."

"Yes." Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt of helplessness.

"Eckels!"He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling."Not that way!"The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred

yards in six seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast's mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.The rifles cracked again, Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile's tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler's hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulderstone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris,

Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.

Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and tore the metal Path. The men flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws, and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.

The thunder faded.

The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning. Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing steadily. In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.

Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path.

"Clean up."

They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died,

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the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing by a wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering.

Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch broke from its heavy mooring, fell. It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.

"There." Lesperance checked his watch. "Right on time. That's the giant tree that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal originally." He glanced at the two hunters. "You want the trophy

picture?" "What?"

"We can't take a trophy back to the Future. The body has to stay right here where it would have died originally, so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can take a picture of you standing near it."The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads.

They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor. A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering.

"I'm sorry," he said at last.

"Get up!" cried Travis.

Eckels got up.

"Go out on that Path alone," said Travis. He had his rifle pointed, "You're not coming back in the Machine. We're leaving you here!"

Lesperance seized Travis's arm. "Wait"

"Stay out of this!" Travis shook his hand away. "This fool nearly killed us. But it isn't that so much, no. It's his shoes! Look at them! He ran off the Path. That ruins us! We'll forfeit! Thousands of dollars of insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the fool! I'll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. Who knows what he's done to Time, to History!"

"Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt."

"How do we know?" cried Travis. "We don't know anything! It's all a mystery! Get out of here, Eckels!"

Eckels fumbled his shirt. "I'll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!"

Travis glared at Eckels' checkbook and spat. "Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us."

"That's unreasonable!"

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"The Monster's dead, you idiot. The bullets! The bullets can't be left behind. They don't belong in the Past; they might change anything. Here's my knife. Dig them out!"

The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to regard the primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a long time, like a sleepwalker he shuffled out along the Path.

He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.

"You didn't have to make him do that," said Lesperance.

"Didn't I? It's too early to tell." Travis nudged the still body. "He'll live. Next time he won't go hunting game like this. Okay." He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. "Switch on. Let's go home."

1492. 1776. 1812.

They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.

"Don't look at me," cried Eckels. "I haven't done anything." "Who can tell?"

"Just ran off the Path, that's all, a little mud on my shoeswhat do you want me to doget down and pray?"

"We might need it. I'm warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I've got my gun ready." "I'm innocent. I've done nothing!"1999.2000.2055.The Machine stopped.

"Get out," said Travis.

The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had left it. The same man sat behind the same desk. But the same man did not quite sit behind the same desk. Travis looked around swiftly. "Everything okay here?" he snapped.

"Fine. Welcome home!"

Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking through the one high window.

"Okay, Eckels, get out. Don't ever come back." Eckels could not move. "You heard me," said Travis. "What're you staring at?"

Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there. The colors, white, gray, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were . . . were . . . . And there was a feel. His flesh twitched. His hands twitched. He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body. Somewhere, someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk . . . lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of

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world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind ....

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC.SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST. YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.WEE TAEK YU THAIR.YU SHOOT ITT.

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling, "No, it can't be. Not a little thing like that. No!"

Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.

"Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!" cried Eckels.

It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels' mind whirled. It couldn't change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't be that important! Could it?

His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: "Who who won the presidential election yesterday?"

The man behind the desk laughed. "You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of course! Who

else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts!" The official stopped. "What's wrong?"

Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. "Can't we," he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, "can't we take it back, can't we make it alive again? Can't we start over? Can't we"

He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.

There was a sound of thunder.

Please answer the following comprehension questions in your exercise book:

1. Who is the elected president of the United States at the beginning of the story? How do they describe his opponent? Why is this significant?

2. Describe the path created by Time Safari Inc. What is the purpose of this path? 3. Why are the hunters allowed to hunt the dinosaurs that are marked with red

paint? 4. What is a paradox? Explain the paradox of time travel.5. What mistake does Eckels make while the men are hunting? 6. What does Eckels have to do as punishment for this mistake?

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7. At the end of the story, in what ways is the present day different than before? 8. Besides mud, what does Eckels discover on his boot? 9. What does this story tell us about the human impact of time travel? Do you

agree? Explain your opinion.

Lesson 2:

Close reading of one section of the text

Task: This task should take fifteen minutes. Re-read the extract from ‘A Sound of Thunder’ and annotate how Bradbury presents the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight.

It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit area warily, its beautifully reptilian hands feeling the air.

"Why, why," Eckels twitched his mouth. "It could reach up and grab the moon."

"Sh!" Travis jerked angrily. "He hasn't seen us yet."

"It can't be killed," Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. "We were fools to come. This is impossible."

Task: This task should take thirty-forty minutes. In your exercise books, write a three paragraph response to the question: ‘How has Bradbury used language to present the Tyrannosaurus Rex in this extract?’

If you are struggling, then use these smaller questions to help you build up to completing the main task.

1. Pick out two phrases that make the T-Rex sound huge –explain your choices.

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2. Pick out the similes. (A comparison using like or as.) Choose one that makes the T-Rex seem dangerous and like a killing machine. Write a detailed explanation of what picture it gives us, and what effect the writer has achieved.

3. Metaphors are comparisons that do not use like or as. An example is “thick rope of muscle.” Pick out as many as you can. Choose one that makes the T-Rex sound powerful and explain it.

Task: This task should take fifteen minutes to complete. Read through the example answers – written by real students. Decide which response is the best and why. How do they compare to your answer? Go back and correct/improve your work.

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Example one

The writer use adverbs to describe the Tyrannosaurus Rex. For example “folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian chest” This quote show us how the writer use adverbs to describe the Tyrannosaurus Rex in details to give a clear image of the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the reader. By doing that the reader would understand more what is happening because the writer gave him a detailed description of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.The writer also use complex sentences to put lots of information in his description. For example, “And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front …” The writer used 3 lines to finish one sentence. This suggest us that the writer wanted to give his best description of the Tyrannosaurus Rex to his readers, to make them live the storey with him.Overall I think that the writer used adverb and complex sentences to give a detailed description of the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the readers and make them live the story with him. I don’t think he wanted to scare the reader by giving all this details to describe the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is also really important for the reader to understand what is happening and for the writer to give clear information.

Example two

The writer uses language to create a terrifying image of the tyrannosaurus rex who seems to loom above the men in a magnificent but horrifying manner.

He starts with the use of a metaphor, “great evil god” to emphasise the power of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The noun “God” has connotations of omniscience and omnipotence suggesting the dinosaur processes great authority and can see beyond the men. Yet this is juxtaposed against the view of him as “great evil” which connotes the devil and emphasises how powerful, yet brutal the monster is. The writer consolidates the ambiguous state of the creature with the image of his ‘delicate watchmakers claws’ straight after to highlight the paradoxical nature of the beast, who is simultaneously barbarous and soft and elegant. The writer also uses the simile, “gleam of pebbled skin like the armour of a terrible warrior” suggesting the dinosaur is a ruthless solider who has layers of thick, protective skin that cannot be pierced. The adjective “pebbled” demonstrates that the skin is rigid and not smooth. We can infer that the writer is creating this monstrous image of the dinosaur that

Example one identifies important words and phrases from the text but is unable to explain the effect of those words/phrases. Saying that a word helps the reader ‘understand more’ is very general and doesn’t get to the root of the word and why it has been used.

Example two is better because it considers the overall impact of the language – ‘creating a terrifying image’ of the dinosaur and is able to consider the connotations of words – such as ‘God’ etc.

Lesson 3:

Task: Using the knowledge you gained from our last unit on creative writing, choose one of the tasks below and spend 1 hour writing a response.

1. Write a description of an encounter with a strange or frightening creature.

OR

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Example two

The writer uses language to create a terrifying image of the tyrannosaurus rex who seems to loom above the men in a magnificent but horrifying manner.

He starts with the use of a metaphor, “great evil god” to emphasise the power of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The noun “God” has connotations of omniscience and omnipotence suggesting the dinosaur processes great authority and can see beyond the men. Yet this is juxtaposed against the view of him as “great evil” which connotes the devil and emphasises how powerful, yet brutal the monster is. The writer consolidates the ambiguous state of the creature with the image of his ‘delicate watchmakers claws’ straight after to highlight the paradoxical nature of the beast, who is simultaneously barbarous and soft and elegant. The writer also uses the simile, “gleam of pebbled skin like the armour of a terrible warrior” suggesting the dinosaur is a ruthless solider who has layers of thick, protective skin that cannot be pierced. The adjective “pebbled” demonstrates that the skin is rigid and not smooth. We can infer that the writer is creating this monstrous image of the dinosaur that

Example three

The writer’s use of metaphors in the text gives the reader a vivid description of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. He refers to it as ‘a great evil god’, the comparison of the dinosaur to a god – something believed to be the most powerful being in existence – allows the reader to gauge just how dangerous and powerful the T-Rex is. The antithesis and constrasting ideas of a ‘great god’ but also ‘evil’ suggests that while god is thought to be loving and caring, this dinosaur is anything but and will use all of its power for evil. Some find it difficult to understand or imagine something as powerful as God and so the phrase ‘great evil god’ shows that the dinosaur is like nothing you have ever seen before or could even begin to imagine.

The write uses a lot of similes throughout the text. He compares its ‘pebbled skin’ to ‘the armour of a terrible warrior’ and says ‘a fence of teeth like daggers’. The comparison of what would be a normal body part to us humans: ‘skin’, which is just simply skin, ‘teeth’, which are just for eating or talking – to items like weapons: - daggers and armour – show that every part of this great creature is a potential weapon and its one purpose is to terrify and kill. The use of imagery in the extract allows the reader to visualise the dinosaur and form a clearer picture in their head of something that would otherwise be very difficult to even begin to imagine. For example, ‘It towered thirty feet above half of the trees’ gives the reader a good idea of the sheer size of it. Usually trees would be described as towering over other things but here the dinosaur is above the trees.

Example three is the best as it offers a variety of associations with certain words, finding less obvious meanings within phrases and going in to detail about how separate phrases work together to create an overall impact on the reader.

2. Write a narrative about travelling back in time.

Week beginning 22 nd June – Poetry work.

Lesson 1:

Task: This activity should take twenty minutes. Read the following poem by Langston Hughes. Annotate (make notes on the meaning and key features of) the poem. Try and summarise what the poem is about.

Try and do this on your own, but if you’re really struggling, look at the information on Litcharts : https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/langston-hughes/i-too the username and password are as follows: Username: Nicola.Rehling@csgrammar.com Password: Purple123

I Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.

Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in the kitchen,"Then.

Besides,They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

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“I, Too” is a poem by Langston Hughes. First published in 1926, during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the poem portrays American racism as experienced by a black man. In the poem, white people deny the speaker a literal and metaphorical seat at the table. However, the speaker asserts that he is just as much as part of America as are white people, and that soon the rest of the country will be forced to acknowledge the beauty and strength of black people.

Task: This task should take forty minutes. Research ‘Langston Hughes’ and ‘The Harlem Renaissance’ and write a paragraph on both in your exercise books.

Lesson 2:

Task: This task should take twenty minutes. Read the following poem and annotate it, looking for devices and interesting use of language. Try this on your own first and then watch the following video for additional ideas and support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbTFNaLxPNs

from Search For My Tongue

You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue. I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue. You could not use them both together even if you thought that way.And if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue, your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to “spit it out.” I thought I spit it out but over night while I dream,

(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)

(may thoonky nakhi chay)

(parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay)

(foolnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)

(modhama kheelay chay)

(fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)

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modham pakay chay)

it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins, it ties the other tongue in knots, the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth, it pushes the other tongue aside. Everytime I think I’ve forgotten, I think I’ve lost the mother tongue, it blossoms out of my mouth.

by Sujata Bhatt

Task: This should take 30 minutes. Answer the following questions in full sentences, using quotes from the poem to support your ideas and elaborating on your points as much as possible:

1) Explain the image of having ‘two tongues’ in the narrator’s mouth. What does she mean?2) What extended metaphor is used to describe her mother tongue throughout the poem?3) The language in brackets is Gujarati. Most people would not be able to read this language.

Why do you think Bhatt includes it in her poem?4) Explain the metaphor of Bhatt’s mother tongue having to ‘rot and die’?5) What is the significance of the final lines of the poem?

Lesson 3: Read the following poem by Grace Nicholls. It is about a man who has migrated from the Caribbean to London but still dreams of where he is originally from.

Task – This should take five minutes. Annotate the poem’s use of colour imagery, underlining words that are associated with a) London and b) the Caribbean

Task - This should take five minutes: Annotate the poem’s use of sound (aural) imagery. Once more consider what words are associated with London and what words are associated with the Caribbean.

Task – This should take twenty minutes: Write two paragraphs on the following question:

How does Nichols creates a sense of an individual longing for home in the poem ‘Island Man’?

Think about the colours and sounds used to describe London and the Caribbean .

Task – This task should take twenty minutes. Write a response to this question: How does the poet, Grace Nichols use imagery and poetic techniques to create a strong sense of place for the reader?

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Island Man –Grace Nicholls

Morningand island man wakes upto the sound of blue surfin his head the steady breaking and wombing

wild sea birdsand fishermen pushing out to seathe sun surfacing defiantlyfrom the eastof his small emerald islandhe always comes back groggily groggily

Comes back to sandsof a grey metallic soarto surge of wheelsto dull north circular roar

Week Beginning 29th June- Poetry continuedLesson 1:

Task: This should take thirty minutes. Complete the chart below comparing the 3 poems we have studied. An example has been added to show you details required.

Use quotations from the poem to support your points.

I Too Island Man Search for my tongueWhat is the poem about? (ideas, feelings, themes)

‘I Too’ explores the plight of discrimination in America and evokes a sense of rebellion against the ‘status quo’ which discriminates against the African American community.

Unlike ‘I Too’ where the speaker sounds resolved and ready to fight, in ‘Island Man’, the speaker seems unsure…

ffect of words and phrases?Language devices and imagery used (rhyme, repetition, alliteration etc)

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Island Man –Grace Nicholls

Morningand island man wakes upto the sound of blue surfin his head the steady breaking and wombing

wild sea birdsand fishermen pushing out to seathe sun surfacing defiantlyfrom the eastof his small emerald islandhe always comes back groggily groggily

Comes back to sandsof a grey metallic soarto surge of wheelsto dull north circular roar

Structure of the poem? (look at the punctuation, sentence structure, layout)Other ideas?

Task: This task should take fifteen minutes. Answer the following question: In your opinion, which poem is the best out of these three and why? Consider whether the poet achieves his/her aims, whether you think their use of devices is effective and how each poem made you feel.

Lesson 2

Task: This task will take one hour. Write an essay in response to the following question ‘Compare the theme of feeling out of place in two of the poems’

Tips for comparing:

• Your points will need to have a comparative base – text one suggests x and y about the theme because of (context) and text two follows a similar concept however it is more focused on x and y because of (context).

• Do not worry if your argument refines itself as you explore evidence, it will shapeshift as you write, so you might have to go back to the beginning and refine what you said or account for the refinement of your argument in your conclusion. Starting with one argument and ending with a slightly amended version is a strength not a weakness.

• Ensure you essay is balanced and that you compare throughout the essay – discuss both texts together as much as possible.

• Tip: Try to open and close most paragraphs with some kind of comparison, and also include links between texts within paragraphs where possible.

• Just using a connective such as ‘Similarly’ or ‘In contrast’ is not sufficient – you must explore and illustrate connections, differences, similarities. It might be that both poems are about a person who feels out of place but they feel that way for vastly different reasons and you delve into what these reasons are, using quotes from each poem to prove your point.

This image offers some further tips for writing in a formal style.

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Lesson 3

For GCSE study you will need to begin forming critical opinions about texts and the ideas they explore. When you voice these opinions, you need to use formal language and use the texts to back up an argument you are forming.

Look at this critical statement about the poetry we have studied: ‘Poetry is not helpful in sorting through ideas about identity. These poems fail to convey what it really feels like to feel as though you don’t belong.’

Task: This task should take fifteen minutes: Mindmap your response to the statement – deal with both parts: the idea poetry is not helpful for this topic and then whether the poems in question fail to show us anything real about identity. Use quotes from the poem to back up your point.

Task: This task should take thirty minutes. Write a response to the statement – explain how far you agree with the critical comment and why you have taken the stance you have. Use the Academic debate card below to help you.

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Week Beginning 6th July – Introduction to 19th Century texts and the GothicLesson 1

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For these lessons, we are going to explore the gothic genre in preparation for a novel you will be reading in year 10..

In order to explore the genre, we need to understand what it is, what it is not, and what influenced it in the first place. We are going to aim to answer the following questions:

What influenced Gothic literature?

What is Gothic literature?

Key Elements, Themes, or Tropes of Gothic LiteratureAtmosphere: mystery, suspense, and fearBattle: of good (morally good, virtuous, or pious) vs. evil (morally wrong, immoral, wicked)Death: usually appears in one way or another, whether it is an actual death, a graveyard, etc.Inexplicable Events: Elements of the supernatural or paranormalMelodrama: aka high emotionMystery: This is usually present even if the mystery later can be explained and ends up not being fantasticalOmens: or foreshadowing of things to come, especially in the form of dreamsSetting:  Gothic architecture plays an important role like a castle or large manor and/or caves / wilderness.Supernatural: this is present in many ways, whether it is the devil, a villain, a haunting, etc.Maiden in Distress: Our heroines are often orphans, abandoned or without guardian, leaving them open to become prey by the traditional Gothic villain (usually powerful men)

Task: This task will take fifteen minutes. You will have read and studied Gothic texts in the past – can you start by mindmapping what you already know about this genre. Here are some smaller questions to help you: What ideas are often repeated in Gothic texts? What is the difference between Gothic and Horror? Can you name some gothic texts? Feel free to research in the internet if you have access and need some assistance.

The following activity is designed around academic reading. This means you will be given an article to read and answer questions on. This article has been selected because it will aid your understanding of Gothic Literature. If you need any assistance, email your teacher or watch Miss Ballard’s video on the website which goes over Gothic Literature and what influenced it in more detail.

If you would like to access the full article, then you can do so here: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-origins-of-the-gothic However, the main parts of the article are below with key questions for you to answer as you read.

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Paragraph Titles

Horace Walpole first coined the term. It was part of a joke when he tried to make a story seem old when it wasn’t he wanted to create mystery.

Task: This should take twenty minutes. Read the article. Highlight two sentences in each paragraph which you deem to be the most important. Down the left-hand side, add a title for each paragraph. On the right-hand side, summarise what each paragraph is saying in two or three bullet points. This follows the guided reading strategy we use in class. One has been done for you so you can see what your work should look like.

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Gothic fiction began as a sophisticated joke. Horace Walpole first applied the word ‘Gothic’ to a novel in the subtitle – ‘A Gothic Story’ – of The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. When he used the word it meant something like ‘barbarous’, as well as ‘deriving from the Middle Ages’. Walpole pretended that the story itself was an antique relic, providing a preface in which a translator claims to have discovered the tale, published in Italian in 1529, ‘in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England’. The story itself, ‘founded on truth’, was written three or four centuries earlier still (Preface). Some readers were duly deceived by this fiction and aggrieved when it was revealed to be a modern ‘fake’.

The novel itself tells a supernatural tale in which Manfred, the gloomy Prince of Otranto, develops an irresistible passion for the beautiful young woman who was to have married his son and heir. The novel opens memorably with this son being crushed to death by the huge helmet from a statue of a previous Prince of Otranto, and throughout the novel the very fabric of the castle comes to supernatural life until villainy is defeated. Walpole, who made his own house at Strawberry Hill into a mock-Gothic building, had discovered a fictional territory that has been exploited ever since. Gothic involves the supernatural (or the promise of the supernatural), it often involves the discovery of mysterious elements of antiquity, and it usually takes its protagonists into strange or frightening old buildings.

In the 1790s, novelists rediscovered what Walpole had imagined. The doyenne of Gothic novelists was Ann Radcliffe, and her most famous novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) took its title from the name of a fictional Italian castle where much of the action is set. Like Walpole, she created a brooding aristocratic villain, Montoni, to threaten her resourceful virgin heroine Emily with an unspeakable fate. All of Radcliffe’s novels are set in foreign lands, often with lengthy descriptions of sublime scenery. Udolpho is set amongst the dark and looming Apennine Mountains – Radcliffe derived her settings from travel books. 

Radcliffe’s fiction was the natural target for Jane Austen’s satire in Northanger Abbey. The book’s novel-loving heroine, Catherine Morland, imposes on reality the Gothic plots with which she is familiar. In fact, Radcliffe’s mysteries all turn out to have natural, if complicated, explanations. Some critics, like Coleridge, complained about her timidity in this respect. Yet she had made a discovery: ‘gothic’ truly came alive in the thoughts and anxieties of her characters. Gothic has always been more about fear of the supernatural than the supernatural itself.

A second wave of Gothic novels in the second and third decades of the 19th century established new conventions. Mary Shelley’s   Frankenstein  (1818) gave a scientific form to the supernatural formula. And James Hogg’s elaborately titled The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) is the story of a man pursued by his own double. A character’s sense of encountering a double of him- or herself, also essential to Frankenstein, was established as a powerful new Gothic motif.

Bullet Point Paragraph Summary

The origin of Gothic stories

Task: This task should take twenty minutes. Based on your learning try and answer the two main questions posed at the start of the lesson: What is Gothic Literature and what influenced Gothic Literature? The sentence starters below should help you.

Gothic literature is…..

Features of gothic literature include…

This genre can be recognised by……

Gothic literature was written because….

Another event that influenced gothic was….

I think people enjoyed gothic literature because…

Lesson two

Retrieval practice – building on your work from last lesson:

Task: This task should take five minutes. Write your own ten word definition of Gothic Literature based on your notes from last lesson.

The extract below is from ‘the Woman in Black’ by Susan Hill. If you have access to the internet and your parent or carer allows it, you can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPYMUnJGURI Please note that it is a ‘12’ certified film so is suitable for your age group, but if you do not like scary films of any kind then please do not watch the trailer. If you do watch it, consider how it uses the conventions of the gothic genre.

Task: Read the extract and annotate the parts you feel link to the gothic genre. (five minutes)

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Task: This task should take twenty minutes. Please answer the questions below on the extract ‘The Woman in Black’. Be sure to use full sentences and to provide as much detail as possible in your responses.

-What ideas are used that seem gothic? -Which language choices seem more mysterious? -How does the first-person narration develop the sense of mystery?

Susan Hill has written many gothic texts and her top tips for writing in this style are below:

Task: You have twenty minutes to write a description/short extract from a gothic story using AS MANY of these words and conventions of gothic fiction as possible…

If you want to you can use the starter, ‘Obscuring the night’s light, the trees’ gnarled fingers clawed at the moon, warning it to stay away…’

Bleak obscured they candle cemetery mist raven trapped decaying

withered pale hunched creaked

Shriek fear house dread heartbeat

Branches isolation gargoyle Silence anxiety twilight church howled

Lesson three

This lesson gets you to consider how characters are created in gothic texts.

There are three main types of monster in gothic texts:

1. The external monster: An outsider. The external monster will be one who comes from ‘somewhere else’ and brings the threat to a community e.g. vampires, mummies, ghosts.

2. The man-made monster: Man’s creation.

3. The internal monster: Man gone wrong. Here the monster is human. Perhaps a character who has gone mad.

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- Use of the weather and time of day to reflect the mood

- Create a sense of mystery through a feeling of being trapped or obscuring things

- Precise selection of verbs

- Describe the narrator’s feelings rather than revealing any immediate danger

Task (15 mins): Read through both ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’. In the first text, the main character, Harker, is describing Dracula. In the second text, Victor Frankenstein (a scientist) is describing the ‘monster’ he has just created. As you read, highlight and annotate any interesting language features which you think are creating a specific impression of these characters.

DraculaThe protagonist of the novel, Jonathan Harker, first meets Count Dracula in his castle. He is under the illusion that Dracula is a Transylvanian businessman, and goes to the castle unaware of the danger he is in. Here is his first description of the count.

His face was a strong- a very strong- aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice they were rather coarse- broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over to me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.

Extract from Frankenstein – Chapter 5.

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the 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 panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions 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

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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; 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.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness.

Task: Answer the following questions. This should take thirty – forty minutes.

1). How do the narrator’s in each text react to the ‘monster’ in the story?

2). Complete the character analysis hexagon grid in your books – focus on either Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster.

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Task: Using similar techniques to these gothic writers, create your own description of a monster to appear in a gothic text.

Week Beginning 13th July – Introduction to 19th Century texts and the Gothic

The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs

Chapter 1

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Lesson one

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Task: Answer the following questions in your exercise book. This should take twenty-five minutes.

1. From which point of view is the story being told?

2. Explain how the author creates suspense in the first 10 lines.

3. What does the sergeant-major’s avoidance reveal?

4. Can you trace any gothic conventions in the story so far?

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Task: If you could have three wishes what would you wish for? Create a short story where these wishes are granted – consider what the consequences might be in having this sort of power. This should take thirty – forty minutes.

Lesson twoThe Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs

Chapter 2

Task: Pause your reading here and pick out three quotes from the story so far (either from this lesson or the last lesson). For each one, explode the quote coming up with as many ideas as possible as to what the language shows you about the characters and ideas in the text. (Twenty minutes)

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1. How does the author create suspense with the mysterious man’s arrival, beginning on line 169?

2. How might the story be different if it had been told from Mr. White’s point of view?

3. Why do you think the writer chooses to ‘punish’ the couple for their wish? What moral might he be trying to convey?

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Lesson three

In this final lesson – finish reading ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ and answer the longer form question below.

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Task: This should take thirty - forty five minutes to answer: In the whole text, how is language and structure used to build up suspense and tension?

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Success Criteria How did you do? Write at least four paragraphs Use more than one quotation from the story in each

paragraph ANALYSE key words and images Comment on how the reader might react to key

ideas and images Use a range of sophisticated vocabulary Link to the Gothic conventions What is the writer saying about emotions? How are

they powerful?Impress me:

What are the most emotionally intense moments in this story? How do you react to them?

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