Learning about Frankenstein.
Characters:
Theme: Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. Past tenses.
Competencies
Competence in Linguistic Communication
Competence in cultural awareness and expressions
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > English > 4th ESO > Communication
Enunciation
We are going to read an article about British writer Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein. To do so, here there are some activities:
ACTIVITY 1
PART A (Warm-up):
QUIZ: What do you know about Frankenstein? Do this quick quiz and find out.
1) Frankenstein is, in origin,...
a) A film
b) A novel
c) A theatre play
2) According to the story, who is Frankenstein?
a) A monster
b) An alien
c) A scientist
3) Who wrote Frankenstein?
a) Lord Byron
b) Mary Shelley
c) Bram Stoker
4. When was Frankenstein published?
a) 1818
b) 1923
c) 1765
PART B
Read the article about the famous writer Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. Fill in the gaps with the Past Simple or Past Continuous of the verbs in brackets.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel. Films like Edward Scissorhands or Avengers are Frankenstein’s adaptations in disguise.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most famous horror novels ever. She (1) ___________ (publish) it in 1818 and, since then, hundreds of film adaptations of it have been made. The novel’s success lies in the fact that it poses philosophical questions that continue unresolved today. Mary Shelley (2) ______________ (create) this novel in the Romantic spirit of her time and added gothic and horror elements to create a spooky story that warns us about the dangers of an irresponsible use of science and technology.
Mary Shelley (3) _______________ (be) born in 1797 in London. Her parents (4)_______________ (be) William Godwin, a philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist writer, who died soon after giving birth to Mary Shelley.
Mary Shelley (5) _______________ (receive) a great education, not common for women at that time. While other girls’s education consisted in learning to be good wives and mothers, Mary Shelley read a lot of books of philosophy and politics and literature. She was only 19 years old when she (6)________________ (write) Frankestein, a novel about a scientist who gives life to a creature and then cruelly rejects it, causing the creature become brutal as it tries to make friends.
Mary Shelley’s idea for her most famous novel came while she (7) _________________ (spend) some days with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, their friend Lord Byron, and other famous authors. During those days, the weather was very bad, and it (8) __________________ (rain) almost every day, so the group of friends had to stay indoors most of the time. They (9) ________________ (read) horror stories when Lord Byron suggested having a horror story contest. Everyone wrote their story and read it to the rest, but Mary could not think of one. One night, Mary (10)_______________ (have) fantastic dream while she (11) ________________ (sleep). As soon as she (12) _______________ (wake) up, she wrote it down and read it to her friends. They all (13) _________________ (feel) amazed. It was brilliant. Percy Shelley encouraged Mary Shelley to make it longer and create a novel. The novel was published as Frankenstein two years later, and it (14) ___________________ (become) more successful than any of the other writings produced that summer.
Since then, Frankenstein has been present in the popular culture worldwide and has influenced many of the science fiction films that we know today, such as Edward Scissorhands, about an artificially created human-like creature whose scissorhands provoke the scorn of people, or Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the figure of a mad scientist who achieves something god-like but ends up creating something terrible.
Adapted from:
https://junkee.com/the-blockbuster-films-you-didnt-realise-owe-everything-to-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/56548 (13/04/2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley (13/04/2022)
https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/tormento-literario-mary-shelley_15577 (13/04/2022)
Observations and context
The aim of this activity is to introduce students to Mary Shelley and to review the contrast of past tenses: Past Simple and Past Continuous. The text could be made more complicated and other tenses such as Present Perfect and Past Perfect could be added.
Part A is a warm-up activity to activate prior knowledge and prepare students for Part B, which is a grammar activity.
This worksheet can be complemented with the activity Frankenstein is still alive , which incorporates a reading comprehension of the text included in this activity. Also with the activity Frankenstein's puzzle, in which oral comprehension and written production are worked on.
Some of Mary Shelley's contemporaries, who influenced her work, are mentioned in the following points.
- Mary Wollstoncraft (1759-1797), mother of Mary Shelley and one of the pioneers of the modern feminist movement (notably her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792). She was a strong advocate of a social order based on reason. She established herself as a professional freelance writer in London, which was unusual for the time.
- Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), poet, essayist, literary critic, editor and children's author. She had a great influence on the Romantic movement of the time by promoting Enlightenment values and sensibility. Her poetry contributed to the development of British Romanticism and her anthology of 18th century novels helped to establish the current literary canon.
- Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), writer of what is considered the first Romantic novel in the English language, Jane Eyre, which already incorporates elements of the Gothic.
- Emily Brontë (1818-1848), whose novel Wuthering Heights also incorporates elements of the Gothic and has become established as one of the classics of British literature.
- Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1848), one of the great novelists who wrote about "the condition of England", that is, about society and the problems of the working class. Her novels include Mary Barton and North and South.
- George Sand, pseudonym of Amantine Lucile Aurore de Dudevant (1804-1876), one of the most notable writers of Romanticism and immensely popular in her time.
Description
Contextual models and commonly used discursive genres.
Activity to review the Past Simple and Past Continuous verb tenses based on a text about Mary Shelley and her work Frankenstein. The activity is preceded by a questionnaire to activate previous knowledge and introduce the figure of Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein.