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KS3 · Year 8 - Development · Term 3 - Gothic and the Uncanny · Week 2
Pages: Gothic conventions + Frankenstein opening (Walton's letter)
Mary Shelley, 1818. Walton's polar voyage letters open the novel. Establishes Gothic landscape and unease.
Lesson 1
What students do
Introduce Gothic conventions checklist.
Task
Read Walton's letter; tick each convention you find.
Success criteria
4+ conventions identified with line references.
Lesson 2
What students do
Discuss: what makes the Arctic "sublime"?
Task
Pair-talk using "This suggests… because…".
Success criteria
Links landscape to feelings of awe and fear.
Lesson 3
What students do
Model: "Shelley uses setting to suggest…".
Task
Write paragraph on isolation in Walton's letter.
Success criteria
Two quotations embedded; setting linked to feeling.
Lesson 4
What students do
Identify foreboding signals (weather, silence).
Task
Highlight 3 foreboding details; explain each.
Success criteria
Each detail linked to atmosphere of unease.
Lesson 5
What students do
Recap paragraph criteria.
Task
How does Shelley create a Gothic atmosphere?
Success criteria
Two conventions analysed; sentence stem used.
AI marking - try this with the English Hub feedback engine
Students can submit their independent paragraph to the AI feedback engine for AO-aligned commentary. Their teacher sees the same feedback alongside their own marking. The task is auto-loaded into the practice surface - students just write and submit.
Open the marking surface with this task pre-loaded →