Unit 4

Lesson 1

• In your house, read the text and figure out the title of the unit __ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (4 words and 25 letters: GOTHIC LITERATURE AND MOVIES)

Harry walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialized door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver door knocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Lupin pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Harry heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. The door creaked open.

“Get in quick, Harry,” Lupin whispered. “But don’t go far inside and don’t touch anything.”

Harry stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. He could smell damp, dust, and a sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. […]

The others’ hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person. He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Harry heard something scuttling behind the baseboard. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents. […]

“Keep your voice down in the hall,” she added in an urgent whisper.

“Why?”
“I don’t want to wake anything up.”


“What d’you — ?”


“I’ll explain later, I’ve got to hurry, I’m supposed to be at the meeting — I’ll just show you where you’re sleeping.”
Pressing her finger to her lips, she led him on tiptoes past a pair of long, moth-eaten curtains, behind which Harry supposed there must be another door, and after skirting a large umbrella stand that looked as though it had been made from a severed troll’s leg, they started up the dark staircase, passing a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall. A closer look showed Harry that the heads belonged to house-elves. All of them had the same rather snout-like nose.

Harry’s bewilderment deepened with every step he took. What on earth were they doing in a house that looked as though it belonged to the Darkest of wizards?[…] Harry crossed the dingy landing, turned the bedroom doorknob, which was shaped like a serpent’s head, and opened the door.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling, ch.4, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, pp. 60-2

“He’s not a nutter, Ron —”


“His life’s ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on a plaque just like his mother,” said Ron irritably. “Is that normal, Hermione?”[…]

“We’re eating down in the kitchen,” Mrs. Weasley whispered, meeting them at the bottom of the stairs. “Harry, dear, if you’ll just tiptoe across the hall, it’s through this door here —”

CRASH.

“Tonks!” cried Mrs. Weasley exasperatedly, turning to look behind her.

“I’m sorry!” wailed Tonks, who was lying flat on the floor. “It’s that stupid umbrella stand, that’s the second time I’ve tripped over—”

But the rest of her words were drowned by a horrible, ear-splitting, bloodcurdling screech.

The moth-eaten velvet curtains Harry had passed earlier had flown apart, but there was no door behind them. For a split second, Harry thought he was looking through a window, a window behind which an old woman in a black cap was screaming and screaming as though she was being tortured — then he realized it was simply a life-size portrait, but the most realistic, and the most unpleasant, he had ever seen in his life.

The old woman was drooling, her eyes were rolling, the yellowing skin of her face stretched taut as she screamed, and all along the hall behind them, the other portraits awoke and began to yell too, so that Harry actually screwed up his eyes at the noise and clapped his hands over his ears.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling, ch.4, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, pp.76-8

• What does the first word of the title mean? Give a few words to start building a definition. 

Highlight all the elements in the text that you think may relate to it and fill in your column.

-> England - Feelings, expressions

-> Wales - Nouns

-> Scotland - Adjectives

-> Northern Ireland - Verbs

• Read the riddle and write your answer and the name of your house on a little bit of paper and give it to your neighbour. At the 'top', your neighbour will open your paper and shout the answer on '3'. If all the members of the same house have the right answer, you will get 150 points. 

Now, try to define what is Gothic Literature. To help you, in your copybook, let's create a mind map with different categories.

• Try to fill in the blanks in the definition from the Oxford Dictionary

Lesson 2

• Look at the three pictures, compare them and fill in the table. 

What are the main traits of this character? What feelings are associated with them?

• Now, watch the video. Take notes on the different things that you hear or see and which are linked with the Gothic genre. 

Lesson 3

Pick a word from your notes and write it on the board. It needs to be a characteristic of Gothic genre. 

• In groups of 3, write a paragraph about the video using EVERY word on the board and which explains how this document is representative of the Gothic genre. 

Then, read and do the worksheets on Gothic literature as well as the worksheets on adjectives and have a look at the two worksheets on vocabulary.

Lesson 4

• On your way to school, you meet a Gothic monster. In pairs, draw him as well as you can, write a short paragraph describing him and give him a backstory.

You have to follow the rules of the Gothic genre and use as many adjectives as you can to describe them.

• Once you have your monster, you will introduce him to the class: either both of you will have met the monster and describe them to the class OR one of you will impersonate the monster. 

Lesson 5

• Each house will receive a document. You will have the hour to discuss this document, make a list of the important information and create two activities and a small paragraph summing up what you have learnt to give to the other houses. At the end of the hour, you will give those two documents to the teacher to be copied so that your classmates can work on them and discover new elements. 

England will work on the video below.

Wales (2 groups) will work on Mary Shelly, The Author and on the text Frankenstein.

Scotland (2 groups) will work on the SpeakEasy documents.

Northern Ireland (2 groups) will work on the comic.

ENGLAND:

WALES:

SCOTLAND:

NORTHERN IRELAND:

Lesson 6

Read the extract from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde below:

• What are the Gothic elements in that story? Highlight them.

Comment on the names: Jekyll / Hyde / Grimmauld Place / Hogwarts / Snape ...

-> What are their hidden meanings?

Now, have a look at the document below.

Try to apply this diagram to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

• Now watch the video summarising the story of Frankenstein. 

Assignment: Fill in the empty one with the elements from Frankenstein. 

Lesson 7

Final task: 

On a pad, created for this purpose that you will find on EcoleDirecte (Cloud, U4 L7), you will each write one sentence in order to create a Gothic story. 

It needs to respect:

• the tenses
• the atmosphere
• the right settings
• the characteristics of the Gothic genre

And finally, it needs to be written in proper English. No slang, no insults.