Hello, my name's Ms. Halladay.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I'll be your teacher taking you through today's learning.

So let's get started, shall we? So today's lesson is called Stave 2: the first of three spirit.

And today we're going to be looking at Reading Stave 2 and they're looking specifically at the Ghost of Christmas Past.

So by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to understand the role of the first spirit in a Christmas Carol.

Here are some key words that you'll need for today's lesson.

We've got to emanate, empathy, to enlighten, inescapable, and manifestation.

Here are the definitions of these keywords.

If you feel the need to pause the video and digest them in your own time, then please feel free to do so.

Here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to start by reading Stave 2 and looking at some comprehension questions.

We're then going to move on to looking at the role of the first spirit and how Dickens uses its physical appearance to reflect its purpose.

But let's start first by reading Stave 2.

I'd like to start today's lesson with a discussion and a recap.

I'd like you to consider what do you already know about spirits that will visit Scrooge? What do you think this first spirit, The Ghost of Christmas Past might show Scrooge? And what do you imagine that Scrooge was like as a child and why? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video now while you discuss those three questions.

Some fantastic discussions, and I'd like you to hold those ideas in your head 'cause you'll need them later.

Later in the lesson, I'm going to set you off reading independently.

But before we do that, I'd like to read some to you myself.

So as I'm reading, I'd like you to follow along.

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.

He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters.

So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven and from seven to eight and regularly up to 12, and then stopped.

12! It was past two when he went to bed, the clock was wrong.

An icicle must have gotten into the works.

12! He touched the spring of his repeater to correct this most preposterous clock.

It's rapid little pulse beat 12 and stopped.

Before we continue reading, I'd like to check your understanding of the passage that we've just read.

What might the darkness and Scrooge's inability to see through it symbolise here? Do you think it's A, his physical appearance as he has dark hair, B, his cruelty and harsh treatment of others, C, his willful ignorance of other suffering, or is it D, his wealth and pursuit of material gain? And I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you jot down the letter that corresponds to the answer.

A massive well done.

Okay you are absolutely right.

It is C.

Okay the darkness and his inability to see through it represents his willful ignorance.

Let's carry on reading "Why? It isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept for a whole day and far into another night.

It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun and that this is 12 at noon!" The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed and groped his way to the window.

He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything and could see very little then.

All he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would've been if night had beaten off bright day and taken possession of the world.

So what I'd like you to do now is discuss the following two questions.

Firstly, how does Scrooge feel here? And secondly, what might the fog and cold symbolise? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you have those conversations now.

Some fantastic discussions, well done.

Now in terms of how Scrooge is feeling, he's feeling an absolute sense of disbelief and he's really confused at the way that time is going because he knows that he went to bed at two o'clock the previous night, and yet it seems to be the following night at 12 o'clock.

So he doesn't understand how days have since he last went to bed.

Now, in terms of the fog and the cold, we know that the fog tends to symbolise scrooge's ignorance.

Okay, and the cold represents his cold-hearted nature.

Okay, so Dickens here is using pathetic fallacy to reflect Scrooge's character.

So well done if you got that idea.

Let's carry on.

This was a great relief.

Three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order, and so forth would've become a mere United States' security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over and could make nothing of it.

The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly.

Now I'd like to clarify this little bit of context for you, first of all.

So a bill of exchange is basically a written order that outlines the day that a payment has to be made.

So here Scrooge is really relieved because it means that it's not affected his business, okay? When he realises that you know nothing, it's not like he's slept through several days.

The first thought on his mind is, oh no, thank heavens, because my business is okay.

Okay so he's very grateful that his business hasn't been affected by what he perceived to be his oversleeping.

Now the question I'd like you to debate next is why might Molly's ghost be bothering Scrooge? Okay, so I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you have that discussion and consider why Scrooge might be bothered by Marley's Ghost? Fantastic work.

Okay and I really like the suggestion that actually not only is Scrooge a little bit traumatised from the visit from Marley's Ghost, but he's also thinking about the warning that Marley's Ghost gave him and the fact that Marley's Ghost told him to expect visits from three different ghosts.

So he's probably feeling quite anxious anticipating another supernatural visitor here.

So well done if you got that.

So in a moment I'm going to set you off to read the rest of the Stave independently.

But before I do that, I just wanted to remind you of the interactive reading strategies that I'd like you to use as you're reading.

So please remember that you should be circling key vocab, underlining important words, using square brackets to draw attention to important paragraphs, starring key ideas, and making annotations in your margin.

And all of these will help you when we come to analyse the text holistically once we finish reading it.

Okay? So it's really important that you undertake these interactive reading strategies.

And now as I said, I'm going to instruct you to read the rest of Saved 2 from "Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly all the way to the end, which finishes with "he sank into a heavy sleep." Now as you're reading, we need to make sure that we are understanding what we've read.

So I'd like you to pause and discuss the following questions.

First of all, what does the Ghost of Christmas past look like? How does Scrooge respond to the spirit when he states that he has come for Scrooge's welfare? What was Scrooge's childhood like? How does Scrooge respond to seeing memories from his childhood? How did Fezziwig treat Scrooge? Who is Belle and what's happened between her and Scrooge? And finally, why do you think Dickens has shown us Scrooge's past? And again, a little reminder that as you are reading, you should be using your interactive reading strategies.

So I'm going to invite you to pause the video now while you finish reading and answer the comprehension questions on screen.

Enjoy.

So really good chapter.

Fantastic reading, and I can see loads of annotations and stars and underlining, so I can see that you've done your interactive reading really efficiently.

So well done.

So now that we've read Stave 2, I'd like to collect and share responses to the comprehension questions.

So the first question was, what does the Ghost of Christmas Past look like? Now the ghost is described as being like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man.

And it has long white hair, a smooth face, and long and muscular arms. The ghost is wearing a white tunic with a luscious belt and has a clear, bright jet of light emanating from its head.

We are told that its form appears to shift and it fluctuates between shapes.

It dissolves in part s so that no outline would be visible in the dense gloom.

Now, if you missed any of those really key points, I suggest that you add them to your own annotations or answers so that you've got all the information that you need when we look back at this Stave.

The next question was, how does Scrooge respond to the spirit when he states that he's come for Scrooge's welfare? Now Scrooge reacts with ingratitude to the ghost's affirmation that he came for his welfare because he could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive than the visit from the ghost.

So he is actually really ungrateful here and he kind of wishes that instead of this visit from the ghost, he'd just been allowed to have a full night's sleep.

That's very ingrateful, ungrateful, sorry.

But it's also very typical of Scrooge because he is not particularly receptive to anybody else's emotions or anybody else's lessons at this point in the novela.

So a very quintessential Scrooge reaction there.

So you were then asked what Scrooge's childhood was like, and well, we know that it was lonely.

We are shown that he was sent to boarding school by his father during a solitary child, neglected by his friends.

We know that young Scrooge read avidly as a form of escapism because he had no friends.

So he was able to kind of interact imaginarily with all these other characters and people and that's why he liked reading so much.

We also learned that Scrooge school master regarded him with a ferocious condescension and that Scrooge's father, often left him at school during the holidays and that he was not kind to his children.

We learned that Scrooge and his sister Fan shared a close relationship, but that she unfortunately died young and left a child, which is Fred, nephew.

So overall we learned that Scrooge had quite a challenging childhood and that many of these events probably were, could have been quite traumatising to Scrooge, especially the death of his sister.

So we do feel a little bit sorry for him in this moment of the text.

In terms of how Scrooge responds to seeing memories from his childhood, while he actually gets really upset and he cries several times, he demonstrates pity for his former self stating poor boy and he cries loads before becoming uneasy when the spirit reminds him that his sister fan left his nephew behind.

Okay? He also expresses remorse and regret at not giving the caroler some money.

Okay so we see him softening up a little bit in this Stave.

In terms of how Fezziwig treated Scrooge.

We know that Fezziwig was Scrooge former employer, and he actually treated Scrooge with great kindness almost as if he were his son, okay? He refers to him as my boy, my lad, and he invited him to a huge Christmas party that the whole community attended, where he put on food and entertainment for everybody watching Fezziwig treat his former self so kindly actually makes Scrooge wish he could say a word or two to Bob.

Okay? So again, we see a softer side of Scrooge here as he kind of regrets the way that he spoke to Bob earlier that day.

Next question, who is Belle and what happened between her and Scrooge? Well, Belle's Scrooge's former fiance.

She ends their relationship because she feels displaced by another idol and she specifies that it's a golden one.

So money.

She feels that Scrooge has abandoned his nobler aspirations for money and gain.

And she feels that Scrooge has changed and that he fears poverty too much to enjoy his life and she therefore no longer wishes to marry him.

So she breaks off their engagement, which is a quite a sad moment, especially for Scrooge watching back.

So well done if you got that.

And last question, why do you think Dickens has shown a Scrooge's past? Well, he shows a Scrooge's past to illustrate how Scrooge has become the selfish and avarivious miser that he is today.

His lack of generosity is rooted in his deep fear of poverty, okay? And that's something that we only realise in this Stave that actually there is a method behind the madness and that it is a deep rooted fear of poverty that drives Scrooge's callousness.

He states that there is nothing so hard as poverty.

In showing us Scrooge's past Dickens is also illustrating not only Scrooge's for empathy because he is able to empathise with himself as a young child and then the Carol and Bob, but also our capacity as a reader, okay, for empathy for Scrooge because we feel really sorry for him in this moment.

And we're able to understand actually how he's become the person that he has, how he's become this wicked and callous character that we see in Stave 1.

And we understand that Scrooge is kind of a direct result of all of the events of his past that have traumatised him or upset him or isolated him in some way.

So by creating empathy for Scrooge.

Dickens makes him a character we care about.

And that's really important, okay? Because our dislike for him actually turns into hope.

And if we didn't like Scrooge at least a little bit or we're able to understand him, we wouldn't be rooting for him to transform, okay? We wouldn't want to see transform and change and become better.

We just wouldn't care, okay? So it's really important that Dickens creates that little bit of empathy from us as a reader for Scrooge, so that we root for him as the protagonist so that we're happy for him in the end of the novella when he changes and becomes a better character.

I am going to give you a few moments now to pause the video and share any other annotations you made when you were actively reading, using your interactive reading strategies.

So pause the video and share anything else you noticed or found interesting about the text.

And onto our second learning cycle of the lesson where we're going to look in a little bit more detail at exactly what the role of the first spirit is.

But first, a little discussion I'd like you to think before we start to discuss it as a group, well, what do you think the spirit might represent here? Okay, so I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you have that discussion.

Some fantastic discussions there.

And I'm gonna share the idea that I heard that I liked best.

So I heard somebody say that the Ghost of Christmas Past could be said to represent this idea of enlightenment because it forces him to confront his past pain and prompt him to reflect on his actions.

So in that sense, it represents enlightenment.

Now to enlighten somebody means to provide them with some information so that they can understand something.

And with that in mind, I'd like you to consider now, well what is it that Scrooge needs to understand and why does he need to be enlightened? So I'm gonna invite you to pause the video for five seconds while you have those conversations and discuss what do you think Scrooge needs to understand and why does he need to understand it? Why does he need to be enlightened? Some fantastic discussions there.

And I really liked this idea that actually Scrooge needs to be enlightened as to the error of his ways, okay? The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge, all of his past memories and the interactions and relationships that he had and points out exactly where Scrooge went wrong and how his life has led up to this point where he's isolated, alone and miserly.

Okay? So he needs to be enlightened in order to understand the mistakes that he made so that he can rectify those mistakes and ensure that he doesn't make them again.

So well done if you got that, excellent work.

So let's have a look at the text now.

And we're going to look at how the Ghost of Christmas Past appearance reflects its purpose, which is to enlighten Scrooge.

So I'm going to read you this extract and as I'm reading, I'd like you to follow along please.

It was a strange figure, like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave your appearance of having receded from the view and being diminished to a child's proportions.

Its hair which hung about its neck and down its back was white as if with age.

And yet the face had not a wrinkle in it.

And the tenders bloom was on the skin.

The arms were very long and muscular.

The hands the same as if its hold were of uncommon strength.

But the strangest thing about it was that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright, clear jet of light by which all this was visible and which was doubtless the occasion of its choosing in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap which it now held under its arm.

Even this though, when screws looked at it with increasing steadiness was not its strangest quality.

For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another.

And what was light one instant other time was dark so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness being now a thing with one arm.

Now with one leg, now with 20 legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body, of which dissolving parts, no outline will be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.

So a student Andeep said about this passage, Scrooge's past is long and inescapable as it influences his present behaviour.

Scrooge was shown both happy and sad memories that marks significant periods of his past.

The ghost's mission is enlighten Scrooge and show him the error of his ways.

Now, bearing this in mind, I'd like you now to discuss, do you agree with Andeep or not and why? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you have those conversations and decide whether or not you agree.

Fantastic discussions and well done for re being so respectful with one another.

It's great to hear such a range of opinions.

We're going to look at some aspects of the spirit's physical appearance and how this reflects his purpose as an enlightener.

So I'd like you to discuss now, well how does the spirit's physical appearance reflect its role in novella? But I've given you some questions to guide you.

So you'll notice that the quotations that I'd like you to focus on are down the left hand side in the left hand column.

And I've put some questions on the right hand side to guide you.

So we've got like a child yet, so not so like child is like an old man.

And here we've got the question, what might Dickens use of juxtaposition reflect here? So we've got the longer muscular arms, and why might the spirit need long arms if it's showing Scrooge his past.

We've got the bright clear jet of light from its head, and what does the light represent here and what impression of the spirit does this give? We've got the sparkly belt.

And the question is, what could the sparkling belt reflect or foreshadow? And then finally we've got the fluctuating figure, okay? And we've got what does this aspect of the spirit's appearance foreshadow? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you have some discussions and make some notes as to how the spirit's physical appearance reflects its purpose, which is to enlighten Scrooge.

Remember that you've got those questions there to help you.

So off you go, have those discussions.

Some fantastic discussions there.

So let's have a look at some of the things you might have said.

So first of all, the spirit is a physical manifestation of memory.

Okay now our memories are distant and muddled together and we carry our childhood with us.

And that might be why the spirit simultaneously looks like an old man and a child 'cause it's the suggestion that the past is always with us, that the past is inescapable, and that it's such an important part of our identity that it will always remain with us.

Now, in terms of the spirit's long and muscular arms and hands, these represent that the past is really powerful and far reaching.

Okay, it's a long past, okay? And also that it's inescapable.

You've got to imagine almost like these long and try to run away us.

They would reach out and grab you back because you cannot get away from your past and your memories are inescapable.

So that's what they reflect.

Now in terms of the crown of light that springs from its head, well obviously the light reflects in enlightenment and the fact that Scrooge is going to be shown the error of his ways.

The fact that there's a light emanating from the top of the spirit's head also makes him somewhat resemble a candle.

Now in literature, candles tend to represent hope and guidance.

So here, if we were to take that kind of example, the spirit would be metaphorically representing this idea of a better future for Scrooge and hope for Scrooge's transformation.

So it's a really powerful piece of description by Dickens there that foreshadowed Scrooge's change in the end of the novela.

Now we've got this sparkling belt, okay? And the sparkling belt reflects scrooge's potential for a bright future if he decides to change his ways.

And it also reflects the light and dark in his past because we've got that juxtaposition of the dark versus the light.

Okay? And that reflects Scrooge's past some of the moments were fond memories, and some of them, you know, were very traumatic and damaging for Scrooge.

So the sparkling belt also reflects that as well.

And finally, the indistinct figure of the ghost reflects how our memory of the past shifts and changes over time.

Okay, sometimes we remember memories more clearly than others, and also it reflects Scrooge's change in the end and foreshadows his transformation to a more moral and more philanthropic character.

So here Dickens so clearly uses the Ghost's physical appearance to reflect its purpose, and that is to enlighten Scrooge.

So well done if you manage to make any of those annotations or if you mention those in your discussions, I'm really impressed with your work.

So let's check your understanding.

True or false.

The ghost's long and muscular arms are there to stop Scrooge from running away from his past.

Do you think that's true or do you think that's false? And I'm gonna give you a few seconds to pause the video while you jot your answer down.

And congratulations.

You're absolutely right if you said that that was in fact false.

Okay, what I'm going to ask you to do now is justify your answer.

So why is that false? Is it A, because the longer and muscular arms represent that Scrooge's past is far reaching and inescapable? Or is it B, the ghost long and muscular arms represent the long future that Scrooge has ahead of him.

I'm gonna invite you to pause the video now while you pick the correct justification for your answer.

And well done if you correctly got A Yes, the longer muscular arms represent Scrooge's far reaching past and the fact it's inescapable.

Well done.

Onto our last task of the lesson today.

Below you'll see a timeline.

And that timeline represents Stave 2.

Now above the line, you'll see the events of Stave 2 and below the line is how Scrooge responds to these visions.

Okay so we've got what Scrooge has shown above the line, how he responds to it below the line.

So for example, we've got Scrooge sees the ghost and wishes he would cover his light with his cap, okay? Because he doesn't want to be enlightened.

We've also got Scrooge shown himself as a young boy neglected by his friends at school, and he reacts because he empathises with his younger self and he calls himself poor boy.

So he's upset.

Your task is going to be to map the rest of the significant events of Stave 2 out and how Scrooge responds to them.

You'll then answer the question, to what extent is the ghost successful in enlightening Scrooge? So you've got two tasks there as part of your second task of the lesson.

So you're mapping out the events of Stave 2 and how Scrooge responds to them.

And then you'll answering this question, do you think the ghost was successful in enlightening Scrooge? So I'm now going to invite you to pause the video while you have a go at that task before we share some ideas.

And well done.

I'm seeing some really full timelines there.

I'm going to encourage you to add anything that you missed to your timeline to make sure that you've got a full set of notes.

So after Scrooge is shown himself as a young boy, he's actually also shown himself reading with the literary characters all coming to life.

And in terms of his reaction or his response, well he wishes in this moment that he could have given the boy caroler some money, okay? Maybe he relates to him in some way, feels guilty, recognised perhaps the boy carer might be just as isolated and neglected as he was.

Either way, it makes him feel sorry for the boy caroler and regret his actions earlier.

Scrooge is then shown his sister Fan and her efforts to bring him home from school, okay? And this makes him really quite upset and feel uneasy, especially when the ghost asks him about his nephew because he realises in this moment that he has really neglected Fred and that this is probably not what his sister would've wanted when she died.

Okay, so this is quite a sad moment for Scrooge as well.

Later in the Stave we see Scrooge's being shown Fezziwig's party on Christmas Eve and Fezziwig being really kind to Scrooge.

And in that moment Scrooge realises that he has treated Bob really unfairly and he wishes that he could say a few words to Bob.

So again, we see that empathy from Scrooge here.

We also then see Scrooge shown his breakup with Belle, where she states that he loves money too much and he loves money more than her.

Now this really upsets Scrooge and he actually begs the spirit to show him no more, okay? Because we infer that he probably feels a lot of guilt and a lot of regret in this moment 'cause maybe this is the point where he realises he made the wrong decision and that he values the wrong things in life.

We then see Belle as an older woman with her husband and children at home, even though they are quite penniless, they have so much love that you know, Scrooge realises in this moment that actually money hasn't bought him the same happiness and that he's actually really isolated and alone and that that life didn't have to happen for him.

And that if he'd have simply, you know, prioritised Bell's happiness over the pursuit of wealth, he too might have been that happy in that content.

And lastly, we see Scrooge trying to extinguish the spirit's light with his cap and failing to do so.

Okay, because he's refusing to be enlightened any further.

He doesn't want to see any more because it is too painful for him.

Now, in terms of to what extent the ghost is successful in enlightening Scrooge, you might have said that actually in the beginning of Stave 2, Scrooge has very little interest in the ghost message and he wishes that he could have had a longer night's sleep instead.

He doesn't particularly want to listen to him.

Okay so, you know, in the beginning it's not looking very likely that Scrooge might be enlightened.

However, as the Stave progresses, we see Scrooge demonstrating empathy not only for himself as a young guy, but miraculously for Fred, Bob, and the Caroler.

Okay and that shows that he has been enlightened to some extent because in Stave 1 we saw not a scrap of empathy from Scrooge.

So already we are seeing a slight change in Scrooge, and we are seeing that he has been enlightened in some way.

We also see that his strong emotions of pain and misery suggest that he has been enlightened and that he recognises the error of his ways and where he went wrong.

Okay, because he wouldn't be so upset if he didn't realise that what the spirit is showing him and telling him is true.

Okay so I say that actually he has been enlightened quite successfully because he's showing empathy and he's showing these strong emotions.

However you might disagree and you might say, well, when Scrooge expresses remorse, he might just be saying it okay to please the ghost.

Or he might just be saying it with no real intention of changing.

Okay, we actually, we've seen Scrooge saying a lot, okay, but we've not seen any actions yet.

So maybe perhaps we need to see more action to prove that Scrooge has been enlightened successfully.

And finally, in the end of the Stave, Scrooge begs for mercy and he tries really hard to extinguish the spirit's light, okay? And that suggests that he no longer wishes to be enlightened.

So you might say that if Scrooge had been truly enlightened and if he was truly receptive to the spirit's message, he wouldn't have tried to extinguish its light, which is the symbol of its role as an enlightener.

So well done if you got any of those.

I know I've shown two sides of the coin there.

They're both valid.

So well done if you've got any of those arguments, really impressed.

So to summarise, today's learning for Stave 2, the first of three spirits.

First of all, the Ghost of Christmas Past appearance reflects his role and that is he's there to enlighten Scrooge.

The spirit's light makes him somewhat resemble a candle, which again represents enlightenment because it shows that he represents guidance and hope for Scrooge.

The spirit takes Scrooge on a journey back through his past to show him the error of his ways and where he went wrong.

And during that journey, Scrooge expresses real remorse at the way he's treated the Carol at Bob and Fred.

And finally, it's important that we empathise with Scrooge at the same time that Scrooge learns to empathise with himself.

So we are actually learning at the same time that Scrooge is learning, okay? We're learning to empathise with Scrooge at the same time that he's learning to empathise with others.

I'd like to thank you for attending today's lesson and engaging so actively and participating so willingly in the tasks.

I've been really impressed with all the ideas you came up with and how well you've understood today's content.

I look forward to seeing you for our next lesson, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

Thank you very much, and bye.