Good morning.

It's lovely to see you all again.

My name is Miss Halliday and I'll be your teacher for today.

I can't wait to hear all your incredible ideas and suggestions.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is called "Stave 4: A Significant Death," and by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to understand the significance of the anonymous man's death in stave four.

Let's get started.

Here are some keywords you'll need for today's lesson.

We've got disinterest, grotesque, frugal, criminality, and opportunistic.

Here are the definitions of these keywords.

If you'd like to take a moment to pause the video and read them at your own pace, then please feel free to do so.

And here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to begin by looking at the conversations between the businessmen and looking at their disinterest in the anonymous man's death.

We're then going to move on to talking about the Victorian criminal classes, who they were and where we see them in the novela.

So let's start with the businessmen's disinterest.

I'd like you to discuss how would you expect somebody to react if you told them that one of their acquaintances, so someone they know, or their colleague had died.

I'd also like you to think, well, what does the phrase paying our respects mean? And how do many of the characters in stave four react to the death of the anonymous wealthy man? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have those conversations.

Fantastic discussions.

Now, obviously, when somebody passes away, that can be a really, really sad time, particularly for people who knew them.

And we would expect them to react respectfully and with some level of grief, okay? And the level of grief would obviously depend on how well the person was known, okay? But in terms of the phrase paying our respects, what that means is kind of saying goodbye respectfully to the dead person and showing respect to the fact that somebody's family member or somebody's loved one or somebody's close friend has died.

And whether or not you're close to that person, it's important to be respectful about the passing of somebody because every single person's human life really matters.

And whenever one of those lives is over, that's a real shame.

So that's what paying respects means.

Now, in terms of how the characters in stave four react, as we're going to see, they do not react respectfully.

They do not pay their respects and they do not react with grief at the passing of one of their acquaintances and colleagues.

So well done if you managed to get that in your conversation.

I'm gonna start by reading an extract from "A Christmas Carol," and this is taken from stave four.

I will read it to you and as I'm reading, it would be great if you could be following along, please, either in your own copy of "A Christmas Carol" or using the text on the slide.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of businessman.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin.

"I don't know much about it either way.

I only know he's dead." "And when did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe." Why, wWhat was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box? "I thought he'd never die." "God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again.

"Left it to his company, perhaps.

He hasn't left it to me, that's all I know." So now that we've read the extract, what I'd like you to do is discuss the following questions.

How did the businessmen react to the death of the man? And I'd like you to find two pieces of evidence to support your opinion.

What are their concerns about his death? So what are they bothered about? And I'd like you to list Dickens' descriptions of the men's physical appearances.

Why is it that they're described in this way? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you undertake that task now.

Fantastic work.

Now, here are some quotations that you might have identified as being significant.

So first of all, we see one of the businessmen as a great fat man with a monstrous chin.

What a horrible description of a human being, okay? But Dickens does it deliberately and we're going to talk about why.

So the words great fat man show that the men are described as repulsive.

Now, Dickens, as I said, does this very, very intentionally and he's trying to reflect that immorality.

We know that Dickens uses physical appearance to reflect a character's personality.

And that's exactly what he's doing here.

That word monstrous reflects the men's lack of humanity, the fact that they could not care less that this man has died.

You also might have seen this quotation, "A third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box." Now, snuff shows the status and wealth of the men, okay? But it's ironic that they are so wealthy and so kind of highly thought of because they're still so frugal.

This man actually states that he will only attend the funeral if there's a free lunch, okay? So again, that shows his harshness, but also how opportunistic these men are, okay? They're only going to attend the funeral because they get something from it.

And again, that shows how selfish and avaricious they are.

And Dickens is really criticising that in his descriptions of them.

We get this other gentleman and this is probably the only quotation that I would say rivals that of the first one for being the most disgusting.

I think this probably wins the award for Dickens' most vile description.

"A red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock." I mean, what a description that is.

It's absolutely grotesque and it's so vivid because it reflects the man's repulsive attitudes towards human life.

Now turkeys, they're not the most attractive birds, let's be honest, okay? And that reflects how ugly these men are on the inside.

They're horrible, horrible personalities and their lack of empathy and care for others.

One of the men says, "I thought he'd never die." Now again, that shows the lack of care for others and the selfishness.

It's almost as if they're either saying, you know, "I thought he would just live forever because he's, you know, so resilient or whatever." But it's also the fact there's also an undertone of like, "Ugh, I was so sick of him.

I didn't care about him anyway." It's so careless to say that and so disrespectful.

No respects are being paid here whatsoever.

And finally, "I haven't heard," said the man, yawning again.

"He hasn't left it to me, that's all I know." The fact that the men keep yawning again shows a lack of respect.

They're actually bored by this conversation.

They don't really want to have it, but they're just speculating.

The death of this man is a little bit of gossip to them.

It's a way of passing their time and interacting with one another.

And again, here we see them as really avaricious 'cause their concern is about what they can gain.

So just like they want the free lunch, they're also making jokes about the fact that they haven't been left any of this man's money.

So again, it shows their greed and selfishness and their avaricious natures.

So well done if you identified those quotes as significant.

So let's check for understanding.

Why does Dickens characterise the businessmen as grotesque? Is it A to reflect the amount of money they have, B, to reflect their immorality and greed? Or is it C to reflect their disgust for Scrooge? Now, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you choose the correct answer.

And fantastic, well done for choosing B.

You're absolutely right.

Dickens deliberately makes these characters really disgusting to look at because he's trying to reflect their inner immorality and greed.

Well done.

Again, back to the text.

And what we have here is a different group of businessmen.

So we meet two different groups of businessmen in the stave.

We've read the first group and now we're looking at the second group.

So I'll read and you follow along.

"He knew these men, also, perfectly.

They were men of business, very wealthy, and of great importance.

He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you?" Returned the other.

"Well!" said the first.

"Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?" "So I am told," return the second.

"Cold, isn't it?" Again now we've read the extract, I'd like you to discuss, well, what point is Dickens making about the kinds of relationships that Scrooge invested in? And what do you notice about the direction of the conversation about Scrooge's death? So again, I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you answer those questions.

And I've actually highlighted a section in purple to help you with your answers.

Some fantastic discussions.

And I was really impressed that one person identified this idea that Dickens reveals that all Scrooge really knew about these men is that they were wealthy and important.

And those are the qualities that Scrooge valued in his relationships with people.

So the few relationships, if we can even call them that, that Scrooge had with other people were based solely on business.

And these were actually the qualities that Scrooge looked for in his acquaintances.

He looked to interact with people with money and high status and that shows his greed and avariciousness.

Also, Dickens reveals the kinds of relationships that Scrooge was bothered about and that he invested in.

And these were those with businessmen who were important and who could enhance Scrooge's company and business.

And that again shows that he only interacts with other people because he gains from it materially.

So that shows how selfish Scrooge is.

And finally, you might have noticed that the conversation very quickly moves on from Scrooge's death to the weather.

And that again shows the lack of care that these men have for Scrooge.

They could not care less that he has died, and that's really sad to see.

So here's our first task of the lesson.

I'd like you to read the following extracts.

I'll read it to you and you follow along.

"Scrooge was surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to these conversations apparently so trivial; but he set himself to consider what their meaning was likely to be.

They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner for that was Past and this Ghost's province was the Future.

Nor could he think of anyone immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them.

But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement.

He resolved to treasure up every word he heard, especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared." What I'd like you to do now is answer the following question.

Here are some students' opinions.

What I'd like you to do is find evidence from the extract to support each of these students' opinions and then explain how it supports their views.

So here's our first opinion.

The fact that Scrooge does not make the connection between the dead man and himself shows how much he has changed because he doesn't imagine, given his new outlook, that this could possibly be him anymore.

Then another student stated, "Scrooge expects to see himself in the scene because he has already resolved to change.

He believes he has been shown the future so he expects to see himself as a reborn person in the scene." And finally, another student says, "Scrooge is really receptive to the teachings of the final spirit.

He actively wants to learn to be better." So as I said before, you're going to be finding evidence from the text and explaining how it supports each student's opinions opinion.

So I'm going to invite you to pause the video now while you undertake that task.

Off you go.

Fantastic work.

And here's some of the evidence you might have selected.

You may have not got the exact same evidence that I'm going to suggest.

That's absolutely fine.

There's not necessarily a right answer for this.

These are just some suggestions.

For the first statement, the fact that Scrooge doesn't make the connection between the dead man and himself and the fact that shows how much he's changed, you could have chosen this quotation.

"Nor could he think of anyone immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them." And that shows that Scrooge really doesn't think that this dead man can possibly be him.

And as Aisha points out, "And that's because he's already resolved to change." He already believes that he has changed and been reborn almost.

So he's expecting to see his future self in the scene.

And again, the quotation you might have chosen to support that view is this one.

"Whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement." So again, he's looking at this dead man and the conversations about him and he's thinking, "Well, it's not me, but I'm clearly supposed to be learning from this because I'm going to become a better person and this will help me to get there." So again, we really see Scrooge as a transformed character here.

And he's actually so utterly convinced that he will change that he does not think for one second that this dead man can possibly be him because he cannot currently imagine a future in which he would continue to behave so greedily and so selfishly.

So it doesn't even cross his mind that this dead man could possibly be him.

Now, in terms of the final statement, that Scrooge is really receptive to the teachings of the spirit and that he actively wants to learn to be better, I think there's quite a few quotes that you could have chosen.

So you could have chosen, "Feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be." So again, we see Scrooge here trying to teach himself.

He's trying to discover the lessons for himself, which again shows that he's really putting effort into becoming that better and more moral person.

You could have also picked, "He resolved to treasure up every word he heard and everything he saw," which again, we see a completely different side to Scrooge here because stave one Scrooge didn't even want to listen to the Ghost of Christmas Past.

If you remember, he tried to extinguish its light using its own cap because he couldn't bear to listen to it anymore.

Whereas here, Scrooge is treasuring every word and that shows that he really values the spirit's messages and the spirit's lessons.

So onto the second part of the lesson where we're going to look at the criminal classes.

So first of all, I'd like you to discuss, and I suppose this is a little bit of a guessing game 'cause we've not covered it yet, but I'm just interested to see what you think it might be.

I'd like you to discuss, well, what do you think the Victorian criminal class was? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video for a few moments while you discuss what you think they could be.

Some great discussions and I'll be really impressed if any of you got this.

So the phrase criminal classes refers to people in Victorian society who were drawn to committing crimes by a misguided sense of morality, allegedly caused by the failings of society.

So to put that simply, basically, the criminal classes consisted of people who many of the upper and middle classes believed were committing crimes because they didn't have the correct sense of right and wrong because they hadn't been treated well enough by society.

Now, examples of people within the criminal classes included thieves, prostitutes and homeless people.

Many people, particularly in the middle and upper classes, viewed the criminal classes as a threat to social and moral order.

So there was a lot of kind of prejudice, discrimination, and cruelty towards the criminal classes in the Victorian era because a lot of these people really feared the criminal classes because they felt that they would be the undoing of moral and social order.

And that is the last thing they wanted because the current moral and social order was really working for them.

So they were very, very frightened of people within the criminal class.

What I'd like you to do now is discuss, well, what do you think Dickens thought about these people in the criminal class? What do you think his perspectives were about them or his attitudes or feelings were? So I'm going to invite to pause the video while you have a little bit of a conversation about what you think Dickens thought of the criminal classes.

Some great discussions.

And then what I'm hoping you gathered is that as with everybody who suffers in society, these people have Dickens' sympathy and Dickens doesn't view them quite as harshly as many middle and upper class Victorians did.

I'm going to look at Dickens' portrayal of the criminal class in a moment.

But first, I wanted to check your understanding.

So which of the following statements about the criminal class are true? Is it A, that they committed crimes because they enjoyed being immoral? B, that they committed crimes because they had a misguided sense of morality.

C, that they were some of the wealthiest people in Victorian society because of their crimes.

Or is it D, examples of people in the criminal class are factory workers, clerks, and miners.

So I'm going to invite you to pause the video and write your answer or answers down.

And congratulations to those of you that identified that B is the only correct statement here.

Allegedly, the criminal classes committed crimes because they had a misguided sense of morality that was the result of societal abandonment on neglect or mistreatment.

The people in the criminal classes did not necessarily commit crimes because they enjoyed being immoral, they were not wealthy, and miners and clerks and factory workers are definitely not examples of people who belonged in the criminal class.

They would've been regarded as working class.

So I'd like you to discuss now what were Dickens' attitudes towards childhood? 'Cause all this links together, and some of you might already be starting to form those connections in your mind.

So what were Dickens' attitudes towards childhood? What kind of childhood did he think children needed to have? What did the characters Ignorance and Want represent? How might Mrs. Dilber link to Ignorance and Want? And as a little bit of a hint to those questions, I'd like you to consider what did you just learn about the criminal classes and can you start thinking about how these two might link together? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you have those discussions with the people around you now.

Fantastic discussions and I'm really impressed because I can definitely hear some people making those connections between Dickens' views on childhood and the criminal classes.

So here's what you might have said.

Ignorance and Want represent the sins of mankind and their connection to Mrs. Dilber is that she represents their final destination.

So basically, children like Ignorance and Want grow up to become adults like Mrs. Dilber.

So children like Ignorance and Want who are the rejects of society have little choice but to turn to criminality in order to feed themselves and get by.

So here Dickens is suggesting that children like Ignorance and Want, who are mistreated and neglected by society, have to grow up as Mrs. Dilber's because that is the only way that they can survive.

Now, we know that Dickens believed childhood had a profound impact on adulthood and that children who didn't live carefree and innocent lives would grow up to become wicked and resentful adults.

And that's exactly what we see in the stave.

Mrs. Dilber and her criminal acquaintances are literally adult representations of children like Ignorance and Want who have been neglected and condemned by society.

And Dickens treats them, you know, he doesn't condone their behaviour but he tries to suggest that they are the result of a failing society and a society that fails to look after its own basically.

So let's have a look at how we see that in the text.

I'm going to read this extract and you're going to follow along.

"They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation and its bad repute.

The ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched, the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly.

Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery." What an amazing description can I just say before we get onto our discussion.

What an absolutely fantastically vivid description that is.

Hats off to Dickens 'cause that is fantastic.

Right, onto our analysis of it.

I'd like you to now discuss though, how are the criminal quarters of London presented and why does Dickens present them in this way? And I've highlighted some significant parts of the extract in green to aid your discussions.

So I'd like you to pause the video while you have a go at analysing the extract in pairs.

Some fantastic discussions there.

And here's some of the things you might have said.

So first of all, the criminal quarters are presented as the cesspool of society, which is basically a cesspool is where like human waste and kind of sewage goes.

So therefore, Dickens suggesting that the criminal quarters of London are where the filth and abandoned members of society must go.

Now obviously, that word filth and the fact we're applying it to people, that is because that is how the middle and upper classes viewed these people, okay? Dickens didn't view them in that way.

That was the way that they were viewed by many more wealthy people in society.

Now again, I know I'm really passionate about this description 'cause I just think it's amazing.

But Dickens presents us with this really brutal description of these people to illustrate the horrific living conditions of the criminal classes and perhaps to illustrate how drastically they've been failed by society.

So I guess I don't want you to think that Dickens is kind of been really harsh to these people because he hates them and calling them ugly and drunk and half-naked.

That's not what it is, okay? Dickens is actually showing us the very worst of society to just show us how much they've been failed and what awful living conditions they occupy.

And again, he's showing us these characters through the eyes of somebody judgmental like Scrooge, through a middle and upper class person who would look at these people and just be absolutely disgusted and appalled by them.

So in Dickens' harsh and brutal description here, that's not necessarily how he views them.

He's just trying to convey to us how other people viewed them so that we can understand the kind of prejudice and discrimination that these people faced.

Again, let's read another extract and then answer some questions.

"Very well, then!" cried the woman.

"That's enough.

Who's the worst for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.

If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with death instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." "It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber.

"It's a judgement on him.

Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it.

Speak out plain.

I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it.

We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe.

It's no sin.

Open the bundle, Joe." So now that we've read the extract, I'd like you to discuss, what do you notice about these characters' morals and why might they have these morals? And finally, what do you think Dickens thought about these kinds of people? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have those discussions and before we share some ideas.

Some fantastic discussions there.

And here's some of the things you might have said.

These characters appear to have skewed morals.

They feel that they're entitled to raid a dead man's belongings because they have been neglected by society and they feel they are entitled to get whatever they can by whatever means possible.

Characters like Mrs. Dilber reflect Dickens' fear for society.

Societal neglect has made them selfish, immoral, and opportunistic.

So people who take advantage of any given situation.

Dickens empathises with them because they are the adult representations of Ignorance and Want.

So again, here we see that Dickens is really clearly showing us the the kind of damaging consequences of societal neglect because this is exactly what happens when people are not given charity, when people are not given empathy and support.

They have to resort to these desperate measures, okay? And they therefore, feel that they're entitled to do so because nobody else is gonna help help them.

So they grow this kind of resentment towards other people that then gives them, they feel, the right to go and do these people wrong by raiding them, you know, robbing them, looting from them.

And that's exactly, you know, what Dickens is drawing our attention to and saying is his fear for society that if we don't look after people, this is how they will thank us.

This is how they will behave.

So onto our last task of the lesson.

I'm so excited to see what you come up with for this because I think it's a really thought-provoking task.

Another famous author, HG Wells, who was also writing during the Victorian period, but he was writing during the late Victorian period, stated, "Crime and bad lives are the measure of a state's failure." So the government's failure.

"All crime in the end is the crime of the community." What an interesting statement that is.

Now, I'd like you to decide to what extent you agree that characters like Mrs. Dilber and their immorality and criminality is the fault of the government or the community.

Now, because this is a very complex question and there's many possible answers, I would like you to position yourself on this spectrum.

So you've got on the left, you've got completely disagree, so you'll put yourself there if you totally disagree and you don't think that Mrs. Dilber and their immorality and criminality is at all the fault of the government or the community.

Then you've also got completely agree on the other side.

I'd like you to position yourself on the spectrum and I'd like you to be really prepared to justify your answer using examples from the text and your own knowledge.

So as I said, I'm very excited to see what you think of this statement because I just think what a fascinating thing that HG Wells has said there.

Really thought provoking and interesting.

So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you position yourself on that spectrum and prepare your evidence.

Fantastic work.

Some really, really interesting positions there on that spectrum.

Now, in terms of some feedback, what I thought would be really interesting is for you to be able to share your opinions on that statement.

So I'd like you to get into pairs or find somebody else to work with.

So partner one is going to explain to somebody else, so their partner, where they've positioned themselves on the spectrum and why, and they must justify their answer with examples from the text.

Partner two is then going to consider the following questions and use these questions to give partner one feedback on their response.

So they're going to consider, well, was the partner clear about to what extent they agree? Had they pinpointed exactly what they think of the statement? Did they justify their opinions with evidence from the text? And what quality was that evidence? Do you feel that they'd selected the best evidence from the text? Or do you think you could have picked better evidence? And is there anything that you wish to add to their opinion or you add to their pile of evidence or perhaps disagree with? So partner two is going to consider those questions based on the response from partner one and give them feedback so that they can improve their justification.

You're then going to swap roles and give partner two the opportunity to share their opinion.

And then obviously, partner one is gonna use the questions to kind of give feedback to partner two and the quality of their argument.

So I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video.

Make sure you're interacting respectfully with one another, and really enjoy this moment of debate and discussion because what a fascinating quotation from HG Wells there.

So pause the video and have your discussions in your peer assessment task.

Fantastic peer assessment and really respectful interactions there.

So well done.

To summarise the learning from today, we know that Scrooge is shown two really callous conversations between groups of his former business acquaintances, but their interest is not, or concern is not in his death itself, but in the pursuit of gain.

And they use Scrooge's death as a form of gossip.

Dickens characterises the businessmen as physically grotesque and this reflects their monstrous morals and attitudes.

Now, during these conversations, Scrooge expects to see himself in the scene because he's already resolved, so he's already decided to change.

Through Mrs. Dilber and her accomplices, Dickens illustrates that children, like Ignorance and Want, who are the rejects of society, who've been neglected and abandoned and mistreated, have little choice but to turn to criminality and join the criminal class.

Dickens illustrates how societal neglect makes people selfish, immoral, and opportunistic, and none of those are qualities that Dickens is promoting.

And finally, Dickens viewed criminality as the symptom of a failing society.

So he actually looked upon these criminal classes with a lot more empathy than most in the Victorian era.

I'd like to thank you for coming to today's lesson.

I hope you found it as interesting to learn as I found it interesting to teach.

I've really enjoyed today's content and I'm looking forward to seeing you next time.

Thank you and have a fabulous day.