Lesson video

I'm Miss Howell.

Welcome to today's English lesson.

All you will need for our learning today is a pen and a piece of paper.

So take a moment to make sure that you have everything you need at hand and clear yourself of any distractions so that you are ready for our lesson today.

Our focus of the lesson will be themes in Gothic writing.

Please take a moment to take down your title Themes in Gothic Writing, pausing video here to do that now.

Our keyword for the lesson is tension.

Please take a moment to pause the video so that you can read through the definitions of tension.

Bear in mind that for our purpose today, all we want is the first definition, which is highlighted on your screen.

So I'd like you to then take down the keyword and the first definition for your notes for the lesson.

Pause the video here to complete that now.

When it comes to themes in Gothic writing, there are many, but the most prevalent that we often come across are the following: madness, the body and its parts, death, fear, physical danger, guilt, and being haunted by the past.

We are now going to read the opening of The Tell-Tale Heart, which is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, a well-known American writer who wrote many Gothic texts in the 19th century.

In particular, I would like you to think about whether you can spot any of those themes.

True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them.

Above all was the sense of hearing acute.

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

I heard many things in hell.

How, then, am I mad? Hearken and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

We can identify the theme of madness in this passage.

As you can see, the repetition of the rhetorical questions could suggest that the narrator is trying to convince the reader that he is not mad, but this actually has the opposite effect.

You are now going to read the next section and look for any Gothic themes.

So I would like you to read that section of text independently, and you are going to consider whether you can find any Gothic themes within that section.

Pause the video here to complete that now.

Here are the Gothic themes that I would like to you to see if you can find in that section of text.

So just take a moment to pause the video and consider whether any of those themes occurred in that section of text that you have just read.

An example of what I'm looking for is here on this slide so you might want to go back to your work and refine it based on this example.

So you need to state what the theme is, so the theme of madness is evident, and what I'd like you to also do is to explain how you are sure that that theme is there.

So I've done that in that sentence.

The narrator has an unhealthy obsession with his neighbour.

Pause the video here to just recap your themes that you've spotted and just add in as an example that sentence explaining why you are certain that theme exists within that section of text.

We will now review your answers.

So the correct themes that hopefully you have spotted are madness, the body and its parts, death, fear, and physical danger.

So well done if you were able to spot all of those things, but if not, just take down where possible, in a different coloured pen, the answers that are on the slide.

If you get that down in your different coloured pen, it allows you to see what you did independently and what you have learned through this feedback.

So when we're looking at madness, it's clear that the writer wants to kill the old man due to his eye and this could be conveyed as madness.

So make sure that you are getting down the explanation as I'm taking you through them for each of these themes and how we know that they are evidence given what you have read.

Please do pause the video if you need to to allow yourself to take down this feedback.

So for the body and its parts, it's clear the narrator is completely obsessed with the old man's eye.

There's death because it's clear that the narrator wants to kill the old man.

And there's fear because the narrator is afraid of the old man's eye.

The physical danger, the narrator is clearly putting the character of the old man in physical danger as he's planning on killing him.

And then guilt, this is not a theme that Poe utilises here as the narrator does not display this emotion in this section of the text.

Same as being haunted by the past.

This is not a theme that Poe utilises here as the eye in his idea to kill the old man is what haunts the narrator.

And this is in the present, not the past.

So again, if you need to, just pause the video to allow yourself to correct your responses and make sure that you have down the correct themes and those explanations of why they're evident in what we have read this lesson.

Now, what I would like you to do is to select a quotation to link with each of the themes.

So you might need to go back to that extract to enable you to complete this task.

So an example of what I'm looking for is on the slide.

So we've identified the theme of madness and a quotation that supports that is: He had never wronged me.

So for the other themes that we've just gone through, I would like you to support each one of those with a quotation.

Pause the video here to complete that task now.

We will now review your answers.

Again, just using that different coloured pen, you can use this feedback to check the quotations that you have supported each of those themes with.

The quotations on the slide might not be exactly the same as yours, but as long as it supports the theme, then that's absolutely fine.

I would like you and I would encourage you to get down the quotations that I have picked out on the slide in your different coloured pen.

Remembering, do pause the video when you need to to allow yourself to take down any of this feedback.

So for the body and its parts, the quotation I would use to support that theme is: One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture, a pale blue eye.

For death, the quotation is: I've made up my mind to take the life of the old man.

For fear, the quotation I would use is: Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

And for physical danger, the quotation I would use is: Thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Well done if you were able to get down any of those quotations yourself in that independent task.

That brings us onto our piece of tier three vocabulary that we're going to focus on in this lesson, which is protagonist.

So remember that our tier three vocabulary is our subject-specific vocabulary.

So just take a moment to read through the definition of protagonist on the slide, and then make sure you get down your keyword and the definition in your notes.

Pause the video here to complete that now.

We are now going to re-read the opening section of the short story The Tell-Tale Heart.

And we are now going to focus on answering the question, is the narrator feeling mental or emotional strain? And how do you, as a reader, feel? So I want you to really think carefully about that question as I read through the opening section again, so really consider is the narrator feeling mental, emotional strain, and how are you, as a reader, feeling? True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them.

Above all was the sense of hearing acute.

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

I heard many things in hell.

How, then, am I mad? Hearken and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

Object there was none.

Passion there was none.

I loved the old man.

He had never wronged me.

He had never given me insult.

For his gold I had no desire.

I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture, a pale blue eye, with a film over it.

Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

You are now going to have a go at answering the question, is the protagonist feeling a sense of tension in this section of the text? Does the reader feel the same? Remember, the protagonist is the main character in a story, book, film, or play.

And tension is mental or emotional strain.

If you need support to answer the question, then you can complete the sentences in order to answer that.

It is over to you and it's completely your choice whether you use these sentence frames to support you in answering the question.

If you don't feel you need them, then by all means don't use them.

But if you would like that support, then please do use them.

So going to that question, which I'd like you to write down on your sheet of paper now so that you have that in front of you, I'd like you to pause the video to write down the question and consider whether you're going to need those sentence frames or not.

Pause here just to write down your question now.

Here are those sentence frames if you need that additional support to help you answer the question.

So you would just write out the sentence frame and then fill in the gaps with your own responses.

Those sentence frames are here on this slide as well and here on this slide also.

Pause the video here to complete your task, remembering to use the sentence frames should you need them.

We will now review your answers.

So I'd like you to now check your responses with the answers as I take you through them on the following slides.

Again, if you do have that different coloured pen, it would be really useful to edit, refine, adapt your own work in that different colour so it's really clear for you what you're able to achieve independently and what you've been able to understand and learn as I take you through this feedback.

So the first part of our response should have started with the protagonist in this text clearly feels a sense of tension as he admits that he is very, very dreadfully nervous.

So you can see there that in pink I have put the quotation that really supports how I know the protagonist is feeling that tension.

And then I've gone on to explain that.

The first person narrator then goes on to reveal that he is obsessed with the old man's eye to such an extent that he will have to commit murder in order to rid this sense of tension.

I made up my mind to take the life of the old man.

You can see there that I've used an additional quotation to support what I am saying.

So well done if you've managed to find a couple of quotations to support your response, like I have modelled here.

Through this insight into the erratic mind of the narrator, the writer has, therefore, successfully illustrated the protagonist's mental and emotional strain.

Furthermore, the reader also feels a sense of tension due to the chaotic inner turmoil inside the protagonist's mind.

He seemingly directly addresses the reader in a challenging and thunderous tone from the beginning of the story: True, but why will you say that I am mad? Additionally, the reader may feel sympathy for the character of the old man whose pale blue eye with a film over it is going to lead to the end of his life.

So just pause here to check your response with the answers as I've gone through on the slide and just make those adaptations to your own work.

Once you have made the final edits to your own work, that brings us to the end of the lesson.

Thank you for your focus, and I hope that you have enjoyed our learning today.