Year 9

Giving a personal response: A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf

Year 9

Giving a personal response: A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. In this lesson, we will evaluate and explore 'The Haunted House' and our interpretations of it. Following on from our analysis of meaning, structure and form of 'A Haunted House', you have the opportunity to develop your own critical interpretation.

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5 Questions

Q1.
Which word best describes the ghostly couple?
hilarious
Correct answer: loving
terrifying
Q2.
Which of the statements below is true:
Virginia Woolf was a modernist writer who followed traditional literary forms and conventions.
Correct answer: Virginia Woolf was a modernist writer who tried to experiment with and subvert literary forms and conventions.
Q3.
What does the narrator hear the house whispering?
"help, help, help"
"love, love, love"
Correct answer: "safe, safe, safe"
Q4.
Match the text with the analysis: The fragmented dialogue "kisses without number." "Waking in the morning"
The ghosts seem content and comfortable together. They are non-threatening: always mindful of the couple sleeping in the house.
Correct answer: The ghosts’ words flow into one another suggesting their intimate connection as they remember their life together. There is a poetic rhythm to their speech.
Q5.
Which of these demonstrates the correct order of language analysis:
Understand the evidence, link it to your analysis and write your focus
Correct answer: Understand the text and focus, select rich evidence, link it together and write an analysis

8 Questions

Q1.
True or false? A short story is a novel that is incomplete.
Correct answer: false
true
Q2.
True or false? Short stories are always simple.
Correct answer: false
true
Q3.
True or false? Short stories have a fully developed theme but are shorter and less elaborate than a novel.
false
Correct answer: true
Q4.
What was the name of the literary movement which Virginia Woolf belonged to?
Correct answer: modernism
post-modernism
romanticism
structuralism
Q5.
Which is the correct definition of the word "subvert"?
hide underneath something
return to something
Correct answer: undermine an established system
Q6.
True or false? The uncanny is an uncomfortable psychological experience where a familiar thing is encountered in an unsettling or eerie context.
false
Correct answer: true
Q7.
True or false? Virginia Woolf wanted her short story to be a comedy.
Correct answer: false
true
Q8.
How does Virginia Woolf subvert some of the expectations of a ghost story?
Correct answer: The ghosts do not seem threatening because they are focused on their love.
The setting is eerie and mysterious.
There are no ghosts in the story.