'The Great Gatsby': Developing a personal response
I can develop a personal response to an extract from ‘The Great Gatsby’.
'The Great Gatsby': Developing a personal response
I can develop a personal response to an extract from ‘The Great Gatsby’.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- An opinion is a view or judgement formed on something, not based on fact.
- In order to add credibility to our opinions, we must be able to justify them.
- Themes like the 'American Dream' and wealth are central to understanding 'The Great Gatsby'.
- Using textual evidence supports interpretations and inferences about characters in a text.
Keywords
Theme - a repeated idea in a literary work
American Dream - the idea that all Americans have the right to achieve success and prosperity
Jazz Age - a period in the USA (1920s) known for its freedom, exuberance and carefree parties
Console - to comfort someone in a time of disappointment
Common misconception
Students might believe that West Egg and East Egg are actual geographical locations.
While West Egg and East Egg are based on real places on Long Island, they are fictional locations created by Fitzgerald to symbolise different social classes and the contrasts between new and old wealth.
To help you plan your year 11 english lesson on: 'The Great Gatsby': Developing a personal response, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 11 english lesson on: 'The Great Gatsby': Developing a personal response, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 english lessons from the Fiction: books that changed my world unit, dive into the full secondary english curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
You will need the extract from 'The Great Gatsby' for this lesson which can be found in the additional materials.
Licence
Lesson video
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