Dracula: Texts, Culture and Value

The inimitable Tom Waits as Renfield

Over the last 12 months I've posted a few things on this blog in regards to the Year 11 English Extension 1 module 'Texts, Culture and Value' and, now that it's 2019 and a few weeks out from a whole new Year 11 group starting, it felt like a good time to update and revise things. 

Here's the module and its resources in a single document for easy access:

• Dracula: Texts, Culture and Value

And here's the associated PowerPoints:

• 1-1. Dracula: Texts, Culture and Value PPT
• 4-4. Lexical Density PPT
• 6-1. Critical Writing PPT
• 8-1. Dracula and the Gothic PPT
• 14-1. Narrative Voice PPT

The main document is designed to be printed as a booklet and given to each student. There's a section at the front of the booklet that explains how each of the resources work, it's more for the teacher but it doesn't hurt for the students to see it and track their progress. The document also includes an assessment task. You can teach the whole unit as is, or pull it apart and use bits and pieces, rewrite stuff from it, etc.

Some notes to clarify a couple of things:

• I decided to take a back to basics approach - as Year 11 Extension English are feasibly coming from any mixed ability Year 10 class there's no guarantee that they've had exposure to the sort of support that a top-performing Year 10 student will have had. I therefore work on the assumption that these students don't really know anything yet. It's just the safest bet. I used to take the approach that I was working with high-performing students who would already know a lot of stuff, but you just can't tell what they do and don't know if you haven't personally taught them before. So now I just assume they're intelligent blank slates (and will be able to learn whatever I put in front of them). Having a vast store of English-based knowledge is not something that 15 or 16 year olds can be expected to have, and knowledge isn't the same thing as ability. This is why the unit booklet includes a few things not directly related to Dracula - I wanted to start from scratch with a few things like narrative voice, thesis statements, essay writing, critical reading, etc., that would help with preparing students for the assessment tasks.
• The biggest part of the resources is a Study Guide to Dracula (Resource X-1). I've posted an earlier version of this document to this blog before but the version in the updated module now includes student questions in the analysis column. I'm not expecting students to answer every question but, as a form of differentiation, students should aim to answer at least one question per page. They can choose which ones - there's a range of different kinds of questions; from comprehension to analysis to evaluation. Some of the questions just require students to read the information around it and reframe it into a self-contained response - it's not especially difficult but it's designed to build confidence and to help students learn a few things. I'm not assessing their ability to answer these questions; the questions themselves are simply a way to facilitate study notes.
• The readings included are mostly extracts sourced from online and a few books I've picked up over the last two years. There's information in the 'sequence of lessons' documents near the beginning of the booklet that explains where these readings are found (incidentally, if by some chance you happen to be the author of one of these extracts and don't want them in this non-profit educational document, please just let me know and I'll edit said document out). 

If you have any questions feel free to contact me by commenting below, or using the email address in the booklet.