Do you dread teaching the work of Charles Dickens? Do your students groan at the mere mention of his name? Explore some of the student-friendly Dickens Web sites we found and hear from some of the teachers and Dickens fans who created them. Included: Teacher-created ideas for extending the works of Dickens.
Charles Dickens wasn't perfect. He was stubborn and sometimes quick-tempered. He often blamed others for the problems that he himself caused. The force of will that enabled him to succeed prevented him from taking an honest look at his own life. While he was unable to learn from the lessons of his own life perhaps we, his readers, can be more fortunate. A study of his life reveals that perfection is not a qualification for success and that no one really defines us but ourselves.
---Marsha Perry, Charles
Dickens Gad's Hill Place
What better place to begin your exploration of Dickens online than at
Charles Dickens
Gad's Hill Place, the author's home? This site, as the above quote
demonstrates, emphasizes the value of teaching Dickens to young readers
and introduces an approach that will likely appeal to them.
In brief, easily digestible sections, Gad's Hill Place highlights the
childhood events and dreams that shaped Dickens's life as well as the
values that influenced his writing. It introduces Dickens's friends as
well as his work, and short quotes scattered throughout the site gently
introduce students to the author's style and vocabulary.
The site also contains an interactive crossword puzzle that requires knowledge of Dickens to complete. It's an effective -- and fun -- evaluation tool!
"I've had an interest in Charles Dickens for several years," Marsha Perry, creator of Gad's Hill Place, told Education World. "All of us are familiar with his work, but I was surprised at the details of his personal life. From an early age, he dreamed about becoming 'someone.' He wanted to do great things. However, circumstances seemed against him. It was only through his own belief in himself and in his abilities that he was able to become a popular author. I firmly believe that this is a lesson we can all learn from."
One of the main features of Gad Hill Place is The Daily Dose of Dickens, which provides a new Dickens quote each day. "I have collected almost 400 quotes from his works and the database of quotes is continually growing," Perry told Education World. "Most of the quotes I have picked out from his works myself. I've been so busy building the quote database that there was a year when the only recreational reading I did was Dickens!"
"Visitors to the site have passed on their favorite quotes too," added Perry. "It's always interesting to see which phrases stand out for different people."
Although she's a Web designer, not a classroom teacher, Perry explained that one of her goals in creating the site was to make it available to students. "I don't have a background in education, so I sought advice on how to present information in a way that would be useful to students. For example, I took out information that scrolled across the screen after it was pointed out that students couldn't take notes fast enough to write everything down!"
Many schools and educational organizations link to Perry's site, including
You might want to add your school to the list!
After students acquire a basic knowledge of Charles Dickens's life at
Gad's Hill Place, encourage them to continue their journey of discovery
at Discovering
Dickens. This SCORE cyberguide for students in grades 6 through 8
requires students to visit a number of online sites to solve "cases" involving
Dickens. As they investigate the clues, students learn what everyday life
was like for Charles Dickens and create a poster comparing life in the
mid-1800s with life in the late 1990s.
- study Dickens's life and create a timeline, illustrating and captioning the important events.
- explore information about Dickens and A Christmas Carol and create a cartoon or storyboard depicting the story.
- examine a Civil War diary and write a diary entry as Dickens might have written it.
- read a letter written by Dickens and "translate" it into contemporary vocabulary.
Discovering Dickens is a terrific site with lots of great links. The
activities are sure to capture the interest of both middle school and
high school students! Note: Two links at Discovering Dickens failed to work. However,
look for a timeline of Dickens's life at A
Timeline of Dickens' Life on David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page.
The Dickens letter is at A
Letter from Charles Dickens.
A Discovering
Dickens Teacher CyberGuide accompanies the SCORE cyberguide.
"Charles Dickens has probably had more influence on the way we celebrate
Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one….
It was the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 A Christmas
Carol, that rekindled the joy of Christmas in Great Britain and America."
-- David
Perdue's Dickens Page
Of course, A Christmas Carol is probably the Dickens story most
familiar to students. Have your students read the original? Encourage
them to visit A
Christmas Carol, a site that provides the complete text of the book
as it was published in 1890. Only a reading of the full version of this
holiday story will give students an accurate sense of Dickens's values,
social awareness, and humor.
Jennifer Johns, who teaches sixth-grade English and science at Crestview
Middle School in Huntington, Indiana, provides Education World readers
with several additional activities to use with A Christmas Carol.
She suggests that teachers
- have students write obituaries for Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge.
- encourage students to write an obituary for Scrooge before they read the story and after they read it.
- invite students to write a diary entry about the Christmas Eve events from the point of view of Scrooge's nephew Fred.
- ask students to make a Christmas card that Scrooge might have sent at the beginning of the story and one he might send at the end of the story.
- encourage students to write a newspaper article explaining what happened between Marley and Scrooge.
- have students draw each of the three ghosts, based on the descriptions in the story.
Now that your students have begun to appreciate Dickens, are they begging
for more? If so, check out the Great
Expectations CyberGuide, one of the sites linked to Marsha Perry's
Gad's Hill Place site. Mickey Goularte, a ninth-grade English teacher
at Porterville (California) High School created the guide as part of a
SCORE Internet project. As Mickey told Education World, "I produced the
Great Expectations cyberguide with the intent of using it for my
accelerated classes. I felt that Pip's search for identity was one students
could identify with."
Goularte's cyberguide provides a number of activities that teachers
can use to supplement a unit on the Dickens book. Information and links
help students
- analyze how the novel is related to the themes and issues of its historical period and then organize and record the information in a chart.
- produce a collage to depict interactions between the book's characters.
- write an expository essay of at least 1,500 words.
- write an essay comparing and contrasting the gentry of the Victorian period with Pip's appearance and behavior.
- write a business letter in which they assume the role of a health worker researching the need for prison reform.
"One of the problems I face each year," Goularte added, "is that students have predetermined that 'Dickens is boring.' It's difficult to get them to look forward to a novel they dread. I try to counter these feelings by using a Great Expectations guided imagery exercise that places students in Pip's shoes at the very beginning of the novel, when he first meets Magwitch. Readers need to understand Pip's inner struggles and the forces that influenced him. This wonderful activity gets the students moving in the proper direction. When students can discuss the story from a personal angle, the novel opens up for them and often leads to a discussion about the influences in their own lives."
"In the classroom," Goularte added, "it is interesting to have students develop projects centered around their own 'great expectations.' "
Project Gutenberg This
site provides etext of more than 50 of Dickens's works. The Philadelphia
Branch of the Dickens Fellowship This site includes the 19th Century
Gallery, which contains quotes about Dickens from some of his contemporaries,
including Louisa May Alcott, G. K. Chesterton, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The Dickens
Project This scholarly site, maintained primarily by faculty and graduate
students at the University of California, includes a Dickens biography
and filmography, teaching resources, and links to other Dickens sites.
The
Dickens Page This site from Japan includes links to just about every
Web site related to Charles Dickens. The Dickens House Museum
The museum's online site includes information about Dickens and a virtual
tour of the museum. The Victorian Web
This site, created by George P. Landow, professor of English and art history
at Brown University, includes information about the Victorian Age's history,
sociology, art, religion, economy, and more. The site also includes a
section exclusively about Charles Dickens.
Article by Linda Starr
Education World®
Copyright © 2004 Education World
- Don't miss Education World's December Holidays archive page. There you will find dozens of ideas for teaching about the holidays as well as craft activities, resources, and more.
Originally Published 12/06/1999
Links last updated 11/16/2006
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