Visit the new Gothic blog, for the 2008-9 cohort, which is here.  Don’t be offended by the description of you all in the post – I was only trying desperately to be amusing…

Post a comment giving this year’s cohort the benefit of all your wisdom, ideas, lessons learnt etc.  You might want to include:

• Texts that they will enjoy (or not enjoy!)  Or texts that are worth persevering with, even if they seem difficult to start with.  Also perhaps the texts that you think go best with Frankenstein.
• General wider reading advice – such as when to start and how to manage wider reading
• Lessons learnt on this unit - anything you would do differently if you were in year 12 again?  This is really useful, as they’re much more likely to listen to you saying it than teachers saying it!
• Anything else you’d like to say

Please do this before the last lesson, on Wednesday 18th June.  Thank you in advance!

frankenstein – the monster and the human - Vicki

the-critique-of-society - Daniel

alienation - Emma

frankenstein-domesticity - Shomari

Discovery and ambition – Sam

The fear of sexuality – Sophie

Birth and creation – Liseli

The double – Helen

• summarising that particular reviewer’s views of the novel; 
• evaluating whether this seems typical of commonly held perceptions of early Gothic novels;
• contrasting modern critical reactions to the text.

Reviews allocated as follows.  If there are 2 of you looking at one review, please both write a separate comment.  All comments will be held for moderation and published only once all comments have been submitted:

The Belle Assemblee or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine - Liseli

The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany - Helen, Shomari

Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine - Victoria

The British Critic – Sophie

The Literary Panorama and National Register - Emma

The Quarterly Review - Samantha, Daniel

Add a comment on this post (not on your own blog), answering the following questions which ask you to compare this text to Frankenstein.   Due by the lesson on Friday 28th March.

1. What links can you make between the settings in both texts?
2. What links can you make between the Ancient Mariner and any one of the three main narrators in Frankenstein?
3. What similarities would you say the texts have in terms of Gothic ‘features’?
4. If you are posting after others have posted, have a go at responding to their points – what do you agree or disagree with?  Or if you are one of the first to post, ask questions of the people yet to post… Or do both! 

Extension: come back later and see what the others have put – go crazy and post a second message!

Read the attached Adobe document (Acrobat reader is free to download online if you don’t already have it on your computer – or print this out at school).  It is about child language acquisition, which is not something you have to know the details of in this course.  However, it provides an interesting ‘way in’ to considering the monster’s development as narrated in chapters 11 to 16.

language-acquisition.pdf

So what I’d like you to do is read the attached file and then respond to this post by posting a comment (post it here, not on your own blog), answering the following questions:

• In what ways does the monster’s development correspond to what we now know about child language acquisition? (remember these ideas were not around in Shelley’s time)
• In what ways is his development highly unrealistic in terms of what we know?
• What do you think Shelley is trying to say about the monster, Victor and society as a whole by highlighting the monster’s development in such detail?

• Explain what Gothic elements you think are present in Frankenstein so far.
• Discuss whether there are any elements that are less Gothic – are there elements of Romanticism, for example, rather than just the Gothic?
• Compare elements of Frankenstein to at least one other Gothic text you’ve read so far.

Deadline for posting: Sunday 24th February

• read at least 3 Gothic texts (see Mr Scott’s independent reading post below) and posted a review of each one on your blog
• Uploaded more pictures and images of the Gothic – art, architecture, landscape, settings, weather etc, together with comments on what makes them Gothic.
• Added any more useful links you find to your blogroll – and if they’re really good, do a post telling everyone what they’re all about as well.
• Visited everyone else’s blog at least once and posted a new comment on something they’ve done (comments you’ve already made don’t count!)

The last point obviously means that you need to be adding to your own blog regularly, not leaving it all to the last minute!

You have done all of the things detailed above already – but we’re looking for new stuff to be added over the summer.  If you still don’t know how to do any of the above (eg add links, create new posts, or upload pictures) you need to see me before the summer so I can show you.  If you have any additional difficulties during the summer, you can always contact me via this blog, by posting a comment, or by replying to the email address that you’ll find on the emails you get with my comments on.

Enjoy your reading and your investigating of the Gothic – and don’t have nightmares!

1. Search the internet for some good sites relating to the Gothic that you think will help both you and others understand more about the Gothic.  These might be links to e-texts, or social and historical context, critical readings of the Gothic, Gothic art – the choice is yours, but try to get a range of different sites.  Then post links in your Blogroll to at least 3 useful sites.  Remember to give them a category or they won’t appear!
2. In preparation for your summer project, go out with a camera and take at least one picture of anything you consider to be Gothic.  This could be a building, a setting, a landscape, a work of art, or anything at all.  Upload it to your blog by attaching it to a post, and include a description of what makes it Gothic.

The deadline for both these posts is midnight on Sunday 15th July

 Please post a review of each text as you read them, including:

• Gothic features and conventions;
• Links to other Gothic texts we’ve read;
• Your personal opinion of the text, including whether or not you think it has maintained the impact it had when it was written.

By the end of the summer, you should have commented on everyone else’s blog at least once, making a constructive and analytical response.