A Christmas Carol Pre-reading activities

1. A Christmas CarolPre-reading activities What do you already know about the novella, A Christmas Carol? Brainstorm your ideas in a group. Try grouping your notes under the following headings: Ghosts Christmas season of good will Bah Humbug! 23382

2. Background and context to A Christmas Carol • Dickens was writing during the Victorian period, when there were lots of very poor people in society. • He wanted to help the public understand that social reform was needed to help the poor. He wanted to expose the problems of how bad poverty had become and make the Victorians sit up and take notice. • He didn’t want children to experience a ‘doomed childhood’or go hungry, but to have educational opportunities. He felt the lack of opportunity was why the children were growing up into lives of crime or prostitution and he wanted society to help stop this. • He created two characters in A Christmas Carol based on what he had witnessed for himself in London: Ignorance and Want. It was through his writing that he could express his horrors at what he had seen of the squalor that children were growing up in during this time. 23382

3. Scrooge Synonyms • Find as many synonyms as you can using a thesaurus for the word: SCROOGE • The one has been done for you as an example: • Cheapskate 23382

4. ‘Every idiot who goes about with • “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should • be boiled with his own Pudding.’ • Scrooge • Scrooge is the main protagonist in the novella. What impression of Scrooge do you get from this quotation? • Why do you think Scrooge does not like Christmas? • What do you think could change his opinion of Christmas and wanting to wish people a ‘merry Christmas’? 23382

5. ‘But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scarping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as a flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.’ • Describe your first impressions of Scrooge from reading the extract above, which is from the opening of the story. You could use a dictionary to help you with any words you don’t understand. • What images are ‘hard’ and what images are ‘cold’? Sort the words into two groups. 23382

6. What are ‘Staves’? • Dickens has linked this story more with Staves. Staves are the verses of a song, hence a link with the title as carols are traditionally sung at Christmas time. There are five lines in a musical stave so there are five sections in his story. • Stave One - Marley’s Ghost. • Stave Two - The First of the Three Spirits. • Stave Three - The Second of the Three Spirits. • Stave Four -The Last of the Spirits. • Stave Five - The End of It. • What impression do you get about the story from the titles of these staves? • Why do you feel that Dickens has used ghosts in this story? 23382

7. Look at the following book covers: • What first impressions of the story do you get from each book cover? • Which one is the most effective for you and why? 23382

8. As you read the book… • Be aware of the language used to describe Scrooge and the Ghosts. • Look at how Dickens describes his setting of the book and how Victorian life is depicted throughout the story. • Look for the key themes of: • Responsibility • Social criticism • Greed and money • Poverty • Isolation • Education • Christmas 23382