A Christmas Carol - Ignorance and Want

A Christmas Carol - Ignorance and Want

(30-slide editable PowerPoint teaching resource with 6 worksheets)

This double GCSE lesson enables learners to explore the background to - and Dickens’ presentation of - Ignorance and Want in Stave 3. It begins with a choice of differentiated retrieval tasks as a Do Now activity. These tasks prompt recall of key ideas and quotations from Staves 1-3. Learners will then read from, ‘Much they saw and far they went’ down to the end of Stave Three. During their reading, learners are asked to reflect on:

• What we learn about Ignorance and Want and how Scrooge reacts to them

• What Ignorance and Want may represent in Victorian society

• What function these characters serve in the novella.

Following on from this, learners will complete a worksheet that enables them to explore the background to Dickens’ creation of Ignorance and Want. This worksheet focuses primarily on Dickens’ experiences in the year 1843 and how they influenced his decision to write ‘A Christmas Carol’. After feedback, learning is reviewed and this constitutes the end of the first part of the lesson.

In Part 2, the Do Now task asks learners to retrieve information from the previous lesson. After giving feedback, learners will then use a second worksheet to focus on the passage in question, responding to questions that prompt analysis of Dickens’ presentation of Ignorance and Want. Suggested answers for this and the Do Now task are included. Part 2 concludes with learners identifying what they knew, have learnt and would like to know about the characters of Ignorance and Want.

Not quite what you’re looking for? Click below to see more GCSE resources for Stave 3 of A Christmas Carol:

A Christmas Carol - The Ghost of Christmas Present
A Christmas Carol - The Ghost of Christmas Present Part 2
A Christmas Carol - The Ghost of Christmas Present Part 3
A Christmas Carol - The Cratchits Part 1
A Christmas Carol - The Cratchits Part 2
A Christmas Carol - The Cratchits Part 3
A Christmas Carol - The Cratchits Part 4
A Christmas Carol - The Cratchits Part 5
A Christmas Carol - Tiny Tim
A Christmas Carol - Fred’s Christmas
A Christmas Carol - The Market Scene
A Christmas Carol - The Miners and the Lighthouse