A Christmas Carol - Context

A series of three lessons which work well as an opening on A Christmas Carol, exploring what life was like in Victorian Britain, and Dicken’s writing style.
The first two lessons here focus on Victorian lifestyles, with one lesson offering pupils the chance to carry out their own research (guidance is given in the form of suggested websites for each topic, looking at Victorian childhood, fashions and etiquette, Charles Dickens, and the Industrial Revolution); the second lesson takes more of a lecture style, with images on the slides matching the images on the pupil sheet to help practise concise note-taking.
The third lesson in this pack uses extracts from other Dickens novels to start to explore what his views of poor people and society were. While these texts are quite challenging, the comprehension questions on the bottom help pupils to develop their understanding, and groups can be arranged to support those who will find this more challenging.
Personally I teach A Christmas Carol at KS3, but these would make a good introduction to the GCSE course too.