The Woman in Black: The Features of Ghost Stories!

This engaging and informative lesson enables students to show a detailed and sustained understanding of the conventions of effective ghost stories, through analysis of extracts from Susan Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black.’ They study how individual features of subject matter (such as the setting and the hero) and language (e.g descriptive features) are used to create suspense and tension in the mind of the reader.

The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through:
- Defining the key elements of ghost stories;
- Planning a ghost story using the key features;
- Identifying the elements of ghost stories within key extracts of The Woman in Black;
- Analysing the effectiveness of Hill’s features of ghost stories in The Woman in Black;
- Peer assessing each other’s learning attempts.

Included is:
- Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive;
- Extracts from the blurb and Chapter 1 of The Woman in Black;
- Template for creating their own ghost stories;
- Analysis template with success criteria for creating well-structured responses;
- Comprehensive lesson plan.

There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. This was originally taught to middle-ability year 10 groups, but can easily be differentiated for groups of different ages and abilities.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.