A Christmas Carol (GCSE) Thomas Malthus

A Christmas Carol - Context - Thomas Malthus

KS4 GCSE English Teaching Resources - A Christmas Carol Context (24-slide PowerPoint and 10 worksheets)

Malthus’ theory of population growth is an important consideration in ‘A Christmas Carol’, but who was Malthus and why was Dickens disgusted by his ideas?

This resource for KS4/GCSE enables learners to think about their own attitude in relation to the management of poverty and understand how Malthus justified his opinion that the poor should not be given financial aid. It includes:

A differentiated Do Now/Starter activity, in which learners rate how far they agree with eight controversial statements relating to the management of poverty in society. At higher levels, learners will also go on to decide how Scrooge would respond to each statement and why.

The main activity is for learners to use a table of simplified data to draw their own graph demonstrating Malthus’ theory. Teachers should select the higher, middle, or lower version of this or use a mix of all three, depending on the range of abilities within their group.

After this, learners reflect on the implications of the adjective surplus. This tasks also includes higher-level questions to stretch more able learners.

The lesson concludes with learners writing down five things they have learnt during the lesson.