A Christmas Carol (GCSE) Scrooge Stave 1

This resource for GCSE pupils enables learners to explore Scrooge’s response to the charity collectors in Stave 1 of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Contents include:

A differentiated ‘Do Now’ activity, in which pupils work in pairs to answer ten short-answer questions under timed conditions. In order to answer these questions, learners will need to have read from the beginning of the novella up until to Fred’s departure.

Learners feedback their answers to ‘earn’ the right to participate in a ‘Catchphrase’-style activity in which they must work out what the picture behind the squares is showing. (The image is Hogarth’s ‘In the Madhouse’, a representation of the inside of Bedlam.)

After this, learners will read from ‘There’s another fellow…’ down to ‘…a more facetious temper than was usual with him’.

The main activity is for learners to analyse how Dickens presents Scrooge’s wilful ignorance of the harsh reality of life for the poor. They will use the information and ideas in a context sheet to consider the significance of five important quotations from the passage. This task contains three levels of challenge. At higher levels, learners will reflect on the methods that Dickens is using to convey Scrooge’s ignorance of the hardship that others face.

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