Unit:

The Power of Gothic

Instrument:

8

Item and assessment technique:

Written Task: Narrative – Short Story

Dimensions:

1. Understanding and responding to contexts

2. Understanding and controlling textual features

3. Creating meaning

Areas of study:

Past Worlds

Other information:

Summative Assessment Task

Context:

In this unit you have extended your understanding of how fear and suspense is constructed in texts by reading, viewing and responding to literary and non-literary Romantic Gothic texts. You have interpreted, analysed and evaluated Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, paying particular attention Shelley’s use of language and textual features when constructing Frankenstein’s creature.

Task:

You are to create an engaging narrative using a theme from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus as stimulus. You will need to draw on the thematic and intertextual connections within the text to influence your audience whilst using the relevant narrative structure and aesthetic features such as figurative language.

Possible themes include:

– The pursuit of dangerous knowledge – Society’s preconceived notions of beauty

– Fascination with the sublime – Responsibility and abandonment

– Lost innocence

Genre and purpose:

Narrative/Short story (to create mood and atmosphere; to entertain; to make a social comment)

Field (Subject matter):

Your narrative must include:

· 3rd person, past tense narration

· Few characters

· Appropriate short story structure

· Allusions to texts such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Prometheus, and Dante’s Inferno

· Vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, paragraphing and punctuation for purpose

· Use aesthetic features for purpose such as:

alliteration assonance imagery metaphors personification simile symbolism imagery metaphors motifs personification symbolism

Tenor (Roles and relationships):

Student writer to teacher

CCEs

Creating/composing/devising; Using vocabulary appropriate to a context; Structuring/organising extended written text; Interrelating ideas/themes/issues.

Mode and medium:

Word processed and emailed to your teacher or printed and submitted – at your teacher’s discretion

Conditions:

Length: 800 – 1200 words

Preparation Time: You will have 4 weeks notice of task. You will have 4 lessons of class time in which to write a plan and a draft. You will need to use home time as well.

Access to Resources: unlimited access to resources; access to one draft due during Week 5.