Posted: January 12th, 2023
12Item82018Narrative xfreytag1 ShortStoryIdeas
For this task you are to create a short story about abandonment. 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. The text will need to be 3rd person and include allusions to texts such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Prometheus, and Dante’s Inferno. Please refer to the task sheet for any more instruction
Unit: |
The Power of Gothic |
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Instrument: |
8 |
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Item and assessment technique: |
Written Task: Narrative – Short Story |
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Dimensions: |
1. Understanding and responding to contexts 2. Understanding and controlling textual features 3. Creating meaning |
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Areas of study: |
Past Worlds |
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Other information: |
Summative Assessment Task |
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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. |
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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 |
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Genre and purpose: |
Narrative/Short story (to create mood and atmosphere; to entertain; to make a social comment) |
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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 |
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CCEs |
Creating/composing/devising; Using vocabulary appropriate to a context; Structuring/organising extended written text; Interrelating ideas/themes/issues. |
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Mode and medium: |
Word processed and emailed to your teacher or printed and submitted – at your teacher’s discretion |
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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. |
Lost innocence: you could explore a child soldier who has been recruited by
Boko Haram and is being forced to kill for the first time. You could then subtly
allude to Gothicism and Romanticism through descriptions of location/setting
(I.e. The fog is rolling into the village at dusk in a remote Nigerian village,
violent screams can be heard in the background, nature is protesting through
the groans of the forest).
Responsibility and abandonment: you could explore a mother who is struggling
with the decision to abandon her baby. This could be set in eerie 1800s London
(I.e. Like Oliver Twist) or it could be in modern China (in a society where only 1
child was allowed, infanticide was quite common. Female babies would be
killed as only male children were desired)
Fascination with the sublime: The character is a grave robber in Ancient Egypt
who is fixated on collecting the sublime gold artefacts hidden away in the
Pharaoh’s tombs…but there are risks with doing this sort of stuff…
Pursuit of dangerous knowledge: You could create a dystopian narrative where
the character’s town is destroyed by an atomic bomb. Maybe an air-raid siren
has just gone off (to warn of an impending bomb) and the character knows
they won’t make it out alive in time. They only have just enough time to reflect
on the cruelty of atomic warfare and cuddle their children goodbye.
Society’s preconcieved notions of beauty: you could explore an outcast ‘ugly’
character (like the Hunchback of Notre Dam) and how this spawns hatred
within them.
Place an order in 3 easy steps. Takes less than 5 mins.