What to do

1. Depending on your students’ knowledge of Dickens, you can start or end the activity with the book title puzzle on the second activity page. Cut out the boxes and give them to the students. Ask them to organise the words to make the titles of ten different books. Students do the activity. When they have finished, ask students to read out the titles and check them with the answer key. Ask students what the books all have in common? Answer: They were all written by Charles Dickens. You can ask students to put the pieces of paper together to form a picture of one of the author’s most famous characters. The picture is of Miss Havisham as played by Helena Bonham Carter in a new film adaptation of Great Expectations being released later this year.

2. Ask students if they have ever read any books by Charles Dickens or seen any films based on his work. What can they tell you about his stories and characters? Then ask them why Dickens is in the news this year. Give them copies of the first activity page and ask them to read the introduction text at the top of the page. Alternatively, use the introduction as a dictation.

3. Students can do the reading activity individually or in pairs. They have to read the ‘episodes’ from the author’s life and put them in the correct order. They then write the episode number at the top of each text. If you prefer, you can cut up the ‘episodes’ and give each one to a different student. The students read their episodes and try to work out where they fit in Dickens’ life. The student who thinks they have the first episode, reads it out to the others. The student who thinks they have the next episode, reads their episode aloud, and so on. When they have finished, check answers and help with any comprehension problems.

4. If you want to extend the activity, write these chapter titles on the board

1. I AM BORN
2. I OBSERVE
3. I HAVE A CHANGE
4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE

Explain that these are the episode/chapter titles from David Copperfield. Ask students to write similar titles for the episodes in Dickens’ own life. When they are ready, invite some students to read out their titles.

5. Students answer the true/false questions based on what they remember from the story of his life. They then answer the questions in pairs or small groups. When they are ready, open the discussion up to the whole class.

Suggested answers: Dickens’ work is similar to a contemporary television drama series because it was written in episodes and the readers waited impatiently to find out what happened next. His job at the factory when he was a boy, the family’s financial troubles, and the death of his wife’s sister all greatly influenced his work. You can point out that the debtors’ prison appears in Little Dorrit and the death of Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop was based on Mary’s death.

6. If you haven’t already done the book title puzzle then do it now (see section 1 above). With higher levels you could read an extract from one of his books (http://www.gutenberg.org) or encourage students to read a graded reader version of one of his stories. You can find more about the bicentenary events at http://www.dickens2012.org

Answers

Episodes
1 Charles John Huffam Dickens was born ...
2 The family’s financial problems ...
3 The young boy stayed in Camden ...
4 The family’s bad luck ended ...
5 In 1834, he became a political ...
6 He married Catherine Hogarth ...
7 By the age of twenty-seven ...
8 In later years Dickens gave readings ...

True or false?
1 False; 2 False; 3 True; 4 False; 5 True; 6 True

Book titles
A Christmas Carol; Bleak House; David Copperfield; Great Expectations; Hard Times; Little Dorrit; Nicholas Nickleby; Oliver Twist; The Old Curiosity Shop; The Pickwick Papers