Pride and Prejudice Literature Class - Session 1

We had a great time together for our first Pride and Prejudice session. It was so exciting over the course of the day to hear various students quoting lines from Pride and Prejudice. I heard students quoting Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennett, Mrs. Bennett and Elizabeth…The dialogue really sticks with the students!!

Some of our students read the book, some watched the BBC miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice and then some watched the new version of the movie. I also suggested that our students could watch Miss Austen Regrets to extend their study of Jane Austen.

The first thing we did was go over Jane Austen’s life. I had our students call out anything that they knew about Jane Austen and then I read and expounded on this short biography - my goal was to give some context to her writing. We spoke briefly about writing about your contemporaries vs. writing about some time in the past. 

We then talked about what was going on in the world at the time of Jane Austen’s life. Based on our time frame for Social Studies, it finally clicked in with our students that she lived over the years of what we had studied in the American, French and Industrial Revolutions! We spoke a little about how she didn’t include much about these revolutions in her books.

Then it was time for our first group project - this was really an overview of the themes of Pride and Prejudice and an introduction to the book. I had made up these questions ahead of time and the students got in groups of 3 or 4 and answered them. We then got back together and discussed them. 

We went over the ideas that the letters in Pride and Prejudice either moved the plot along for us or foreshadowed coming events in the book. I only chose a limited number of the letters - only ones that I saw as the “most important” ones. I then had them break into groups and analyze using these questions the various letters that were in the book. Each group looked at one of the letters. I had hoped to get to the whole group looking at how important Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth’s was in the plot of the story but there was no more time! 

These classes just fly by!! After that my partner in the class led the students in a run through of the Pride and Prejudice play. These plays are always amazing! We are so blessed to have a teacher and students that love drama!! It adds such depth to these literature sessions.

Blessings,

Natalie