Pride and Prejudice Session #3 - Society, Marriage and Theme

This was by far my favourite session with our students thus far!! I was amazed at their depth of insight and maturity despite the fact that they are all 15 and under! 

To start with I had them get into groups do this chart comparing society in the 1800's to now. Then we came back together and discussed it.
They did a great job finding the reasons behind the differences during our discussion - we touched on everything from the class system in Britain to the limited ways that women could make money. These students took this discussion beyond what I had hoped!

Next I had them get in groups again and answer the questions on marriage from this sheet. All I can say is WOW - if they can apply their thoughts on marriage to their lives they will have very happy marriages! I asked them many other questions when we got back together and they expanded on the discussion.

Finally I used a list of themes and I had get into pairs and circle the ones they saw in Pride and Prejudice. We then went over the many themes and why they thought they applied to the book.
What a rich study!!! 

The students did a dress rehearsal and then put on Pride and Prejudice for us moms! What a joy it is to see them acting with their peers! They certainly are willing to be vulnerable with each other and laugh!

These performances not only help solidify the piece of literature, but they help to solidify the time period, the language, the culture and so much more! What a blessing this session was!! 

Pride and Prejudice Session #2

Oh, what a great session we had exploring the rich characters of Pride and Prejudice! First I had up on the board a character web of some of my own family and friends. 

I then had the students get into groups of 4 and do their own character web for Pride and Prejudice. I got the idea from Wikipedia and this visual. 

Some of the students were very detailed in remembering every one of the characters and their names! I was very impressed!!

Next, I had the students work in pairs and look at the Character Traits and Actions of any one character from the book/film/tv series. We discussed that characters have many traits and therefore their actions should reflect many different traits. I had them use a resource similar to this one to get the ideas flowing on character traits. Then they used this chart to write their answers.

Finally, our last exercise was to go over Round/Flat, Static and Dynamic as well as Protagonist, Antagonist, Foil and Stereotypes. We discussed them instead and I had the students shout out their answers. 

After this, it was time for another run-through of Pride and Prejudice! What an excellent play that our talented drama mom wrote!

I am ever impressed by these students and their passion for learning! Blessings, Natalie

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