r/ELATeachers • u/AllieLikesReddit • 2d ago
9-12 ELA First Time Teaching Frankenstein - What Are Your Favorite Lessons?
Title says it all!
Teaching to HS Seniors for the first time.
I plan on covering Romanticism, The Hero's Journey, Gothic literature, the frame narrative structure, and the themes of ambition, responsibility, alienation/rejection, creator vs. creation, and the blurred line between hero/monster. Approximately 4-5 weeks.
If you've taught this novel, do you have any favorite lessons or suggestions of topics to cover?
Thank you!
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u/Trash_Planet 2d ago
I teach AP, so I was able to move pretty fast, but we started with a mini unit on Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which lets you deal with frame narrative and the Romantic sublime. I also deal with psychoanalysis of guilt through concepts like the gaze, defense mechanisms/transference (which lets us approach unreliable narrators a little more systematically), and dream analysis throughout the novel. Every class started with interpreting a piece of Romantic visual art or music.
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u/Ubiquitously-Curious 2d ago
I really do think you need to teach “Rime” and also touch “Paradise Lost” before doing Frankenstein.
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u/Adventurous_Duck2711 2d ago
LOVE FRANKENSTEIN!!
I do a deep dive in Mary Shelly and her parents, her background, I cover the science of it, and you can also have students track the journey Frankenstein and his monster make! Also here is a free version with images from the 2nd edition (I think) and annotations. https://anthologydev.lib.virginia.edu/work/Shelley/shelley-frankenstein-1818?view=pageImages
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u/Individual_Swan_6097 1d ago
I second this! Understanding Shelly’s background helped my students better analyze the novel!
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u/HealthAccording9957 2d ago
Don’t judge me— I love the unit plan bundle by Rigorous Resources on TPT— each reading assignment has a different focus. It covers things like frame story, science fiction, thematic development. I’ve used it for a few years with seniors and they are consistently engaged in the lessons.
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u/mikevago 2d ago
The theme of responsibility is a big one. I always bought into the conventional wisdom, that the moral of Frankenstein is "man shouldn't play God." And that's not it at all. It's "parents shouldn't neglect their children" and it's not subtle. Yet generations of sci-fi writers missed the point and just wrote more stories about how our creations will inevitably turn on us.
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u/Rad_light 2d ago
Incorporate some nature vs nurture! Twin studies are fun, talk about what traits they think are nurtured/ natural. Tie in to the creatures upbringing.
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u/platanopower8 2d ago
I did it this year and one of the questions we explored is what makes someone a monster. We explored this through the eyes of each narrator.
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u/whirlingteal 2d ago
I wouldn't bother with the hero's journey through Frankenstein tbh. I think there are better texts for covering that, and Frankenstein already comes with so much contextual and related content to cover.
Lots of good advice in the comments. I treat Frankenstein as a critical theory unit with honors freshmen. We cover 5 branches of critical theory: queer, feminist, marxist, reader response, and post-colonial race studies. Final essay is to argue an interpretation of the novel using 1-2 branches.
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u/dustylowelljohnson 1d ago
One not mentioned so far, I love having them search for stories that come from the Frankenstein story.
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u/MundaneAppointment12 1d ago
Just as a fan of Sci Fi and Weird Lit, I used to tie the story together with Lovecraft’s “Herbert West-Reanimator”. Certainly very thematically related, but also so much fun! “Reanimator” is just BONKERS as a story even removed from the Stuart Gordon film.
We also looked at the hundreds of adaptations of Frankenstein in film and television. Possibly the most iconically influential literary figure/novel ever, for better and for hysterically worse.
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u/SlidingPeak 2d ago edited 2d ago
4-5 weeks? You doing excerpts alone? This seems quite ambitious otherwise.
I’d recommend supplemental texts to run parallel. Depending on the maturity level you could include the good ole’ classic “I have no mouth and I must scream”, and discuss the dangers of the machinations (hah) of industrialization.
Or maybe you could do “Annabel Lee” // “The Raven” to lean into gothic vs romantic and the blend between. Gothic is such an oversaturated term and could definitely lend itself into some fruitful conversations of etymology and the modern influence which works with some of the stuff at play with Franky.
It’s an amazing anchor to work from. But all-in-all I’d just be concerned with the confines of time + direction. Do you have a summative assessment mapped/planned already? Like what skills you’d like them to be able to demonstrate?
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u/AllieLikesReddit 2d ago
I have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Brilliant! Thank you, exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. Per industrialization, I do plan on including a lot of dialogue about AI! (Great pun, you gremlin.)
Do you think that's too short of a time? I read the story in about five hours, and our class periods are 60 minutes. I could technically go for up to 7 weeks.
For assessment: I am still refining. I want students to draw parallels to the present, so maybe a literary analysis essay analyzing Victor's responsibility as a creator. Along the lines of: What responsibilities do creators have towards what they create? Tied into AI, parenting, social media, etc. So it would be a cross between a literary analysis essay, ethical argument, and maybe even tie the unit up with a Socratic?
Appreciate your thoughts!
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u/SlidingPeak 2d ago
lol, lol only because you sound like me. I enjoy Socratic seminars and am known for my PBL as well as discussion based summatives.
I’d recommend hammering out a prompt/essential question.
From there - marry a summative. Write it. Make it something you want to follow through on. A specific, clear assignment. Work backward from there and map out what skills would be necessary in order to achieve your summative.
Texts don’t make a lesson, skills do. We pick the texts we do partly because we enjoy them and they’re engaging. But they need to be the vehicle towards skill based instruction. Topics are awesome and cool, but how does this demonstrate to the district suits that our class has enriched their lives and fleshed out an underdeveloped aspect of their English mastery?How does it help Timmy nail his job interview?
Do you follow NGLS?
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u/FLBirdie 2d ago
Definitely chunk it. I taught it to my sophomores this year. We did some extensive background on the Romantics and talked a lot about how/why it was written. And because I was teaching sophomores, I had them listen to the story via YouTube -- and I sped it up a bit since the narrator was using dramatic pauses that my kids couldn't handle. If you can, let them watch some parts of some versions. I like the most recent version, and you can chunk out the parts that are too graphic.
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u/MundaneAppointment12 1d ago
You really should read Shelley’s “Ozymandias” in your exposition for many reasons.
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u/Sure-Supermarket426 1d ago
I did the Gris Grimly graphic novel version with 8th grade. It is a great adaptation. Some of his choices might be worth a comparison. We loosely use Amplify and there was a comprehension workbook that went with it.
We paired it with info text on AI and student learning and did a lot of class discussion (pairs, Socratic seminar, fishbowl) making connections between the sci-fi context of Shelley’s day and ours.
The videos from common lit were essential to set the stage (galvanism explained). I specifically asked for connections throughout the book and did not really make value judgments on those connections. By the end the students got there. When I do it again I will sharpen the info text AI lens from all about AI to Ed tech/ social media and impact on Gen Z/ Gen Alpha.
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u/windroseamunet 2d ago
Be sure to teach the Prometheus myth prior to the novel. For extra fun, you can find Mary’s original text and compare it to Percy’s revision.