Here is a Christmas Short Stories lesson I've developed for my Secondary Reading class....
Christmas Lesson, Short Stories
Information for this lesson was gathered from www.wikipedia.org and http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/christmas.html
Lesson 1 (can be done over several days):
We will begin our Christmas lesson by contrasting 2 very similar
stories, “A Child’s Dream of a Star,” by Charles Dickens and “The Little Match Girl,” by Hans Christian Anderson.
Remember, before we read, we must consider the context of the story. When was it written, what was the author like, what were the times like? This is especially important when considering anything written by Charles Dickens who wrote as a social advocate for the poor during the industrial revolution of England.
Charles John Huffam Dickens, 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was one of the most popular English novelists of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner.
Critics George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton championed Dickens's mastery of prose, his endless invention of unique, clever personalities, and his powerful social sensibilities. Although his early years seem to have been an idyllic time, he thought himself then as a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy". He spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously. He talked, later in life, of his extremely poignant memories of childhood, and of his continuing photographic memory of the people and events that helped to bring his fiction to life. His family's early, moderate wealth provided the boy Dickens with some private education at William Giles's school, in Chatham. This time of prosperity came to an abrupt end, however, when his father, after having spent beyond his means in entertaining, and in retaining his social position, was imprisoned at Marshalsea debtors' prison. Shortly afterwards, the rest of his family (except for Charles, who boarded nearby), realizing no other option, joined him in residence at Marshalsea. After only a few months in Marshalsea, John Dickens was informed of the death of his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, who had left him, in her will, the sum of £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens petitioned for, and was granted, release from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea for the home of Mrs. Roylance.
Just before his father's arrest, the 12-year-old Dickens had begun working ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse. He earned six shillings a week pasting labels on jars of thick shoe polish. This money paid for his lodgings at the house of family friend, Elizabeth Roylance, and helped support his family.
Although Dickens eventually attended the Wellington House Academy in North London, his mother did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory. Resentment stemming from his situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favorite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield . "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!"
Charles Dickens has probably had more influence on the way that we celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one.
At the beginning of the Victorian period the celebration of Christmas was in decline. The medieval Christmas traditions, which combined the celebration of the birth of Christ with the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia (a pagan celebration for the Roman god of agriculture), and the Germanic winter festival of Yule, had come under intense scrutiny by the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell. The Industrial Revolution, in full swing in Dickens' time, allowed workers little time for the celebration of Christmas.
The romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in Victorian times had other contributors: Prince Albert brought the German custom of decorating the Christmas tree to England,
the singing of Christmas carols (which had all but disappeared at the turn of the century) began to thrive again, and the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840s. But it was the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 masterpiece A Christmas Carol, that rekindled the joy of Christmas in Britain and America. Today, after more than 160 years, A Christmas Carol continues to be relevant, sending a message that cuts through the materialistic trappings of the season and gets to the heart and soul of the holidays.
Dickens' describes the holidays as "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys". This was what Dickens described for the rest of his life as the "Carol Philosophy".
Dickens' name had become so synonymous with Christmas that on hearing of his death in 1870 a little girl in London asked, "Mr. Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?"
No we’re going to complete the Dickens portion of our compare contrast story sheet. Hand out compare/contrast sheets.
I’m sure most of you have heard The Christmas Carol written by Dickens, which features Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. Dickens also wrote 4 other Christmas stories, one of which we’ll read today, called “A Child Dreams of a Star.”
Read A Child Dreams of a Star
http://www.answers.com/topic/a-child-s-dream-of-a-star
Complete story organizer (Setting, plot, conflict, climax, theme)
Now, we’ll move on to our next author and story. The next story we’ll read will be The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen.
First we must look at the context of The Little Match Girl. Hans Christian Andersen was born in the same time period as Dickens, but lived a very different life in Denmark. He is most known for his fairy tales, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and Thumbelina.
Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, on Tuesday, April 2, 1805. Most English sources use the name "Hans Christian Andersen", but in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia he is usually referred to as merely "H. C. Andersen". His name "Hans Christian" is a traditional Danish name and is used as a single name, One cannot be used without the other, for instance, he would never be called just Hans.
Andersen displayed great intelligence and imagination as a young boy, traits that were fostered by the indulgence of his parents. He made himself a small toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could lay his hands upon; among them were those of Ludvig Holberg and William Shakespeare. Throughout his childhood, he had a passionate love for literature. He was known to memorize entire plays by Shakespeare and to recite them using his wooden dolls as actors.
Youth
In 1816, his father died in a fire and, in order to support himself, Andersen worked as an apprentice for both a weaver and a tailor. He later worked in a cigarette factory where his fellow workers humiliated him by betting on whether he was in fact a girl. At the age of fourteen, Andersen moved to Copenhagen seeking employment as an actor in the theatre. He had a pleasant soprano voice and succeeded in being admitted to the Royal Danish Theatre. This career stopped short when his voice broke. A colleague at the theatre had referred to him as a poet, and Andersen took this very seriously and began to focus on writing.
Following an accidental meeting, Jonas Collin started taking an interest in the odd boy and sent Andersen to the grammar school in Slagelse, paying all his expenses.[3] Before even being admitted to grammar-school, Andersen had already succeeded in publishing his first story, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave in 1822. Though an unwilling pupil, Andersen studied both in Slagelse and at a school in Elsinore until 1827. He later stated that these years had been the darkest and most bitter parts of his life. He had experienced living in his schoolmaster's own home, being abused in order to "build his character", and he had been alienated from his fellow students, being much older than most of them, homely and unattractive. Furthermore, he was dyslexic, a very likely reason for his learning difficulties and he later said that the school faculty forbade or discouraged him to write.
In June 1847, Andersen paid his first visit to England and enjoyed a triumphal social success during the summer. The Countess of Blessington invited him to her parties where intellectual and famous people could meet, and it was at one party that he met Charles Dickens for the first time. They shook hands and walked to the veranda which was of much joy to Andersen. He wrote in his diary "We had come to the veranda, I was so happy to see and speak to England's now living writer, whom I love the most.”
Ten years later, Andersen visited England, primarily to visit Dickens. He stayed at Dickens' home for five weeks, oblivious to Dickens' increasingly blatant hints for him to leave. Dickens' daughter said of Andersen, "He was a bony bore, and stayed on and on." Shortly after Andersen left, Dickens published David Copperfield, featuring the obsequious Uriah Heep, who is said to have been modeled on Andersen. Andersen quite enjoyed the visit, and never understood why Dickens stopped answering his letters.
In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of bed and was severely hurt. He never quite recovered, but he lived until August 4 1875, dying painfully in a house called Rolighed (literally: calmness), near Copenhagen, the home of his close friends Moritz Melchior, a banker and his wife.[17] Shortly before his death, he had consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps."
Let’s get our compare and contrast sheets and add Andersen.
How are the 2 writer’s lives similar? How are they different?
Now let’s read “The Little Match Girl”
http://hjem.get2net.dk/chenero/hca/hcaev040_en.html
Complete Compare/Contrast Worksheet for both stories.
Discuss similarities and differences in the two stories. Dicsuss the the irony of how Dicken's story doesn't portray his usual struggle of the working class, but Andersen's does.
Research the Industrial revolution in England and it's effects on the class system.
A Literary Comparison essay may be done to contrast the two short stories.
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