Prepare Me for the Horror: The Feminist Way

Submitted by: Julie Arias, Senior UTEP student

School, or Affiliation: University of Texas at El Paso.

Grade Level: 12
Note: May 1996-Extended Lesson Plan

Overview:

Students will create their own feminist interpretation of the text with my guidance. This will enable them to utilize literary criticism and theory on the text they are required to read. Hopefully this will also prepare them for the texts they are to read in college as well.

Objectives:

1. Demonstrate how questions of imagery, characterization, setting, themes, binary oppositions, and feminist interpretations of the text in reading journals can assist in understanding the text and literary theory.
2. Prepare students for their own horror story by implementing prewriting activities in their journals using the text as an example.

Instruction:

Student will be required to keep a reading journal in which they will be asked to answer several questions regarding elements found in the text. Everyday they will be required to have those questions answered for the following class period. For example, let us say that my students will need to have written their own feminist interpretations of the text for homework. The next day they would be required to bring their interpretations, read them in class and compare similarities in groups. Then, I would share my own femiinist interpretation of the text as well as other critics' interpretations. To get them to brainstorm for further understanding, I would also write some concrete questions about the feminist view and have them answer these questions as well.

Feminist view sample questions:

• What possible questions can pop up from a feminist in regards to the creation of the monster?
  answer: Why did a man have to be the creator? Why did the monster have to be a male?
• What two possible similarities do the female characters of the book have in common? answer: a. they are killed b. do not venture into exploration

Other questions from the text:

• Approximately how tall did Dr. Frankenstein want to create the monster?
  answer: seven feet (Ch. 3, 4)
• What motivated Dr. Frankenstein to venture into unknown realms?
  answer: his obsession with natural philosophy and reading volumes of Cornelius Agrippa's scientific principles then later Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus (Ch. 2)

Materials:

Student: copy of text, reading journals, interpretations, other responses

Teacher: text chapter handouts

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