Activities for Students


The following activities could be used alongside the programmes to help students to respond to a range of literary texts in the horror genre. The aim is to promote a critical awareness of language, effect and theme.

  • Story-telling exercise. Use the story-telling episodes in the three programmes to encourage discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of styles of delivery. In pairs, students then tell each other a ghost or horror story, and refine one of them by oral redrafting.
  • Collage. Students create a 'Gothic collage' using newspaper extracts, bits of text, pictures or artwork, to show their understanding of the Gothic elements and the visual aspects of setting.
  • Storyboard. Using the extract from Dracula, students create their own storyboard to explore the visual imagery within the text. The sections of the programmes where text has been filmed should help with this process.
  • Character analysis. Draw two columns; in one, list adjectives to describe the hero/heroine (of either a horror novel or a story of your own) as he/she is first introduced; in column two, list adjectives that describe the character at the end of the story. What causes such changes? Is there any development of the villain/monster?
  • Textual analysis. Using any of the four text extracts (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Haunted Hotel or Jane Eyre) together with extracts from the programmes, ask students to begin a textual analysis by picking out: adjectives, use of the senses, verbs, descriptive detail of setting, narrative stance. Ask them to work out the effect of these techniques. What atmosphere is being created? How does the writer maintain suspense? How does the setting add to this?
  • Research. Discuss with a group which scenes from any horror story were the most popular. What reasons do your friends mention most? Identifying what readers find most memorable shows how your writing might be made to appeal to them.
  • Personal writing. Students should write their own story in the horror genre. The guidelines given in Programme 3 (and accompanying 'Net Notes') will assist with this. Some students may wish to develop one of the stories told earlier, concentrating their efforts on adding significant detail to create a distinctive style. Others may wish to explore the various possibilities offered by the genre itself: either pure ghastliness, to create pure terror, or a more philosophical exploration of 'the darkness of man's heart'.
  • Setting. When describing some (contrasting) settings for your own writing, consider what moods they could evoke; they should help to reveal (or influence) the types of character you use.
  • Poster. Sketch a cinema publicity poster for a film of your favourite horror novel, or a horror story of your own. What kind of audience will it attract and how can you give them an idea of the story? Concentrate on just a few exciting aspects of the story rather than try to cram too much on the poster.

  • Video. Make a short video production of your own horror story. A cover could also be designed for the video case.
  • Write on. Try writing an extra chapter for adding to the end of a favourite horror story. Has the main character been changed completely by the experiences of the novel? How will he/she behave in the future?
  • Review. For a friend who has not yet read your favourite horror novel, write an explanation of what the book meant to you, including your reasoning as to why you recommend reading the book.

To help you write a review of a horror story, you can examine some sample book reviews at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140071083/qid%3D937383608/sr%3D1-1/002-6884048-4356055

and horror film reviews at www:fuzzydog:com/films:htm
  • Press report/article. If the events of a horror story you have read were actually true, how might the story be reported in a national tabloid/broadsheet or your local newspaper? (Structure the writing to answer the 5Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why (and maybe How).
  • Brochure. Create a guide to a haunted house in your area. If you do not know of such a house, choose any local building and pop your ghost into its story. (Perhaps this could be word processed or desktop published.)
  • Oral work. Imagine that you have returned from a remote, foreign place where you saw an amazing beast. As you had no camera, you have to describe (and exaggerate?) what you witnessed. Though you may emphasise that it seemed a dangerous monster, can you say why you think it should be captured but not killed?
  • Film Proposal. Imagine you have scripted a film version of a horror story that you have read. Write a letter to a film production company explaining why your script would make a good horror film. You will need to include a summary of the story, descriptions of the main characters and persuade them about why audiences would be interested.
  • Role-play. In pairs, improvise the conversation that a film director might have with a horror novelist about how any particular episode from the novel should be filmed. (Note: film-makers often treat scenes differently from the writer's vision! Consider whether 'two heads are better than one' or if 'too many cooks spoil the broth'.)
  • Representation analysis. What differing impressions of Dracula are conveyed by these representations:

His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse – broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point.

[Extract from Dracula, by Bram Stoker]

  • Representation analysis. Discuss which of these representations of Frankenstein's creature you find the most powerful.

His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

[Extract from Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley]




© 2000 Channel Four Television Corporation