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SavannahYear 8
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EnglishThe Woman in Black: Gothic atmosphere24 min★★★ difficulty

The haunted past and the Gothic tradition

The Woman in Black is a modern novel that reaches back to the nineteenth-century Gothic. Knowing the tradition explains why every detail — the veil, the child, the curse — feels familiar and still works.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Reading: Draw on knowledge of the purpose, audience for and context of the writing, including its social, historical and cultural context and the literary tradition to which it belongs

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Draw on knowledge of the purpose, audience for and context of the writing, including its social, historical and cultural context and the literary tradition to which it belongs

Key learning points

  • • A Victorian haunting in modern dress
  • • The tradition she joins
  • • The veil and the figure
  • • Why the past haunts

This lesson at a glance

  • 24 minutes
  • 15 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

knowledgepurposeaudiencecontextwriting

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 15 · Discover7%
1

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The haunted past and the Gothic tradition

An English teaching video on this topic from Story Summaries. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Draw on knowledge of the purpose, audience for and context of the writing, including its social, historical and cultural context and the literary tradition to which it belongs

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 15

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · A Victorian haunting in modern dress

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 15

Learn

A Victorian haunting in modern dress

Hill sets her story in the early twentieth century but writes it in the voice and atmosphere of the Victorian Gothic novel. The deliberate old-fashionedness is a choice: it lets a 1983 reader feel the dread of a tradition they already half-remember from ghost stories.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 15

Learn

The tradition she joins

Gothic fiction, from the late eighteenth century on, trades in the uncanny: the familiar turned strange, the past refusing to stay dead, the family secret that poisons the present. The Woman in Black belongs to this line — the ghost is a wronged mother, the house a sealed secret, the curse inherited across generations.

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Quick check

Part 5 of 15

Quick check

Why does Hill set the story in a Victorian Gothic atmosphere despite writing in 1983?

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Quick check

Part 6 of 15

Quick check

What does the Gothic tradition trade in?

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Reset break

Part 7 of 15

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
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Learning cycle

Part 8 of 15

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · The veil and the figure

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

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Explore the idea

Part 9 of 15

Learn

The veil and the figure

The ghost's wasted face and black veil are inherited symbols — the veiled woman, the revenant child. Hill does not invent them; she selects the most powerful from the tradition and arranges them precisely. Recognising the convention is analysis: you can say 'this is Gothic' and then explain what Hill does with the inherited piece.

10

Explore the idea

Part 10 of 15

Learn

Why the past haunts

In Gothic, the past is never just over. Jennet Humfrye's grief becomes a curse that kills other children for generations. The tradition's fear is that unresolved wrong keeps returning until it is heard. The setting (a decaying house full of sealed papers) is the physical form of that idea: a secret waiting to be read.

11

Quick check

Part 11 of 15

Quick check

Why is recognising a convention (the veiled woman) analysis and not just labelling?

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Quick check

Part 12 of 15

Quick check

What Gothic idea does the decaying house full of sealed papers embody?

13

Challenge round

Part 13 of 15

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

14

Mastery quiz

Part 14 of 15

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: The haunted past and the Gothic tradition

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Why does Hill set the story in a Victorian Gothic atmosphere despite writing in 1983?

  2. 2. What does the Gothic tradition trade in?

  3. 3. Why is recognising a convention (the veiled woman) analysis and not just labelling?

  4. 4. What Gothic idea does the decaying house full of sealed papers embody?

15

Lesson round-up

Part 15 of 15

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

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Games

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Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Extract

The last bus

The bus shelter smelled of wet coats. Mira pressed her timetable flat against the glass, as though staring at the numbers might make the 9:42 appear. Rain tapped the roof in small, impatient fingers. Somewhere behind her, a shop shutter came down with a sound like a full stop.

She had been brave all day. She had been brave in the corridor, brave at lunch, brave when the register reached her name and nobody looked up. Being brave, she decided, was mostly a matter of keeping your face still.

Headlights swung around the corner and lit the puddles gold. Mira picked up her bag. Tomorrow she would say something. Tonight she would simply go home.

Original extract written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Find two words or phrases that show how Mira is feeling, and explain what each one suggests.
  2. How does the writer use the weather and the sounds to build the mood? Use a short quotation.
  3. Write the next paragraph in the same style, keeping the writer's short sentences at the moments that matter.

  • Reading response

    Reading

    Read the extract again, then write about how the writer makes you feel that way. Use a short quotation and explain your choice of words.

    2 paragraphs (PEE)

  • Extended writing

    Writing

    Write your piece in full, then redraft the opening so it hooks the reader.

    250–350 words

  • Reading log

    Reading

    Note the book, the pages you read and one thing you noticed about the writing.

    20 minutes' reading

Saved as you type.

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    Draw on knowledge of the purpose, audience for and context of the writing, including its social, historical and cultural context and the literary tradition to which it belongs

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