Charles Dickens¿s "A Christmas Carol in Prose" as the basis of an instructional unit

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Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1, 7, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Literaturvermittlung im Englischunterricht, language: English, abstract: While the traditional use of literature at schools usually relies on interpretation and the existence of a 'correct' way of interpreting the text, more recent theories like the aesthetics of reception focus on the dynamic interaction between the text and its readers, aiming at a type of aesthetic reading. Charles Dickens's novel of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge being visited by the three ghosts of Christmas and turning over to a new leaf is probably one of the best-known English novels, it is alluded to in many other pieces of literature, in films and even comics. This, banal as it may be, is already the first reason for choosing A Christmas Carol as a topic, since all the gags and allusions elsewhere would not be understood without some knowledge of Dickens's novel. Reading experiences also play an important role when it comes to motivation: other classic novels by Dickens like Oliver Twist, Great Expectations or David Copperfield, or their film adaptations may serve as a motivation for reading A Christmas Carol, or vice versa. Finally, apart from conveying a moral message, Dickens's story also portraits the Victorian age of Britain and its nuisances as vivid as only few other novels, which stays in mind far better than only hearing a report.