Who is the Monster: Reading Frankenstein in 12th grade
My students need 110 individual copies of "Frankenstein" for our thematic unit on Heroes & Monsters as well as to be exposed to more college level fiction.
Who is REALLY the monster? Is it Dr. Frankenstein or the tortured being he creates? Great literature helps us feel and think about what it means to be human. We can explore feelings of triumph as well as the darkness that can lurk in the human soul.
My students are general education college-bound seniors who have chosen to push themselves in English in order to prepare for the rigors of college.
They attend a suburban public school in Michigan. One quarter of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch. They are not in the honors or AP track, but are college bound. While some of them have developed a love of reading, many of them have not. This may be their last chance to fall in love with a book.
My Project
My wish is for each student to have a borrowed copy of the novel Frankenstein for our study of Heroes & Monsters. We will be examining our culture's insistence on labeling people with these titles. Our study of Beowulf, which is in our course textbook, will cover the hero side (as well as numerous modern-day examples). Through our reading of Frankenstein, student will evaluate the character of Dr. Frankenstein, his motives, his choices, his actions, and their outcomes. When most people hear the name Frankenstein, they might be afraid of the monster. But truly, I hope my students learn that it's man who makes the monster and that's what we should fear-that dark part of ourselves. This is challenging reading, which will help them stretch their reading strategies and learn to persevere through complex texts.
I hope you remember a memorable literary experience you had in high school, when the story grabbed you, made you think about who you really are and how you fit in to this bigger world.
I hope you had a teacher who helped make the words on the page come alive and connect to the bigger issues of human nature. I'm hoping Frankenstein will serve as a catalyst for creating a life-long reader...it's my last chance to grab these seniors.
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