What makes someone great?
Ordering activity
The Great Gatsby
IGCSE literature
Here are 4 covers that have been used for the Great Gatsby. What do you think the book will be
about? Who will be the main characters? What kind of background will they be from?
What is significant about this area of America?
How might the people and attitudes of this area
differ from others?
Research projects: In groups
1 Flappers
2 F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
3 The Lost Generation
4 Prohibition and the Jazz Age in America
5 America in the 1920s
6 The American economy 1918-1926
Spend 20 minutes or so researching your topic. Make written notes which
you will have to feedback to the rest of your group when we come back to
class.
Was this technique a success? Did you feel it was a good way to work or
have you missed things?
Flapper style
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
The Jazz Age
As a period what is your impression of their
culture?
Does it seem to have anything in common with
the world that we live in
Was this a useful approach to group work?
Was it more educational than hearing information
from the front of the class?
What does the concept 'old money' mean to you?
Who is ´old money´ in Peru?
Can you think of any examples of how there is a clash between 'old'
and 'new' money in Peruvian society?
Write 3 things that you remember about the American Dream from our work last
year.
Character profile: Nick Carraway
The
narrator of The Great Gatsby will obviously be a key character in the novel.
We see things through his eyes, therefore it is important for us to establish what kind of
a character he is, what is his background and beliefs, can he be trusted?
Your first piece of work will be to write a report on Nick. This will be based on the first
chapter, so you will need to make notes as we go through.
Nick´s opening section
Read the opening two pages of the book. The style is a little more difficult than what comes
after it - use the dictionary if necesary to help you draw an impression of Nick.
Give 3 impressions of Nick and evidence for them.
Character profile: Is Nick a reliable narrator?
Use the quotes below to begin a character profile (using the questions below as headings) on a
new page of A4.
·'My family have been prominent, well to do people in this Middle Western city for three
generations.'
·'We have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch'
·'Everybody I knew was in the bond business'
· 'I was rather literary in college..editorials for Yale News'
·'My house ...was squeezed between two huge places that rented for between twelve or fifteen
thousand a year'
·'the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with
the '
What background is he from?
What is important to him?/What does he want us to think?
What are his likes and dislikes?
In what terms does he assess things that he is seeing for the first time?
'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'
What do you think the character might mean by this quote?
Does it have any relevance for today's society?
Arrange the quotes under the correct characters
Tom
Daisy
It was a body capable of enormous leverage - a
cruel body.
she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh
Looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she
so much wanted to see.
She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an errect carriage that she
accentuated by throwing her body back ...
Jordan
With her chin raised a little, as she was balancing something on it which
was quite likely to fall.
What do the quotes tell us about Nick? Add detail to your character profile
referring to his meeting with the others.
Homework - complete your character profile of Nick, adding further evidence to what
you have been provided by my quotes. For Thursday.
'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'
Are you surprised that this line was side by a woman?
What does it tell us about the society that they live in?
What is their society like?
Find 5 pieces of evidence from the end of chapter one, analyse them to show your
conclusions about the type of society that these characters are living in.
This must be handed in with your character profile of Nick on Friday.
Ideas
page 10 - see differences of East and West as described by Nick
Nick:"To a certain temperament the situation might have been intriguing - my own
instinct was to telephone immeadiately for the police"
Tom of Jordan "They oughtn´t to let her run around the country this way"
"We heard it from three people, so it must be true"