Teaching Frankenstein: How to deal with four big challenges
Frankenstein is my pick for MVP in the British literature curriculum. Of course, it has the attention-getting corpse reanimation thing going for it, but what’s really impressive is how so many of the questions raised by Frankenstein continue to feel acutely relevant. (What kind of scientific progress should be off limits? What is required of a parent? What happens when we reject people from groups? And so on!) Plus, with the gothic fiction characteristics and Romantic ideals woven throughout, you’re never out of things to do with Frankenstein. Well, that is, as long as your students are equipped with the structures they need to analyze this text—and actually do (a good chunk of) the reading!
Frankenstein is rewarding for students when they stick with it, but it’s not an easy read, so they’re not usually intrinsically motivated to dig in. Even honors students need a lot of support to understand it! So I’m going to tell you what I think are the biggest challenges you’ll encounter when teaching a Frankenstein unit and how I developed resources to keep everyone engaged.
Challenge #1: Pop culture versions of the Creature make for a confusing start.
It’s easy enough to explain that Frankenstein is the name of the Creature’s creator and the Creature isn’t green. However, the pop culture representations of the story have staying power, so you need to make sure you have resources that overwrite those impressions and set students up to deal with the actual concerns of the novel.
Start the unit with an anticipation guide. Students identify the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements related to concerns that run through Frankenstein (e.g. “Society should commit to making scientific progress, even if it means some harm is done in the process.”) Discussing their responses sets the tone that the novel isn’t just a goofy horror story.
Then, follow up with introductory slides that go into more detail about the influences on Mary Shelley’s writing, including Romantic era concerns about the moral dangers of using science to prolong life, ideas about nature vs. nurture, and the effects of social rejection. After you do an anticipation guide and provide historical context, students will be well-oriented to what Frankenstein is all about.
Related resources:
Frankenstein Pre- and Post-Reading Check-in
Frankenstein Introductory Slides
Challenge #2: It’s really dense!
A short set of questions about the big concerns of Frankenstein (like the reading guides you sometimes see at the back of books) isn’t enough to help students understand what’s going on each chapter. There are so many events, settings, characters, and ideas densely packed into Frankenstein that it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on. That’s why my study packet has 240 reading questions that correspond to 8 reading check quizzes. Yeah, that seems like a lot, but when students knew exactly what to look out for during their homework reading, class discussions were a lot livelier—with a lot less BSing.
Related resources:
Frankenstein Study Packet
Frankenstein Quiz Bundle
Challenge #3: It’s really long!
It doesn’t work well to wait until you finish reading Frankenstein to do assignments about the big themes and ideas. For one, students get bored if the reading questions aren’t broken up by something else. Also, if they haven’t been prompted about important points to notice while they’re reading a pertinent chapter, they tend to miss them and aren’t prepared to use the material in a final project. So I like giving questions after each chapter that highlight the themes and get students to relate them to today’s world. In addition to the reading questions that track the plot, my study packet also includes questions that structure great class discussions and/or short writing opportunities. Exploring Frankenstein-related topics like the ethics of science and exploration, the effects of socialization and isolation, and psychology makes an old text feel relevant. And tracking themes and motifs while reading the text (instead of hunting around for them afterwards for a big assignment) adds kind of a fun puzzle element to the novel study. With those questions for support, class time flies by. It’s an amazing feeling to have no awkward silences when you’re discussing a tough text!
Related resources:
Frankenstein Study Packet
Nature vs. Nurture Worksheet
Challenge #4: It’s difficult for students to write original, insightful essays about it.
I used to see the Frankenstein unit as a good opportunity to get students to write a formal essay because there were so many topics to choose from and so much material to work with. But I would be disappointed in the results because of the usual problems: most students regurgitated ideas they heard in class without elaborating and dropped in huge quotations from the novel (…via SparkNotes…) without explaining their significance. And it bothered me! Frankenstein is so important that I wanted my students to take away more genuine learning and appreciation.
I discovered that students were engaged (and the vibe was positive) when we did two or three smaller, scaffolded writing assignments at the end of the unit. The “Theme and Motif Analysis” assignment linked below gets students to identify classic and of-the-moment takeaways that develop from tracking those elements. The “What makes us human?” assignment gets students to connect Frankenstein to recent articles and media, which I’ve noticed excites students who are typically more interested in science and math. And the “Frankenfolio” project offers a menu of creative and interesting options that make it easy for everyone to participate. It’s a group project that only takes a couple of days and is a nice way to celebrate making it through a major literary text!
Related resources:
Frankenstein Writing Assignment: What makes us human?
Frankenstein Theme and Motif Analysis
Frankenstein Final Project: The Frankenfolio
In conclusion
Frankenstein is rich with ideas that are relevant to our time, but let’s be honest: it’s long and was written in the early 1800s, so it’s hard to convince students to read it word for word. You need a lot resources throughout your unit (not just at the end!) to keep students engaged and building understandings. Check out my Frankenstein Unit Bundle for everything you need, whether you’re starting from scratch or want to supplement what you’ve already created!