Summary for Lesson 2
In today’s lesson, we focused on the genres of mystery and suspense. We began by thinking about the word ‘conventions’ and how it relates to genre, and the class then brainstormed several conventions of mystery. We studied a classic example of a suspenseful short-story, Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter, and the class identified brilliantly the features that fulfilled the conventions of suspense and those that subverted them. They then analysed this story for how well it embodied the central ingredients of the genre. We looked at using literary techniques to create tension and suspense, with the students writing outstanding examples of their own suspense-inspired literary techniques, imagining up examples of foreshadowing, flashback, cliff-hangers and dramatic irony that played beautifully into the genre of suspense. Finally, they wrote story-starters that played around with the techniques and convention of the genre, demonstrating their ability to pull the reader into a story. Fantastic and creative work today class, I was really impressed by your ideas and writing throughout! Well done 🙂
Lamb to the Slaughter video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LA17kEdzoE
Lamb to the Slaughter full story if you’d like to read it!: https://lewebpedagogique.com/anglais/wpcontent/blogs.dir/16/files/lamb-to-the-slaughter.pdf
Homework
