Film & Literacy

at

Key Stage 3


Part 3:Ghost Stories

SectionPage

Teachers’ Introduction: Ghost Stories2-3

  1. Conventions of the Ghost Story4-7
  2. Ghost Stories in Print8-10
  3. Building suspense through structure11-17

Development Lesson

  1. Surprise and Suspense18-23
  2. The same story in two different media24-28
  3. Ghosts for different audiences29-30
  4. Analysing Film Language31-33
  5. Film Language – Vocabulary34-36

Development Lesson37-38

Blank Storyboard39

Appendix 1: WutheringHeights extract40-46

Appendix 2: Film Clips for Part 347

Appendix 3: Curriculum Guidelines48-53

Appendix 4 : Images Menu54

1

Unit of Work : Ghost StoriesYear:Time:

Description of Unit: Ghost story as a genre with comparison between written and film
Knowledge, Understanding and Skills
  • Express meaning, feelings and viewpoint
  • Take part in group discussions
  • Listen actively and report back
  • Interpret visual stimuli including moving image
  • Develop and understanding of different forms, genres and methods of communication and an understanding of how meaning is created
/ Key Elements
  • Media awareness
  • Personal understanding
  • Cultural understanding
/ TS & PC
  • Order, classify and make comparisons (DM)
  • Make predictions, examine evidence (DM)
  • Generate possible solutions (DM)
  • Experiment with ideas and questions (BC)
  • Value the unexpected or surprising (BC)
  • Listen actively (WWO)
  • Give and respond to feedback (WWO)
  • Suggest ways of improving (WWO)
  • Organise and plan how to go about a task (SM)
  • Review learning etc (SM)
  • Communicate with a sense of audience and purpose (MI)

Learning Outcomes:
Demonstrate creativity and initiative
Work effectively with others
Communicate effectively
Demonstrate self management / Possible links with other Areas of Learning/Subject strands:
COMMUNICATION
REL. ED.

1

Ghost Stories

Teachers’ Introduction

This unit looks at the conventions of ghost stories in print and on film and introduces students to basic terms of film language. The creation of atmosphere and building of suspense in terms of structure are examined, using both media as examples of how this works. Students undertake analytical work in the course of the unit but the emphasis lies on two creative pieces; writing a ghost story in print and storyboarding a sequence from a ghost story on film.

You may want to fire the students’ imagination by reading a number of ghost stories before you begin this structured unit but it will work well even if this is not an option you are able to take up. The examples in print and film have been chosen because they adhere well to conventions but you may of course choose to reinforce and extend students’ work with further examples from your favourite ghost texts.

Resources needed:

  • TV and VHS / DVD player
  • Video clips relating to this unit:

CLIP 1 (p4), CLIP 2 (p5), CLIP 3 (p18), CLIP 4 (p19), CLIP 5 (p24),

CLIP 6 (p28), CLIP 7 (p29), CLIP 8 (p 30), CLIP 9 (p32)

  • P 6/7 Two spiderman sheets:

(a)one partly filled in for the students to complete

(b)one with more detail on for teachers to use in collating information

  • P 8 Dictionaries and thesauruses
  • P 10 The opening paragraphs to A Night in a Cottage
  • P 13-15 The whole story called A Night in a Cottage
  • P 16 Constructing a ghost story chart
  • P 31 Stills from ghost stories (7A – 7B)
  • P 39 Blank storyboard

Conventions

Of the Ghost Story

Learning Intention:

  • To understand the conventions of ghost stories

Starting off

Watch CLIP 1 from the film The Others. Do you think it looks like a frightening tale? Does it remind you of any other ghost stories you have seen, read or heard?

Introducing Ideas

Everyone loves a good ghost story. We are like to be thrilled yet scared by tales of spooks, hauntings and mysterious happenings. Ghost stories have been a popular genre since the first listeners shivered with excitement around a camp fire. When books, and then later films, became sources of entertainment, writers and filmmakers were quick to realise that ghost stories would be interesting to a wide number of people.

If you have ever tried to write a ghost story, you will know that it is not that easy. Although the basic idea can be anything from strange crying in the attic to a computer which keeps sending warning messages, ghost stories tend to follow set patterns, called conventions, in the telling. For instance, ghost stories need to create an atmosphere for the audience so they are in the right frame of mind to be spooked; they need to build up suspense slowly, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and the most frightening event in the tale usually comes at the end. All these factors need careful thought and planning when you are trying to scare your audience.

In this unit we are going to look at several ghost stories, in print and on film and see how they are constructed to gain the maximum ‘scare power’ over the audience. It will be interesting to see how the two different mediums (the printed page and moving image) use different tools to achieve the same effect and whether they are successful or not in producing a frightening tale.

ORALWORK

L.1. to understand the conventions of a ghost story

  • What are your favourite ghost stories in print and on film? What in particular do you like about them?
  • Has anything mysterious ever happened to you or someone you know? Which do you find the most scary, factual (real life) strange events or fictional (made-up) ones? Why?
  • Where and when do you think it is good to tell ghost stories? Why?
  • Ghostly tales usually appear as short stories or short films. Why do you think this is?
  • As mentioned earlier, ghost stories often contain certain conventions that appear time and time again. Listen to the actress Nicole Kidman talking about the film The Others in which she stars (CLIP 2). What conventions of ghost stories does The Others contain?
  • Think of the spooky tales you have heard, read or seen, including CLIP 1 from The Others that you saw at the beginning of the lesson.

-What are the stories often about?

-What characters often appear?

-Where do they take place?

-At what time of day / year are they set?

-What typical events take place?

Developing your work

Working in a group, use the spidergram sheet on page 6 to record the typical conventions of ghost stories. As you think of each convention, try to come up with three examples of it from different ghost stories before you add it to your collection.

Summing up

Share your ideas with the rest of the class and add any new conventions mentioned to your own spidergram. A more comprehensive spidergram of ghost story conventions is provided on page 7.

1

Ghost Stories in Print

Learning Intentions:

  • To understand how ghost stories in print create atmosphere
  • To write the opening paragraphs of your own ghost story

Starting Off

Use a dictionary to find the meaning of these five words, all of which could be used when writing a ghost story.

-gargantuan

-paralysing

-sinister

-incredulous

-hideous

Use a dictionary or thesaurus to find more interesting words for the following:

-strange

-call

-old

-dark

-frightened

Introducing Ideas

Read through the opening of the ghost story called A Night in a Cottage by Richard Hughes (page 10).

Like all good ghost stories, this tale starts off by creating a spooky atmosphere before getting you into the main part of the action. Make sure you understand any unusual vocabulary. We can now look at this section in detail to see how the writer is trying to spook us.

  • Who is the main character in the story? Is he alone?
  • Is he the narrator? What effect does this have on us?
  • Where does the story take place? Is it a familiar place to the narrator?
  • How does he choose this place to stay and how do we know that he feels a little uncomfortable about it?
  • How is the setting made to appear creepy? Make a list of the words which create this sort of atmosphere. Which of these are onomatopoeic?
  • Can you say how the following phrases add to the atmosphere?

- Worcestershire lanes are devious and muddy

- The straggling fruit trees still wept

- The black mouth of a passage

  • How does the length of the sentences help to create an atmosphere? Try breaking up the sentences into shorter sections and reading them again.
  • Towards the end of this section, how are we lulled into a false sense of security?
  • Do you think the story takes place in the present? What makes you say this?
  • How many of the typical conventions of a ghost story can you find in the story so far? Add any new ideas to your spidergram.
  • Make a list of useful words from the passage which you might use in the writing of your own ghost story.

Developing your Work

Write the opening to your own ghost story. This should be no more than two large paragraphs. What happens in the story is up to you but you must follow the conventions and use your paragraphs to create a really spooky atmosphere. Refer to your conventions spidergrams on pages 5 and 6 if you need some ideas.

Success Criteria

  • You will have used ghost story conventions to create a scary atmosphere
  • You will manage to spook your listeners when you read out your opening

Summing Up

Read your opening to the rest of the group. Were they scared? Ask the group what they think happens next – you might be able to use some of their ideas when you write the rest of the story.

A Night in a Cottage

On the evening that I am considering, I passed by some ten or twenty cosy barns and sheds without finding one to my liking; for Worcestershire lanes are devious and muddy, and it was nearly dark when I found an empty cottage set back from the road in a little bedraggled garden. There had been heavy rain earlier in the day and the straggling fruit trees still wept over it.

But the roof looked sound, there seemed no reason why it should not be fairly dry inside – as dry, at any rate, as I was likely to find anywhere.

I decided; and with a long look up the road, and a long look down the road, I drew an iron bar from the lining of my coat and forced the door, which was held only by a padlock and two staples. Inside, the darkness was damp and heavy; I struck a match, and with its haloed light I saw the black mouth of a passage somewhere ahead of me; and then it spluttered out. So I closed the door carefully, though I had little reason to fear passers-by at such a dismal hour and in so remote a lane; and lighting another match, I crept down this passage to a little room at the far end, where the air was a bit clearer, for all that the window was boarded across. Moreover, there was a little rusted stove in this room; and thinking it too dark for any to see the smoke, I ripped up part of the wainscot with my knife, and soon was boiling my tea over a bright, small fire, and drying some of the day’s rain out of my steamy clothes. Presently I piled the stove with wood to its top bar, and setting my boots where they would dry best, I stretched my body out to sleep.

‘A Night in a Cottage’ by Richard Hughes, 65 Great Tales of the Supernatural edited by Mary Danby (Chatto and Windus, Marks & Spencer, 1979).

Building Suspense

through structure

Learning Intentions:

  • To understand how suspense is built up through the structure of a ghost story.
  • To plan the structure of your own ghost story.

Starting Off

Think back to some of the fairy tales that you may have read or been told as a small child. Goldilocks and The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, The Billy Goats Gruff. Why should there always be three?

In a famous medieval story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the brave Sir Gawain has to undergo three trials before he can defeat the Green Knight. Again, three is a important number. Three is seen as a magic number in many stories. What stories can you think of where this is the case? Why do you think the number three has this special significance?

Introducing Ideas

What people seem to like about ghost stories is being thrilled by the thought of what might happen next. Really spooky tales draw out the strange events that take place, feeding details of them to the audience bit by bit using three climaxes. In between these events, things return to normal; characters are told by their friends that they are being silly or a rational explanation is found for something that has happened. If a ghost is present then it is often only sensed at first, or seen in the distance. Gradually the strange events become more frequent or the ghost gets closer. As we reach the climax of the tale, something will happen which cannot be ignored and we may, or may not, find out the reason for what has taken place. We call this planning of events in a story the structure – meaning the way in which the story was put together.

  • In the last section you read the opening to A Night in a Cottage (page 10). Now read the rest of the story given on page 13. Use the Constructing a Ghost Story chart on page 16 to help you see how the story builds suspense. Fill in the details of the strange events which take place and how the audience is made to feel safe by normal, real events in between.
  • This is a ghost story with a twist. Mark on the chart the point at which you first began to suspect the ending. What made you realise?

Developing your Work

  • What can you add to your spidergram on page 6 about building suspense in a ghost story?
  • Plan what will happen in the rest of your story, using the Constructing a Ghost Story chart on page 16 as a plan. Remember to try and scare your audience bit by bit, building the suspense slowly. For example, strange events may happen with no explanation, or we may hear about the ghost a long time before we actually see it. After each scary event the reader must feel that things are normal for a while.
  • Look at several other ghost stories and see how they fit the conventions we have learnt about.

Summing Up

Share your story plan with the rest of your group. Do they think the structure works to scare people?

Peer Evaluation:

Work with a writing partner to read one another’s stories. Evaluate your partners success against these success criteria:

  • Has suspense been built slowly?
  • Are there moments when things are very normal?
  • Are there any unexplained strange events?

A Night in a Cottage

On the evening that I am considering, I passed by some ten or twenty cosy barns and sheds without finding one to my liking; for Worcestershire lanes are devious and muddy, and it was nearly dark when I found an empty cottage set back from the road in a little bedraggled garden. There had been heavy rain earlier in the day and the straggling fruit trees still wept over it.

But the roof looked sound, there seemed no reason why it should not be fairly dry inside – as dry, at any rate, as I was likely to find anywhere.

I decided; and with a long look up the road, and a long look down the road, I drew an iron bar from the lining of my coat and forced the door, which was held only by a padlock and two staples. Inside, the darkness was damp and heavy; I struck a match, and with its haloed light I saw the black mouth of a passage somewhere ahead of me; and then it spluttered out. So I closed the door carefully, though I had little reason to fear passers-by at such a dismal hour and in so remote a lane; and lighting another match, I crept down this passage to a little room at the far end, where the air was a bit clearer, for all that the window was boarded across. Moreover, there was a little rusted stove in this room; and thinking it too dark for any to see the smoke, I ripped up part of the wainscot with my knife, and soon was boiling my tea over a bright, small fire, and drying some of the day’s rain out of my steamy clothes. Presently I piled the stove with wood to its top bar, and setting my boots where they would dry best, I stretched my body out to sleep.

I cannot have slept very long, for when I woke the fire was still burning brightly. It is not easy to sleep for long together on the level boards of a floor, for the limbs grow numb, and any movements wakes. I turned over, and was about to go again to sleep when I was startled to hear steps in the passage. As I have said, the window was boarded, and there was no other door from the little room – no cupboard even – in which to hide. It occurred to me rather grimly that there was nothing to do but to sit up and face the music, and that would probably mean being hauled back to Worcester Gaol, which I had left two bare days before, and where, for various reasons, I had no anxiety to be seen again.

The stranger did not hurry himself, but presently walked slowly down the passage, attracted by the light of the fire; and when he came in he did not seem to notice me where I lay huddled in a corner, but walked straight over to the stove and warmed his hands at it. He was dripping wet – wetter than I should have thought it possible for a man to get, even on such a rainy night, and his clothes were old and worn. The water dripped from him on to the floor; he wore no hat, and the straight hair over his eyes dripped water that sizzled spitefully on the embers.