English II
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Introductory Noteguide
1. Look at the unit guide and note the verbs for the Targeted Standards. If you'll notice, words such as "analyze" and "evaluate" and "interpret" appear multiple times. We see these words many more times than we did in our other unit overviews. What does this tell you about A Tale of Two Cities?
______
2. Note also the Essential Questions. Be sure to define the following terms as we discuss these five questions that will guide our unit of study:
a. verisimilitude:______
b. diction:______
c. syntax:______
d. serialization:______
______
3. Noteguide: Charles Dickens (A&E Biography)
4. Why in the Dickens?
Essential Question Five asks you to think about the social issues of today and those described in A Tale of Two Cities. Those very social issues lead us to the purpose of Dickens' entire work. But to understand those social issues, we must first understand the context of the work.
a. First, think back to what we decided the main conflict of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is:
______vs. ______
Now remember this conflict because it will be the same type of conflict that we see in A Tale of Two Cities.
b. Charles Dickens lived during the ______era in ______(country). This era occurred during the ______century (which is the ______hundreds). Now look at the inside page of the front cover of your novel. Note Dickens' birth date:______.
c. Look at your "On Location" map. What do you notice geographically about the countries of England and France?
______
Based on the map, to what two cities do you think Dickens alludes in the title of his book? ______and ______.
d. Now look again at the inside page of the front cover of your novel. Scan down to the bottom of the second paragraph and identify the year in which A Tale of Two Cities was published:______.
e. However, if you look at p. 1 of the novel in the third paragraph, you'll see that the novel is not set in this year. It is set in the year ______.
f. What do you know happens in our country the very next year? ______
g. As a result of what began in 1776, George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789. Less than a week later, the long-awaited French Estates-General held its opening session in Paris on May 5, 1789. So, in one of history's neatest segues, the American Revolution officially closed just as the ______announced its arrival on the world stage.
h.
To understand why the French revolted, we must understand the social structure of France during the 1800s. France was divided into three 'layers' of society, much like a feudal pyramid:
i. If we place each of these events on a timeline, it might look like this:
j. Having noted the sequence of events and the geographical proximity of England and France, why might Dickens, an English author living in England and writing primarily for an English audience, have written a book that is focused on the French Revolution that happened more than two decades before his birth?
______
His book is a ______of what happens when the ______take ______.
A Tale of Two Cities–Book 1, Chapter 1, p. 1
Recalled to Life
That Profound Secret
Book the First, Chapter 3“The Night Shadows”
Book the Second, Chapter 1“The Golden Thread” p. 46
The following entry is to be used as soon as Chapter 5 of Book 1 is read.
The Red Stain
The following is to be used as soon as Book the Second, Chapter 1 (p. 46), paragraphs 1 and 2 are read.
Satire is defined as irony or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
The following definition is to be discussed prior to reading pp. 48 through 52 in Chapter I of Book the Second.
Book the Second—Chapter 1, p. 48
The following journal entry is to be completed as soon as Chapter I of Book the Second is completed.
Dickens’ narrator provides the following hints (foreshadowing) of Jerry Cruncher’s “second” profession:
Based on the previously-discussed hints provided by the narrator, make a prediction about what Jerry’s second profession could be. (Allow for all four hints to be true.)
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We have now read the first book of A Tale of Two Cities. What is your initial impression of it? Do you understand the action of the plot? What do you find difficult about the book?
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