Jenni HeeksEnglish

The Innocents Lesson 2: The Power of the Imagination

Key Stage 3Subject EnglishRequirements DVD of the Innocents

Black cloth/box/something to hide objects from students

Lesson description

This lesson’s purpose is initially to develop children’s understanding of and engagement with the gothic idea of ‘Terror’ – that is, that the most potent fear is found within what we do not know, and through our imagination. The students will then develop skills of drafting, redrafting and note taking in order to develop understanding of the power of the imagination in the film ‘The Innocents’, and in their own creative pieces.

Key words Imagination, Terror, Drafting, ScriptingCurriculum Links Reading Focuses AFs 2 and 7 – understanding inference,

understanding conventions of the genre.Writing Focus – Developing knowledge of the form and conventions of script writing; developing skills of redrafting.

Media literacy opportunities

Development of knowledge of conventions of Gothic film and literature.Observation of conventions of a script and the application of this into students’ own writing.Developing the skills of drafting, proofreading, editing and redrafting work.

Lesson work summary

Students begin with a kinaesthetic activity to develop engagement with the idea of the power of the imagination, before looking at how the imagination is used in The Innocents.

Lesson work value

Whilst developing their knowledge and understanding of the Gothic genre, students simultaneously are developing the skills of proofreading and drafting,universally appropriate to the English curriculum.

OBJECTIVETo understand the centrality of the unknown and the imagination within the Gothic. To use this to develop understanding of scriptwriting.

TRAILER A Black BoxBegin the lesson with something slimy or something fluffy

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(or both, one after the other) under a cloth or in a box – somewhere students cannot see it. It might be fun to give them the impression that what they are about to touch is scary/alive. Then, either by letting a few brave members of the class to come and feel what’s in the box or by letting every member feel, the students should start to display emotions you could associate with the power of the imagination – being squeamish, screaming, nervousness.Use this activity as a springboard for the rest of the lesson by using it to start a discussion of why not knowing what is there, or what isn’t, is such a powerful emotion:

Why were you nervous? Was it worse that you couldn’t see what was in the box?

Why? What does this tell you about the power of the

imagination?

MAIN ATTRACTION

What is real?

Part of the power of the film ‘The Innocents’ lies in its ambiguity. You never quite know what is really happening: whether Miss Jessel and Quint are really there; whether Miss Giddens is going mad and imagining things; or whether things that seem sinister really are.

Rewatch the final scenes, from 01:12 until the end. Whilst you are watching, ask students to note down (in bullet points) which parts might be figments of someone’s imagination – it could be Miss Giddens, Miles’ or even the audience’s. Following viewing, discuss this with students – why is it important that so much is unclear? Explain that this is another convention of the Gothic.

END CREDITS To keep, or not to keep?One of the most important parts of film making, and all writing, is the process of editing. Films and books go through many edits before the audience see the finished product.

Show students’ some of the examples of the notes and annotated copies of parts of the screenplay; ask them whether they knew that in writing things were continuously changing, often significantly so. Get students to think of a scene that they did not think was particularly effective, and, using the screenplay structure they have been looking at, rewrite the scene to increase tension and

Jenni HeeksEnglish

ambiguity.

If they finish this, they could swap their scripts with the person next to them and get that person to make director’s notes on the script.

EXTRASOther Ideas - This lesson could continue, and you could use another

lesson to make short films from the scripts that the students write.

- Interpretation: the idea of ambiguity in the Gothic is a good starting point for a lesson on inference. This could be done by getting students to divide the real from the imagined, or writing an interpretation of the film through questions such as ‘Who sees the ghosts?’ or ‘Who is the most mad?’

Read If you like stories where you don’t know what’s real…- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

(1892)- Sylvia Plath, ‘The Bell Jar’ (1963)- Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll

and Mr Hyde’ (1886)- Patrick McGrath, ‘Asylum’ (1996)

If you want to find out more about the film…- Film review on ScreenOnline -

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/456108/Jonathan Rigby, ‘English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema’ (2007)

If you want to know more about scriptwriting…- R U Russin and WM Downs, ‘Screenplay: Writing the

Pictures’ (2012)Watch Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly, 2001)Coraline (dir. Henry Selick, 2009)The Imposter (dir. Bart Layton, 2012)The Phantom Carriage (dir. Victor Sjöström, 1921)Paranormal Activity (dir. Oren Peli, 2007)The Skin I Live In (dir. Pedro Almodòvar, 2011)