Full Description
GCSE Literature Boost: Jekyll and Hyde uses academic criticism and theory to help you teach Stevenson's novella with intellectual ambition and classroom clarity. It shows teachers how to use accessible "theoretical lenses" such as ideas about power, gender, psychology and context not as bolt-on jargon but as tools that help students move from technique-spotting to confident, thesis-led interpretation.
Structured to support both planning and delivery, the book explains why theory matters at GCSE and offers a whistlestop tour of key critical approaches along with guidance on building theory coherently through a wider English curriculum. It then offers classroom-ready "big idea" essays and resources to adapt for lessons and departmental CPD. Features include:
Case studies showing how English teachers have used academic theory in practical ways.
Ideas for teaching linked to GCSE assessment objectives at the end of each chapter.
Key points at the end of each chapter that highlight the key takeaways from that chapter.
Real examples of student work which can be used as models and exemplars.
This is essential reading for all secondary English teachers looking to create a climate of high expectations and improve their students' knowledge and understanding of the big ideas in literature.
Contents
Foreword Introduction 1. A Whistlestop Tour of Some Theoretical Lenses 2. Critical Theory Journey Through the English Curriculum by Jemma Hunter 3. Case Studies from English Teachers 4. Duality of Human Nature: is Stevenson suggesting that everyone has a Hyde, or is Jekyll's split self an extreme exception? 5. Devil Woman? What does Stevenson's near-erasure of women reveal about male power, repression and violence in Jekyll and Hyde? 6. A Narrative of Addiction: is Jekyll 'addicted' to Hyde and what does that tell us about Victorian ideas of craving, self-control and professional respectability? 7. The Return of the Repressed. A psychoanalytic reading of Jekyll
and Hyde: is Jekyll and Hyde a case study of repression, or a fantasy of escaping it? 8. The Beast Within: how does Stevenson use Gothic characterisation and narrative structure to test Victorian fears that evolution and
science could strip away moral restraint - revealing the 'beast within' beneath respectable identity? 9. Gothic Modernity and the Double: how can we read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde through monsters, minds and the city? 10. Jekyll, Hyde, and the Queer Gothic: how do closets, silences and the unstable self set the novella up as a queer text? 11. Dreams, Borwnies, and the Double Life: how do we read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde through dream logic? 12. 'Broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth': how is violence portrayed in Jekyll and Hyde? 13. The Temptation of a Discovery So Singular and Profound: how is science, overreach and forbidden knowledge shown in
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? 14. Satan's Signature in the City 15. Resources
