Above is a blog I wrote while studying Dickens and London on a grant trip way back in 2009. If you click on the link, notice that the dates of the blog entries are in reverse chronological order, or start with the most recent entry and go back in time. Navigate to the very first blog entry, or the one that I wrote first, and start reading there. This entry will be on the second page of the blog, and you can get there by scrolling down and finding the “older posts” link at the bottom of the page.
Work individually and answer any SEVEN or EIGHT of the following questions. Write down your answers in a Google Doc or on a piece of loose-leaf, but DO NOT worry about complete sentences. Instead, just be ready to answer the questions in a discussion tomorrow.
1. What was the date when I was getting ready to go to London?
(hint: find the earliest entries and read them.)
2. Why was I glad that I wasn’t actually time traveling back to Victorian era London? Give three reasons.
(hint: some of these can come from the reading you did last night, others are mentioned in the three earliest posts I made.)
3. What was the life expectancy of a working-class man in the 1850’s?
(hint: you’ll have to read about Whitechapel, Spitalfields and the Whitechapel Murders to find out.)
4. According to professor Sally Ledger, what was it that made Charles Dickens so popular during his lifetime and after?
5. According to Sally Ledger what should young people do to understand the sometimes challenging language and extremely long sentences that Dickens uses?
6. Read my description and look at the videos of the house that Charles Dickens lived in, 48 Doughty street, now known as the Charles Dickens Museum. Give your impressions and opinions of it in a few sentences.
7. Why didn’t Charles Dickens want to be buried somewhere famous like Westminster Abbey? What did he want instead? Why did he end up being buried there?
8. What caused the large cholera outbreak in the Soho area of London in 1854? Break down the events into a few main points.
9. According to the Charles Dickens Walking tour post, what job did Charles get just a few weeks after his twelfth birthday? What did he have to do?
Click on “Resources” if you need to get back to the blog.
Click on “Evaluation” when you have finished answering your questions.
7th grade Language Arts 