Guidelines for Literature Circle Discussions



The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Ms. Molinaro – English 12

Name:

Period:

Due: Monday, March 31st

Literature Circles

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

For the next two weeks, you will be involved in a small literature circle to read, comprehend and analyze The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The reading and work assigned for this short novel will be done primarily in class. If your group works diligently, you should have little to no homework.

Directions:

✓ Read aloud the assigned pages. Each member of your group MUST read at least one page during a reading session.

✓ While the reading is being done, each member should be completing his/her ACTIVE READING worksheet. This is INDIVIDUAL work. In this chart, you must predict what you think will happen, make observations about characters that are presented in the section read, identify interesting quotations, and make connections to your real life (e.g. do you know people like the characters, or situations that seem similar, etc…).

✓ After filling in the chart, you must come up with an individuation question regarding the sections read. So, the first question will obviously consider only the first few pages of the book, but as you go on throughout the novel, questions can be expanded to address the day’s assignment with the rest of the novel.

✓ When everyone in your group has filled in the chart, briefly go over what each member has written in each section. Add to your chart if something was mentioned that you did not originally write down.

✓ Next, go over each member’s question and discuss possible answers for them. Jot your group’s responses to your question.

✓ When this is completed, move to the formal questions in this packet and as a discuss conclusions about each question. Write your responses in the space provided.

✓ Finally, assess the members of your group on the rubric provided.

Ms. Molinaro will stamp each “section” assignment at the end of the assigned days. If you have not finished, you may continue working on it. But the stamp will indicate how diligently you worked in class and will be a determinate in the final assessment of this packet – you will lose points if you do not stick to schedule. You will turn in the entire packet at the beginning of the period on Monday, 3/31/14.

Chapters 1-3 - (“Story of a Door,” “Search for Mr. Hyde,” & “Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease”)

Background:

In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson describes life in London during the 1880s, the latter half of the Victorian period. During that time, society was sharply divided into distinct social classes and their corresponding communities. In Forlorn Sunset (1947), Michael Sadleir described the city as “three parts jungle” noting that very few districts were truly public in the sense that people could move in and out of them with ease. Generally, people were uncomfortable and often unwelcome in parts of town that were not inhabited by their own social group. To avoid wandering into an unknown area, most Londoners stayed in their own neighborhoods. This geographical and social fragmentation is an essential part of the setting of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

VOCABULARY PREVIEW

abominable : adj. horrible

austere : adj. severe, stern

conflagration : n. raging fire

demeanour : n. manner

eddy : n. whirlpool

negligence : n. carelessness

odious : adj. hateful

perplexity : n. confusion

sedulously : adv. tirelessly

sullenness : n. gloominess

Active Reading Chart

Predictions: What do you think the characters will do? How do you think the book will end?

Observations: Describe the characters. Look for something that stood out to you. Look for events or characters that were scary or ridiculous. Did anything surprise you in this section? What was the most exciting, interesting, funny, or confusing part?

Connections: This reminds me so much of… What kind of connections can you make between things that happened in the book and something in your own life?

Quotations: Write down at least two interesting quotations (include the page number!) and the theme it relates to for this unit. What makes this quote interesting? How does it connect to the theme? What does it reveal or tell you about Victorian life and culture?

Your Discussion Question:

Responses/notes from group discussion:

Chapters 1-3 - (“Story of a Door,” “Search for Mr. Hyde,” & “Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease”)

Respond to the Reading – Analysis Questions

Personal Response

Describe your reactions to the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the end of this section.

Analyze Literature – Recall and Interpret

1) What story does Enfield tell when he and Utterson pass the door? What does hearing the story cause Utterson to do?

2) After their meeting, what do Enfield and Utterson both suspect about the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde? What evidence does the text give for this suspicion?

3) What picture do you have in your mind of Edward Hyde’s appearance? For what reasons might Stevenson have deliberately avoided describing him fully?

Chapters 4-5 - (“The Carew Murder Case” & “Incident of the Letter”) - Active Reading

Predictions: What do you think the characters will do? How do you think the book will end?

Observations: Describe the characters. Look for something that stood out to you. Look for events or characters that were scary or ridiculous. Did anything surprise you in this section? What was the most exciting, interesting, funny, or confusing part?

Connections: This reminds me so much of… What kind of connections can you make between things that happened in the book and something in your own life?

Quotations: Write down at least two interesting quotations (include the page number!) and the theme it relates to for this unit. What makes this quote interesting? How does it connect to the theme? What does it reveal or tell you about Victorian life and culture?

Your Discussion Question:

Responses/notes from group discussion:

Chapters 4-5 - (“The Carew Murder Case” & “Incident of the Letter”)

Respond to the Reading – Analysis Questions

Personal Response

What do you think about Mr. Utterson’s continued interest in his friend Mr. Jekyll? Is this a normal friendship? If in Victorian Society, middle class members kept even their friends at “arms length” to keep up the image of respectability, why would Utterson be so persistent? Is he secretly trying to “out” some secret about Jekyll and bring disgrace? Or, is he trying to honestly protect a friend, even if he seems to cross the line of socially accepted “interference”?

Analyze Literature – Recall and Interpret

1) What two pieces of information does Utterson learn about Hyde’s letter to Jekyll? What do you predict that Utterson will do to help his old friend, who he suspects is in serious trouble? Justify your answer on the basis of evidence from the text.

Chapters 6-8 - (“Remarkable Incident of Dr. Lanyon,” “Incident at the Window” & “The Last Night”)

BACKGROUND: Point of View

Point of view is the relationship of the narrator to the story. In a story with first-person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story, referred to as “I.” In a story with third-person limited point of view, the narrator reveals the thoughts, feelings, and observations of only one character, referring to that character as “he” or “she.” In a story with third-person omniscient point of view, the narrator is not a character but someone who stands outside the story and comments on the action. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is told from different points of view. Except for Enfield’s description of Hyde’s trampling the little girl, the first two sections are told from a third-person limited point of view: the narrator reports the thoughts and feelings of Utterson but not those of the other characters.

VOCABULARY PREVIEW

allusion : n. reference

calamity : n. disaster

dire : adj. dreadful; extremely urgent

disreputable : adj. of a bad reputation

flags : n. paving stones

inscrutable : adj. not readily interpreted or understood; mysterious

mien : n. air or bearing; appearance

scud : n. loose vapor clouds driven swiftly by the wind

stringent : adj. strict, extremely severe

vile : adj. morally despicable, or abhorrent; physically repulsive

Predictions: What do you think the characters will do? How do you think the book will end?

Observations: Describe the characters. Look for something that stood out to you. Look for events or characters that were scary or ridiculous. Did anything surprise you in this section? What was the most exciting, interesting, funny, or confusing part?

Connections: This reminds me so much of… What kind of connections can you make between things that happened in the book and something in your own life?

Quotations: Write down at least two interesting quotations (include the page number!) and the theme it relates to for this unit. What makes this quote interesting? How does it connect to the theme? What does it reveal or tell you about Victorian life and culture?

Your Discussion Question:

Responses/notes from group discussion:

Chapters 6-8 - (“Remarkable Incident of Dr. Lanyon,” “Incident at the Window” to “The Last Night”)

Respond to the Reading – Analysis Questions

Personal Response

What was your response to the fact that Mr. Poole, although the butler of the house, had no idea about Jekyll’s experiment and from where Mr. Hyde came?

Analyze Literature – Recall and Interpret

1) What do Utterson and Poole find when they break into the cabinet? What do they expect to find that is not in the cabinet? How do they explain this mystery?

2) What is the weather like as Utterson and Poole hurry to Jekyll’s house? Discuss how Stevenson uses descriptive language in this passage to create a mood appropriate to the climax of the story.

3) One issue raised by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is that of drug abuse. How does a person who is abusing drugs change in personality, appearance, and habits? What evidence in this section of the novella indicates that one of the characters is abusing drugs?

Extending Your Response

In this section of the novella, Jekyll becomes more and more isolated, cutting himself off from his closest friends. Why is isolation dangerous for Dr. Jekyll? What does he sacrifice by shunning all his friends? Assuming the role of Utterson, write a letter to Dr. Jekyll, explaining why he should not isolate himself from his friends during times of emotional distress. Use details from the story to convince Jekyll of your position.

Chapters 9-10 (“Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative” to “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement”)

BACKGROUND: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Freud

The theory that has most influenced interpretations of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is Sigmund Freud’s theory of repression. According to Freud, repression is a process by which unacceptable desires or impulses are excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious. Only by such means as psychoanalysis, dream analysis, or hypnosis can the repressed desires or impulses be brought to light and examined.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, Henry Jekyll, outwardly a respectable doctor, has repressed his desires to live a life of vice and forbidden activities. Stevenson hints at Jekyll’s wild youth and secret desires. Jekyll’s need for respectability keeps him from openly admitting and pursuing his desires, and the resulting conflict between what he secretly wants and what he feels his position in society requires of him causes a mental disorder.

Did You Know?

When Robert Louis Stevenson was a boy in Edinburgh, his family owned a piece of furniture made by a craftsman named William Brodie. Well known as a leading citizen and respectable businessman, Brodie had a dark side. Secretly, he was the leader of a band of criminals who robbed at night. He was finally caught and hanged in 1788. The famous figure fascinated the young boy, and in 1882, Stevenson and a friend wrote a play on the subject.

VOCABULARY PREVIEW

enigmas : n. riddles, mysteries

faggots : n. pieces of wood

idiosyncratic : adj. peculiar to one person, eccentric

infallibly : adv. without error

ludicrous : adj. ridiculous

repugnance : n. disgust

sever : v. to cut off

unscrupulous : adj. without moral standards

whet : v. to sharpen

Predictions: Before you read, reflect on how you think the book will wrap up.

Chapter 9-10 (“Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative” & “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case” Active Reading Chart

In the final section of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , many events that occurred earlier in the novella are at last explained. As you read the narratives of Lanyon and Jekyll, use the table on this page to keep track of how unexplained or mysterious occurrences in the first two sections are finally made clear.

|Earlier Event |Explanation |

| | |

|Lanyon sees something that makes him fatally ill. |Hyde drinks the potion and turns into Jekyll. |

| | |

|Jekyll’s will makes Hyde his heir in case of death or disappearance. | |

| | |

| | |

|Hyde’s writing resembles Jekyll’s. | |

| | |

| | |

|The key to Hyde’s door looks as if it had been stomped on. | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

|For a two-month period, Jekyll meets old friends again. | |

| | |

| | |

|Lanyon is asked to go to Jekyll’s lab and pick up the contents of the| |

|drawer. | |

| | |

| | |

|Utterson and Enfield see something at Jekyll’s window when the shade | |

|is quickly pulled down. | |

| | |

|Jekyll’s books on religion are defaced with blasphemies. | |

| | |

| | |

|Hyde kills himself. | |

| | |

Chapters 9-10 (“Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative” to “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement”)

Respond to the Reading – Analysis Questions

Personal Response

1) What is your reaction to the ending of the novella?

2) Evaluate the decision that Jekyll/Hyde makes. Do you think that the decision is reasonable or that it is a hasty action arising from a tormented mind? Explain.

Analyze Literature – Recall and Interpret

1) What did Lanyon see that shocked him so much? How did the experience affect him?

2) What does Jekyll say about his youth in the letter to Utterson? How do the actions of his youth lead him to his experiments with the transforming drug?

3) How does Jekyll’s attitude toward his dual personality change as he uses the drug more often? What physical results occur with continued use of the drug?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Literature Circles – Peer Evaluation

Group Member:

|2 pts |3 pts |4 pts |5 pts |

|Rarely shares ideas |Shares ideas |Shares appropriately |Significantly contributes to the |

| |occasionally or | |Discussion |

| |when asked | | |

|Talk is off-task and does |Difficulty asking |Generally helps keep the discussion going with |Asks questions, responds to others; effectively|

|not contribute to the group|questions and |questions and responses |helps keep the discussion going |

| |responding to others | | |

|Rarely listens or |Sometimes listens |Listens and responds adequately - sometimes |Listens and responds thoughtfully – reads from |

|responds to group members |and responds |reads from journal or from text, listens |journal or from text, listens actively, builds |

| |appropriately, |actively, builds on |on comments from |

| |occasionally asks |comments from others, makes |others, makes connections from |

| |questions or shares |connection from book to own |book to own experiences, |

| |ideas |experiences, discusses author’s style of |discusses author’s style of writing and |

| | |writing and |literary elements |

| | |literary elements | |

Section/pages read: Total /15 points

Group Member:

|2 pts |3 pts |4 pts |5 pts |

|Rarely shares ideas |Shares ideas |Shares appropriately |Significantly contributes to the |

| |occasionally or | |Discussion |

| |when asked | | |

|Talk is off-task and does |Difficulty asking |Generally helps keep the discussion going with |Asks questions, responds to others; effectively|

|not contribute to the group|questions and |questions and responses |helps keep the discussion going |

| |responding to others | | |

|Rarely listens or |Sometimes listens |Listens and responds adequately - sometimes |Listens and responds thoughtfully – reads from |

|responds to group members |and responds |reads from journal or from text, listens |journal or from text, listens actively, builds |

| |appropriately, |actively, builds on |on comments from |

| |occasionally asks |comments from others, makes |others, makes connections from |

| |questions or shares |connection from book to own |book to own experiences, |

| |ideas |experiences, discusses author’s style of |discusses author’s style of writing and |

| | |writing and |literary elements |

| | |literary elements | |

Section/pages read: Total /15 points

Group Member:

|2 pts |3 pts |4 pts |5 pts |

|Rarely shares ideas |Shares ideas |Shares appropriately |Significantly contributes to the |

| |occasionally or | |Discussion |

| |when asked | | |

|Talk is off-task and does |Difficulty asking |Generally helps keep the discussion going with |Asks questions, responds to others; effectively|

|not contribute to the group|questions and |questions and responses |helps keep the discussion going |

| |responding to others | | |

|Rarely listens or |Sometimes listens |Listens and responds adequately - sometimes |Listens and responds thoughtfully – reads from |

|responds to group members |and responds |reads from journal or from text, listens |journal or from text, listens actively, builds |

| |appropriately, |actively, builds on |on comments from |

| |occasionally asks |comments from others, makes |others, makes connections from |

| |questions or shares |connection from book to own |book to own experiences, |

| |ideas |experiences, discusses author’s style of |discusses author’s style of writing and |

| | |writing and |literary elements |

| | |literary elements | |

Section/pages read: Total /15 points

Group Member:

|2 pts |3 pts |4 pts |5 pts |

|Rarely shares ideas |Shares ideas |Shares appropriately |Significantly contributes to the |

| |occasionally or | |Discussion |

| |when asked | | |

|Talk is off-task and does |Difficulty asking |Generally helps keep the discussion going with |Asks questions, responds to others; effectively|

|not contribute to the group|questions and |questions and responses |helps keep the discussion going |

| |responding to others | | |

|Rarely listens or |Sometimes listens |Listens and responds adequately - sometimes |Listens and responds thoughtfully – reads from |

|responds to group members |and responds |reads from journal or from text, listens |journal or from text, listens actively, builds |

| |appropriately, |actively, builds on |on comments from |

| |occasionally asks |comments from others, makes |others, makes connections from |

| |questions or shares |connection from book to own |book to own experiences, |

| |ideas |experiences, discusses author’s style of |discusses author’s style of writing and |

| | |writing and |literary elements |

| | |literary elements | |

Section/pages read: Total /15 points

Group Member:

|2 pts |3 pts |4 pts |5 pts |

|Rarely shares ideas |Shares ideas |Shares appropriately |Significantly contributes to the |

| |occasionally or | |Discussion |

| |when asked | | |

|Talk is off-task and does |Difficulty asking |Generally helps keep the discussion going with |Asks questions, responds to others; effectively|

|not contribute to the group|questions and |questions and responses |helps keep the discussion going |

| |responding to others | | |

|Rarely listens or |Sometimes listens |Listens and responds adequately - sometimes |Listens and responds thoughtfully – reads from |

|responds to group members |and responds |reads from journal or from text, listens |journal or from text, listens actively, builds |

| |appropriately, |actively, builds on |on comments from |

| |occasionally asks |comments from others, makes |others, makes connections from |

| |questions or shares |connection from book to own |book to own experiences, |

| |ideas |experiences, discusses author’s style of |discusses author’s style of writing and |

| | |writing and |literary elements |

| | |literary elements | |

Section/pages read: Total /15 points

Comments (write a brief note about your group discussions, how you feel each member contributed, and how you believe your discussions went overall. Be specific!):

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