Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic ‘The Scarlet Letter’ is set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony between the years 1642 to 1649. The novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. This text contains a number of religious and historic allusions, significantly exploring the themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. I have taught this text many times in the last twenty years and have used this specific resource (revised in 2021) to: lead my teaching in class, as a distance learning resource in SKYPE lessons, as a homework assignment and even as a tool of revision – all have worked well for the students.
This dynamically presented PowerPoint lesson (20 slides, approximately 90 minutes teaching time) includes: a starter activity, characterisation tasks, a set of recap questions, an academic writing task, textual analysis questions, an extension task connected to critical vocabulary, a homework assignment and a plenary. This is a complete resource with no additional work required from the teacher. Enjoy!
