What makes someone great?

Ordering activity

The Great Gatsby

IGCSE literature

Here are 4 covers that have been used for the Great Gatsby. What do you think the book will be about? Who will be the main characters? What kind of background will they be from?

What is significant about this area of America? How might the people and attitudes of this area differ from others?

Research projects: In groups

1 Flappers2 F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald 3 The Lost Generation 4 Prohibition and the Jazz Age in America 5 America in the 1920s 6 The American economy 1918-1926

Spend 20 minutes or so researching your topic. Make written notes which you will have to feedback to the rest of your group when we come back to class.

Was this technique a success? Did you feel it was a good way to work or have you missed things?

Flapper style

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

The Jazz Age

Was this a useful approach to group work? Was it more educational than hearing information from the front of the class?

As a period what is your impression of their culture?

Does it seem to have anything in common with the world that we live in

What does the concept 'old money' mean to you?

Who is ´old money´ in Peru?

Can you think of any examples of how there is a clash between 'old' and 'new' money in Peruvian society?

Write 3 things that you remember about the American Dream from our work last year.

Character profile: Nick Carraway

The narrator of The Great Gatsby will obviously be a key character in the novel. We see things through his eyes, therefore it is important for us to establish what kind of a character he is, what is his background and beliefs, can he be trusted? Your first piece of work will be to write a report on Nick. This will be based on the first chapter, so you will need to make notes as we go through.

Nick´s opening sectionRead the opening two pages of the book. The style is a little more difficult than what comes after it - use the dictionary if necesary to help you draw an impression of Nick.

Give 3 impressions of Nick and evidence for them.

Character profile: Is Nick a reliable narrator?

Use the quotes below to begin a character profile (using the questions below as headings) on a new page of A4.

·'My family have been prominent, well to do people in this Middle Western city for three generations.' ·'We have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch' ·'Everybody I knew was in the bond business' · 'I was rather literary in college..editorials for Yale News'·'My house ...was squeezed between two huge places that rented for between twelve or fifteen thousand a year'·'the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the '

What background is he from?What is important to him?/What does he want us to think? What are his likes and dislikes? In what terms does he assess things that he is seeing for the first time?

'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'

What do you think the character might mean by this quote? Does it have any relevance for today's society?

Tom Daisy

Jordan

It was a body capable of enormous leverage - a cruel body.

With her chin raised a little, as she was balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall.

she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh

Looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see.

She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an errect carriage that she accentuated by throwing her body back ...

Arrange the quotes under the correct characters

What do the quotes tell us about Nick? Add detail to your character profile referring to his meeting with the others.

Homework - complete your character profile of Nick, adding further evidence to what you have been provided by my quotes. For Thursday.

'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'

Are you surprised that this line was side by a woman? What does it tell us about the society that they live in?

What is their society like?

Find 5 pieces of evidence from the end of chapter one, analyse them to show your conclusions about the type of society that these characters are living in.

This must be handed in with your character profile of Nick on Friday.

Ideas page 10 - see differences of East and West as described by Nick

Nick:"To a certain temperament the situation might have been intriguing - my own instinct was to telephone immeadiately for the police"

Tom of Jordan "They oughtn´t to let her run around the country this way"

"We heard it from three people, so it must be true"