A Christmas Carol – Study Guide Ideas
Take your students through Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol this holiday season and expose them to a classic while exploring the Universal Theme of Change. And, hey, since this story’s in the public domain, you can print out a PDF or link to the text at Project Gutenburg.
A Christmas Carol Summary
Dickens has organized the story into five parts, which he calls “staves.”
- Stave 1. Scrooge is visited by Jacob Marley, who tells him he will be visited by three spirits.
- Stave 2. The Ghost of Christmas Past visits. We learn about Scrooge’s childhood and his lost love.
- Stave 3. The Ghost of Christmas Present stops by and takes Scrooge to several holiday parties, including the Cratchit family and Scrooge’s nephew Fred.
- Stave 4. Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come visits Scrooge, showing him what the future may hold if he doesn’t change.
- Stave 5. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning to find that he has returned to the present and has the opportunity to change his way.
Universal Theme of Change
A Christmas Carol lends itself nicely to the Universal Theme of Change since the story centers on Scrooge, well, changing.
Of course, you can also integrate this story with other Universal Themes like Power or Conflict.
Inductive Study of Change
To set students up for inductive thinking, you can ask them to gather specific examples of change throughout the story, perhaps pausing after each stave to generate ideas.
Then, you can ask students to group those examples of change into a few categories and label those categories. You might have groups like:
- positive change and negative change
- visible and invisible change
- physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual change
Finally, students generate a statement about Change using those category names. One group might write, “Change can create positive or negative effects,” while another comes up with “Changes can be on the surface or below the surface.”
Deductive Study of Change
But, you can also lead a deductive study by introducing your own generalization up front that you think fits beautifully. For A Christmas Carol, I love “Change generates additional change.”
I’ll introduce this statement up front, and then, as we read the story, students will look for examples that support or refute my statement. For example, once Scrooge changes his mind about Christmas, he creates additional change in the Cratchit family by providing a huge Christmas meal.
Extensions
Any great story is going to open up fun extension activities for students who are interested. A Christmas Carol might open up studies of:
- Coal Fires – I’ve always been intrigued by Bob Cratchit’s tiny fire. How does a coal fire work compared to a wood fire? Or a fire fueled by gas? Isn’t it unhealthy to burn coal indoors?
- Bah! Humbug! – What the heck is a humbug? What other outdated phrases might be fun to bring back? You might want to browse neologisms over time and pick out a few to introduce.
- Time Travel – My own students loved the endless paradox possibilities introduced when characters can move through time.