Activity 01
Gallery Walk: Sensory Settings
Place images of iconic Gothic settings around the room. Students move in pairs to write 'sensory captions' for each, focusing on how the environment might represent a specific emotion like guilt or isolation.
How do authors use sensory imagery to build a sense of impending dread?
Facilitation TipDuring the Gallery Walk, position students at each station with a specific role: one student focuses on visual imagery, another on sound, and a third on touch or texture.
What to look forPose the question: 'How does the description of the house in 'The Fall of the House of Usher' make you feel, and what specific words or phrases create that feeling?' Facilitate a class discussion where students identify sensory details and connect them to their emotional responses.
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Activity 02
Inquiry Circle: Setting Surgery
Give groups a passage from a Gothic text. They must 'extract' every adjective used to describe the setting and categorize them by the emotion they evoke, then present a 'psychological profile' of the landscape.
In what ways can a landscape act as a physical manifestation of a character's guilt?
What to look forProvide students with a short excerpt from an Australian Gothic text. Ask them to highlight three examples of sensory imagery and write one sentence for each explaining how it contributes to a sense of dread or reflects a character's state.
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Activity 03
Think-Pair-Share: The Australian Gothic
Students compare a traditional European Gothic setting (a castle) with an Australian one (the outback). They discuss how the 'vastness' of Australia creates a different kind of horror compared to the 'enclosure' of a castle.
How does the subversion of a safe space heightens the tension in a narrative?
What to look forStudents write a brief response to: 'Choose one key question from our topic (e.g., 'How does a landscape act as a physical manifestation of guilt?'). Explain your answer using an example from a text we have studied.'
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Generate Complete Lesson→A few notes on teaching this unit
Teachers should model how to ‘read’ a setting by annotating excerpts aloud, naming the technique (e.g., pathetic fallacy, personification), and linking each choice to the protagonist’s psychology. Avoid rushing to theme—spend time on the mechanics of how the setting ‘acts.’ Research shows that slow, guided analysis of imagery builds stronger inferential skills than broad thematic discussions.
Successful learning looks like students identifying sensory details in a setting, explaining how those details mirror a character’s state of mind, and applying this understanding to new texts. They should confidently discuss how a room, landscape, or object reflects guilt, fear, or obsession without being prompted.
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
During Gallery Walk: Sensory Settings, students may assume the setting is only atmospheric decoration.
During the Gallery Walk, have students add a third column to their recording sheet labeled ‘Actions’—ask them to write one verb that describes what the setting seems to do (e.g., the hallway ‘twists,’ the forest ‘whispers’). This forces them to treat the setting as an active force.
During Collaborative Investigation: Setting Surgery, students may treat the setting as a static map without emotional weight.
During Setting Surgery, require groups to annotate their floor plan with sticky notes that name a character’s emotion at each location (e.g., ‘Here the protagonist feels trapped’). This makes the connection between place and psyche explicit.
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