To complete this Pre-Twentieth Century Prose Assignment, you can use Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1998) TV Version of the Hardy Classic starring Justine Waddell and Jason Flemyng and/or the full novel.
The Task
The task is to look closely at two journeys Tess takes with the men in her life. One is in Chapter 8 and the other is Chapter 30. Students are invited to comment on the action and dialogue in these two chapters and state what these encounters reveal about the relationships between Tess and her suitors.
This task has been designed to cater for mixed ability groupings and has been tried and tested in a number of schools with a good deal of success, particularly in conjunction with the Waddell/Flemyng DVD.
The two chapters are reproduced below for discussion in class, preferably on a whiteboard. These gobbets may be emailed to your students beforehand to aid their study. This assignment makes a good Speaking and Listening task too.
A student’s written response is included at the end to show you what one candidate made of this assignment. This can be distributed to students in your institution for guidance /discussion purposes.
You might like to decide what grade the candidate gained for this assignment and what criteria you used for determining this.
Chapter 8
Having mounted beside her, Alec d’Urberville drove rapidly along...
