Unit Assessment
After completing the novel, students come back to where we began: Does nature or environment determine an individual's morality (or lack thereof)? What impact does prejudice, cruelty, and ostracism have on an individual? How can superficial markers prevent man from destroying civilization? How do we begin to empathize with this "other" being with a better understanding of multiple perspectives, rather than just one? Once again, students are brought back to the benefits of multiple narrators in order to get a balanced view of the novel. Even Walton's narrative is able to give the reader a more reliable sense of the Creature's nature. Students are asked to recall the fact that Walton does not immediately reject the Creature based on his first visual impression. This kind of delay may be due to the fact that Victor has already been exposed to the Creature via Victor's words. At Victor's deathbed, watching the Creature hover over the dead man, Walton is indeed disgusted, amazed that he had never seen such a grotesque figure as the Creature. Nevertheless, once Walton shuts his eyes, and is temporarily in the dark, he asks the Creature to stay, as an almost sympathetic offering to this maltreated figure. This kind of empathy and willingness to suspend assumptions is the same core purpose for the Unit Assessment that my students will complete: "Frankenstein's Archive of Letters".
Students will be paired up and asked to choose either Victor or the Creature (both can be aptly addressed as "Frankenstein" since there is such a strong correlation between the two characters) and take on their persona in their collection of letters. Students will write five letters to the other character (1 page in length, handwritten, single spaced) regarding five specific incidents. While the Creature is still alive at the end of the novel (although there is some doubt when comparing Mary's original statement that Walton "lost sight of the creature in the distance" and Percy's edited statement that the Creature "was lost in the distance") and can have an obvious voice in the letters, the same cannot be said about Victor since he is dead by the end of the book. He is entirely mute for the last section of the novel, and therefore the reader never truly knows if he had any remorse or any acknowledgement of the Creature. Because of this muted situation, I will have the students who take on the persona of Victor assume that Victor's "spirit" is reawakened and has the epiphany of taking some responsibility for the creature, and more importantly having the much desired empathy that his child has so desperately needed and wanted.
Students will be given a list of specific events from which they will choose five. Students will be required to use textual evidence, letter writing structure, and stylistic techniques/diction familiar to their character. Generally, students' letters should sound like their specific character, not like the students themselves. Students will relay a sense of empathy through their words, especially since they will present their specific letters centering on the same event to read aloud in class. Students will stand opposite their partner, and will read these letters to each other, finally giving voice and "empathy" through the eyes of both Creature and Creator.
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