Six Ghost Stories - Teacher's notes of 3 ... Story 1 Room 7: Mr Saunders is driving
back to London ... is free, although Mr Richards seems uncomfortable about.
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Six Ghost Stories S.H. Burton
Summary Story 1 Room 7: Mr Saunders is driving back to London when he has a problem with the lights on his car. A mechanic in a village tells him that his car can’t be repaired until the next morning. Saunders finds a hotel but the manager, Mr Richards, tells him there are no rooms available. Mrs Richards intervenes and says that room 7 is free, although Mr Richards seems uncomfortable about this. Mr Saunders has dinner and retires to bed. Later he is awoken by a light shining from a chair in the room. He sees an old man sitting in the chair looking at him, who says, ‘I never knew, but you do’ and disappears. The next morning, he notices a picture on the wall that is exactly like the man he saw. Mrs Richards tells him it is Mr Richards’s father who died in room 7 five years ago. She also says some visitors thought the room was haunted but that she didn’t believe them. Mr Saunders leaves the hotel half convinced he has seen a ghost. Story 2 Mrs Wood Comes Home: A man called Bill goes to spend a few days with his friends, Jack and Annie, in the quiet town of Porchester. On the first night, they talk about Mrs Wood, a strange, rude old woman who owns the house opposite. Jack hates the woman, but Annie has often tried to help her. Bill mentions that he thought he had seen someone looking out of the window of Mrs Wood’s house on his previous visits and Annie tells him that Mrs Wood is now living in Australia. That night Bill is convinced he sees Mrs Wood looking at him through her window. He takes a photo of her house. The next morning Jack tells Bill that Mrs Wood had sworn to get him and his wife out of their house. Bill returns home and a postman delivers his developed photos. In his photo of Mrs Wood’s house there is an old woman looking out of
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the window. At that moment Jack runs into the room. He tells Bill that Mrs Wood died in Australia the day Bill arrived at his house and that the previous night Annie had answered a knock at the door. He had heard her say ‘Mrs Wood, you’ve come home’ before she died on the spot from fear. Story 3 A Ghost in the Garden: Henry and Joan Chapman buy a house in the country for their retirement. They move into the 200-year-old house called Samways. Father Barnes, the village priest, tells them the history of their house. It was built by Elijah Samways, who lived there with his servant. Mr Chapman wants to cut down a tall tree in the garden, but the priest suggests he just cuts a few branches. One windy night, Mrs Chapman is woken by a knocking at the bedroom window, and when she pulls the curtains back sees the face of an old man. Later, the priest explains that it was probably the ghost of Robert Forester, Elijah’s servant, who was hanged from the same tree for a crime he did not commit. The priest then puts his cross in the ground near the tree in order to bring peace to the ghost. Story 4 Roger Wingate’s New Car: Roger buys a second-hand car and while driving it, he hears a woman’s voice telling him to turn right at some traffic lights. He tells his friend, Bill, who is a journalist. Bill asks him to make a tape recording of the voice. When Bill hears the voice on the tape, it brings back memories. They go out in the car together and Roger turns right when the voice tells him to. They are driving along a quiet street when suddenly a young woman runs out in front of the car. Roger turns to avoid hitting her and crashes into a tree. Roger thinks he has hit the woman but when they get out the woman has disappeared. Bill had recognised the girl. A year previously, she had been run over and killed in the exact spot, and by the car that Roger had recently bought. Story 5 A Friend of the Family: Cecily and Frederic Frobisher reluctantly agree to allow Isobel, the teenage daughter of friends, to stay with them while her parents are in Canada. Before Isobel arrives, Cecily has a frightening dream about an old woman. When she arrives, Isobel behaves strangely and seems happy to spend most of her time alone in her room. Cecily becomes very nervous and her husband, a writer, finds it impossible to write in his library because he keeps hearing an old woman’s voice. One night, Isobel tells them about her grandmother, who once lived in the Frobisher’s house and died in it, and
Six Ghost Stories - Teacher’s notes
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Six Ghost Stories had promised that one day the house would belong to Isobel. Cecily and Frederic hear voices in Isobel’s room and Cecily decides to leave the house the following day. In the morning, Isobel has disappeared and the library door is locked. Frederic calls the police and a doctor and they discover the dead body of an old woman in the library. Who is it? Isobel or her grandmother? Story 6 A Birthday Card for Mrs Rogers: Mrs Emily Rogers lives at 91, Church Road. On her birthday, she expects a card from her son in America, but the postman has nothing for her. He feels sorry for the old woman, so he buys a birthday card and takes it back to her house. He is knocking on the door when a neighbour tells him that no one has lived at number 91 since Mrs Rogers’ death a year ago. She died on her birthday from the shock of hearing news of her son’s death in a car crash in America.
What are ghosts? Ghosts, or rather ghost stories, have been with us for centuries. The ancient Greeks and the Romans, famous writers such as Shakespeare and Dickens, and hundreds of modern day writers and filmmakers have included them in their works. But what exactly are they and what do they look like? The traditional image of a ghost is that of a shadowy, translucent shape which appears every now and then in a specific place. They are thought to be the tormented soul of some unfortunate individual who met their death in strange or horrific circumstances such as murder or a tragic accident. Another theory is that they are images some people see of a parallel world that exists alongside our own, and occasionally these two worlds connect and we have a brief glimpse of the other world. Ghosts are not always represented as human or animal forms. Poltergeists are natural forces such as electricity which seem to be controlled by a being that is intent on communicating something. Of course we can never know their true nature because we can never know if they exist at all.
Famous Ghosts A considerable number of people do believe in ghosts and have documented and photographed what they consider to be proof of their existence. Below is a list of the most famous: The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall: She was first seen in 1835. She was wearing a brown satin dress and had only black empty sockets for eyes. She was photographed in 1936. c Pearson Education Limited 2009
The Wicked Lady Howard: She is one of England’s most famous ghosts. The story goes that she rides out every night in a coach made from the bones of her four dead husbands. The House in Amityville: This house became famous in the mid seventies when the residents told the media about some bizarre happenings. They said the walls were dripping blood, there were flying pigs and an infestation of flies in the attic.
Ghosts on film Ghosts have played a major part in many films. The most notable are the following: The Others (2001): A woman and her two children live in a big house. The children are convinced that the house is haunted but the mother refuses to believe. In the end, it is the mother and her two children who are the ghosts. The Sixth Sense (1999): A man dies at the beginning of the film but the audience is led to believe he has recovered from his injuries. He sees and talks to dead people. The movie is famous for its unexpected ending. Ghost (1990): In this love story, a murdered lover returns to warn his girlfriend about impending danger. The Shining (1980): A writer, living with his family in a deserted hotel, descends into violent madness after seeing and speaking to several ghosts.
Discussion activities Before reading 1 Discuss: Put students in small groups and ask them to talk about films they have seen that have ghosts as their main theme. Do you like these types of films? Do you think they are frightening?
Story 1 Room 7 While reading (p. 4, after ‘Who are you?’) 2 Role play: Put the students in pairs and tell them one is Mr Saunders and the other is the man in the chair. The first student writes a list of questions he wants to ask the man. For example: How old are you? What happened to you? Why are you in room 7? Do you know Mr and Mrs Richards? The second student writes notes about himself. Then the first student asks his questions.
After reading 3 Write and guess: Put students in pairs and ask them to choose a short paragraph from Story 1. Tell then to write it again, making five changes to words in the text. Students then read out their paragraphs to the other students, who have to identify the mistakes. Six Ghost Stories - Teacher’s notes of 3
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Six Ghost Stories Story 2 Mrs Wood Comes Home While reading (p. 9, after ‘In the house across the street.’) 4 Group work: Put the students in small groups and ask them to talk about their neighbours. Do you like your neighbours? Do you see your neighbours often? Do you help your neighbours? Do they do anything that makes you angry? Then widen the discussion to neighbours in general and ask the students to think of things neighbours could do to make them angry.
After reading 5 Draw: Put the students in pairs and ask one to look at the illustration on page 8 and one to look at the illustration on page 13. One student then describes the illustration to their partner who has to draw it. Then they reverse roles. How accurate are the drawings?
Story 3 A Ghost in the Garden Before reading 6 Guess: Put the students in pairs and ask them to guess the answers to theses questions: Is the ghost a man or a woman? Is the ghost friendly or unfriendly? Is the ghost old or young? Does the ghost hurt anyone? What does he or she look like? How did the ‘ghost’ die?
While reading (p. 18, after ‘I’m very interested in gardens.’) 7 Discuss: The people in the book like gardening. Ask the students to think about things people like doing in their free time. Put them on the board and add some of your own. Then ask students, in small groups, to discuss the activities they like doing in their free time.
After reading 8 Write, ask and answer: Write ‘When did the Chapmans move into Samways House? ’ on the board and elicit the answer (In the late spring). Now tell students to write similar questions about Story 3. Students then mingle as a group, asking and answering each other’s questions.
Story 4 Roger Wingate’s New Car While reading (The drawing on p. 33.)
After reading 10 Pair work: Write the following words on the board: garage, traffic lights, radio, tape recorder, young girl, tree, newspaper. Ask the students to talk and write in pairs to say how these words were used in Story 4.
Story 5 A Friend of the Family Before reading 11 Write: Ask the students to write down all the words they can think of that can be used to describe what a person looks like physically and what their personality is like. Put them on the board. Then students write a short description of one of their friends or family and read it out to their partners.
Story 6 A Birthday Card for Mrs Rogers While reading (p. 53, after ‘He’s never forgotten before.’) 12 Discuss: Put the students in small groups and ask them to talk about something important that they’ve forgotten. This could be someone’s birthday or another important date, or your keys, mobile, wallet, umbrella.
After reading 13 Research and write: Divide the students into groups of three and ask each group to look for information on the Internet about one of the following films: The Sixth Sense, The Others, Ghost. Tell them to write a brief summary of the movie. Then put the students into different groups of three and ask them to read out their summaries to each other. Then tell them to discuss which of the movies they think is the best and why.
Extra activities 14 Game: Put the students into small groups and ask them to write ten questions about any part of the book. When they’ve finished each group reads out their questions and the other groups have to write their answers on a piece of paper. The group with the most correct answers wins.
Vocabulary activities For the Word list and vocabulary activities, go to www.penguinreaders.com.
9 Game: Put the students in small groups and ask them to make a list of all the things they can see in the drawing. The group with the longest list wins.
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Six Ghost Stories - Teacher’s notes of 3
