• LITERAL - what you can see? • FIGURATIVE - what is suggested/implied?

Annotation

Ask questions when you annotate. Why is the picture cropped?Why is the use of colour so limited?Why is the title slightly blurred?

Where might this picture be from? What might its purpose be? How effective do you find it?

Compare this version with the previous one. Try and crystallize the essential difference.

Annotate what you notice about the writer’s creation of atmosphere in the text. Try to ask a question of the text.

‘Fog was outdoors, hanging over the river, creeping in and out of alleyways and passages, swirling thickly between bare trees of all the parks and gardens of the city, and indoors too, seething through cracks and crannies like sour breath, gaining a sly entrance at every opening of a door. It was a yellow fog, a filthy, evil-smelling fog, a fog that choked and blinded, smeared and stained. Groping their way blindly across roads, men and women took their lives in their hands, stumbling along the pavements, they clutched at railings and at one another, for guidance.’

What clues are there in these extracts from ‘The Woman in Black’ that the story is likely to turn dark?

• ‘”Children.” Mr Bentley fell silent for a few moments, and rubbed at the pane with his finger, as though to clear away the obscurity, but the fog loomed, yellow-grey, and thicker than ever…A church bell began to toll…’

• ‘…a thick brown envelope marked DRABLOW. Clutching it under my arm, I plunged out, into the choking London fog.’

Active Reading

‘It would be easy to look back and to believe that all that day I had had a sense of foreboding about my journey to come, that some sixth sense, some telepathic intuition that may lie dormant and submerged in most men, had stirred and become alert within me…’When we read ACTIVELY this is what we do. We look for clues, hints. We ‘read between the lines’, ‘backwards and forwards’, figuratively and with empathy.

Explore the opening of ‘The Woman in Black’

• Which elements of this opening sequences make it an effective at creating a sense of fear?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z_XetLZlqc

Examine the three ‘What Clues’ extracts

Read each of the following three extracts. They all come from horror stories. What clues can you find in each, which tells you that the story that begins with them is going to end in something horrible?

Extract 1

The wind whistled eerily through the needle-like leaves of the fir tree. In the distance a wolf howled to the full moon: his cry lonely, mincing against the coal black night sky. A grey fog circled around and between the gravestones in the local cemetery. Over the grave of the Slasher’s last victim stood the statue of an angel. Her eyes were closed, her hands pressed together and, in the pale moonlight, tears seemed to fall from her face.

Extract 2

The birds were silent. The dazzling sunshine seemed to flatten the land. Stillness. Stillness and silence. Nothing else. The castle stood grey in the sunshine, its drawbridge raised, its moat empty. Inside nothing stirred. The long empty corridors remained untrodden, and had remained so for many years. In the corners of the rooms, over the beds, over chairs, over all things upright, thick cobwebs spread like the slow advancement of a sticky avalanche. Soon there would be nothing left, only spiders, in this place of darkness.

Extract 3

He walked quietly, his soles making no sound with each contact of the wet pavement. He wore a thick coat, the collar up around his neck. His hat was pulled low to hide his eyes. His mouth was in a straight, determined line. The time had come. The time was now. He repeated these words over and over in his head as the wind, like a sharp knife, cut across his pale cheeks.