Great Expectations of the Third Kind or An offer and a Gentleman

An Integrated, Interdisciplinary, Thematic, Standards-based Unit on Charles Dickens' Great Expectations Every day, people are faced with making decisions that range from the mundane to life-changing. Teenagers find themselves constantly exposed to media images, articles, and personal examples that depict how making certain decisions affect other people. In a world where violence is a growing trend, the ability to handle moral dilemmas and make good decisions is a skill everyone should be taught. As our students grow older and more mature, we recognize a need to address moral dilemmas with them: the decisions young people make need to be educated and well-thought out. Understanding that everyone is faced with a moral dilemma at some point in his life is essential to appreciating the need to be able to make moral decisions. In this unit, students will examine the moral dilemmas posed in Dickens' Great Expectations while drawing connections between the main character's dilemmas and ones faced in their own lives. Students will also learn to anticipate possible consequences for their decisions. Character education is a topic too often overlooked in the classroom, and this unit offers students the opportunity to examine and build their own characters while making connections between literature and their own lives, reading primary and secondary texts, and interpreting and predicting the consequences that go along with decision making.