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Engaging GCSE English Lit lecture on Victorian Britain (monarchy, workhouses, Malthus, Dickens’ life) linked directly to A Christmas Carol AO3.

Bring Victorian Britain to life for your GCSE students with this fully resourced context lecture, designed to strengthen AO3 responses for A Christmas Carol.

This 8-slide PowerPoint provides clear, engaging coverage of the key historical, social, and cultural context behind Dickens’ novella, with explicit links to characters, themes, and plot points.

What’s included:

• Overview of Queen Victoria’s reign and the British Empire
• The Victorian Paradox: wealth vs extreme poverty
• Workhouses & the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)
• Malthusian theory and its influence on attitudes toward the poor
• Charles Dickens’ life and personal experiences that shaped the text
• Direct connections between context points and A Christmas Carol (e.g. Scrooge’s “surplus population” remark)
• Prompts for students to make their own AO3 links to the novella

Ideal for:

• GCSE English Literature (AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC)
• First teaching of A Christmas Carol
• Revision sessions
• AO3-focused lessons
• Cover lessons or independent study

Why it works:
The resource blends clear, teacher-friendly slides with explicit textual links so students don’t just memorise facts, they understand how context shapes meaning in Dickens’ novella.

TES Search Tags:
A Christmas Carol Victorian Context | GCSE English Literature AO3 | KS4 English Lit | Charles Dickens Context | Victorian Era Workhouses | Malthusian Theory