My AP Lit students just finished Frankenstein and I asked them for individual reviews of the book. Most gave it a 4/5, liking the story but disliking the pacing. (That review doesn’t surprise me, especially in the age of suspense-in-everything). One thing that did surprise me is how many of them referenced our brief study of Romanticism as a reason they got more of the book.
Every year I teach the literary theory of Romanticism before or alongside Frankenstein. I want them to know why Mary Shelley keeps sending her protagonist out into the woods, and his purpose for being there. To make the lesson stick, I printed out some 1-2 line lyrics by Romantic authors and gave them to students with no context. Then, we trekked outside, specifically to the pond that is just beyond our school’s parking lot. I handed out the poetry excerpts and made the kids read (more like scream) the lyrics at the pond. Picture Dead Poet’s Society and you will understand the vibe.
This was a silly activity, but I’m doing it every year. I found that just by moving the kids outside, I made the day unique. Later, when I referenced Romanticism, I could just say “remember by the pond?” and it all clicked in again.
Here are some more ideas to integrate Romantic principles alongside works like Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, or any other gothic novel. These activities are fun, engaging, and will help your students understand Romanticism better. And maybe, they’ll learn they’re pretty Romantic already.
Romantic Principles
To start, here’s an overview of some of the ideas of Romanticism. I’ll suggest a fun activity that highlights each, but you certainly don’t need to do all of them.
- The power of the individual
- Awe of nature
- Rebellion against industrialization
- Celebration of emotion
- Janus (looking backward to look forward)
- The Byronic hero
- Supernatural fascination
The power of the individual – Journaling about an accomplishment
To get students to understand this, they need to hone in on a moment when they accomplished something individually. This could include any of the following:
- Finishing a project without help
- Nailing a performance or game they practiced for
- Overcoming a fear (public speaking, driving alone for the first time, talking to a teacher about a grade)
- Running a mile without stopping
- Baking something from scratch
- Solving a problem no one else could figure out
Then ask:
- What did you accomplish?
- What made it meaningful to you personally?
- How did the moment change your confidence or sense of self?
- How would a Romantic poet describe that feeling?
This reframes individualism as an internal victory, celebration of self-reliance, and emphasis on personal growth. Encourage students to journal about their feelings during this moment, and to keep their expressions vivid and isolated on their feelings of individual struggle and achievement. Later in your reading, pair these vivid thoughts with those of your protagonist in times of struggle or triumph.
Awe of nature – Planet Earth/National Parks
This one is easy for me, because I spend so much of my family time in celebration of nature. My husband and I are on a mission to visit all the nation’s national parks (or at least the accessible ones in the continuous 48 states).
To encourage a love for nature, watch an episode of Planet Earth or some YouTube videos exploring national parks and unspoiled wilderness. If time doesn’t permit this, assign it as homework before starting a gothic novel.
Perhaps one of the easiest things you can do is play this relaxation video while students read your chosen novel. The shots are comprised of different scenic areas around the world and will encourage a love for nature and our earth in any.
Rebellion against industrialization – Media Tracking Assignment
Romantics like Wordsworth hated the Industrial Revolution and felt that new technology interfered with imagination and intellectual achievement. Most students don’t really stop to consider their technology use unless forced. One activity that forces them to track their technology use is a media tracking sheet, where they record their media consumptions and other habits over the course of a week.
I do this activity with my sophomores as we read Fahrenheit 451 and it’s definitely eye-opening. Many don’t realize how many hours they’re in front of a screen (or hooked up to one with air pods) until we finish this assignment.
To do a media tracking assignment, download this free document to use with your class. This document was amended by one created by Darrell Dobson, Ph.D.
Celebration of Emotion – Quickwrite
Similar to the power of the individual, Romantic thoughts focus on sustained and vivid feelings of isolated emotion.
Start with a quickwrite based on this prompt: Write about a moment (big or small) when you felt something strongly—joy, anger, embarrassment, pride, jealousy, relief, grief, awe, anything. Describe the moment and what you felt.
After 5-10 minutes, ask students to connect with this feeling of vivid emotion with one of the following statements:
- Emotion reveals truth.
- Emotion connects us to nature, people, or experience.
- Emotion shapes identity.
- Emotion is valuable even when it’s overwhelming.
Students can continue writing or get with a partner to discuss their connections. Again, this is a great way to get into the headspace of a Romantic character or author.
Janus – “New Years’” resolutions
The month of January is named after Janus, aptly fitting a month where we look back on the last year and make goals for the new one. Janus was the Roman god of thresholds, or more literally, doors and doorways. Romantic authors often looked back to classic thinkers that lived before their time before casting them aside and proclaiming their path more important. If you study works by Percy Bysshe Shelley or Samuel Taylor Coleridge, you’ll find allusions to great thinkers of the past intermixed in their lines of poetry. Often these thinkers are praised, then discarded. Even Shelley’s famous poem “Ozymandias” espouses this exact way of thinking.
To get students in the “Janus” state of mind, ask them to make New Years’ resolutions. This works especially well if you don’t teach the lesson in January. After all, why should reflective thinking occur only in one month?
Ask students to look back on a previous time (the last year, the last school year, the last semester, etc.) and make a list of 5 things they regret. What can they attribute their mistakes to, or what went wrong? Then, ask them to make a list of 3-5 goals for the next period of time. What can they do to be successful this next time around?
The Byronic Hero – Personality Quiz
One of my favorite lessons in Frankenstein is talking to students about Byronic heroes. We usually do this near the end of the book, well after the Creature finishes his narrative. First, I tell students about the qualities of a Byronic hero (which you can learn all about in this blog post). Then, I pass out this personality quiz, based on the simple quizzes you could take on sites like Buzzfeed. It takes about 5 minutes to take and will get students talking. Best of all, it’s super fun!
Click here to get the Byronic hero personality quiz (completely free!).
Supernatural Fascination – Romantic Analysis of Paranormal or Unexplained Activity
There’s no doubt that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a fascination with the unknown. Just go on TikTok for a few minutes and you’ll fall into paranormal algorithms, including tracking Bigfoot, finding unexplained things on Google Earth, and spotting ghosts with hidden cameras.
Romantics tied unexplained or supernatural phenomena to unspoken meanings for themselves. If a lantern suddenly fell to the ground without explanation, they wouldn’t believe a ghost is haunting them, but rather look to significance to the fact that it was a lantern. They’d ask, “What needs illuminating? Have I overlooked something? Is something needing to be found?” We want to encourage this kind of thinking.
There are two ways you could do this lesson, based on the type of students (or community you have).
Option 1
If allowed, I’d let students loose on social media for 15 minutes, looking for paranormal or unexplained phenomena. Steer them towards any of these search terms:
- mysterious moments caught on camera
- weird things on Google Earth
- real ghost stories
- creepy but true stories
- “glitch in the matrix”
- déjà vu stories
- strange sounds in nature (I recommend the videos about this in the Appalachian mountains)
- things caught on home security cameras
- haunted places
Option 2
However, some religious or conservative families and students may feel uncomfortable with this. So the alternative is this:
Ask students to pick one item from this list of unexplained phenomena:
- A dream that felt too real
- A coincidence that felt meaningful
- An object you keep seeing everywhere
- A moment you felt like someone was watching
- A sudden intuition or “gut feeling”
- A memory you can’t explain
- Déjà vu
- A family story about something eerie
- An animal acting strangely
Whether students choose their own from the list above or find a video on paranormal TikTok, gather the class together for the next two steps.
Put students into small groups to discuss the phenomena as Romantic thinkers would have. On paper or on a computer, ask them to work together to answer the following questions:
- What happened? Explain the phenomena in several bulletpoints, being as clear as possible.
- Why might it have happened? Use Romantic logic, not scientific logic (see below)
- What did it reveal about life, emotion, or the human experience?
On a whiteboard or slideshow, write down elements of Romantic logic:
- intuition
- emotions
- nature’s influence
- spiritual energy
- fate or destiny
- symbolic meaning
After a few minutes of discussion and reflection, ask small groups to share their Romantic interpretation of supernatural or unexplained phenomena. Encourage this kind of analysis as they read Romantic works and encounter strange, even supernatural, events. It’s less about the “how,” far more about the “why.”
Conclusion
I’m a bit sad I wrote this blog post after teaching Frankenstein, but I do intend to overhaul my Frankenstein unit very soon. You can bet that many of these lessons and activities will be integrated to help your students squeeze Romantic ideals out of that text. Even better, these activities work with any Romantic or gothic text. Students today are already very prone to Romantic-era thinking and I think you’ll find it very easy to get them engaged!