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Reading schedule · Grades 6–9

A Christmas Carol in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 6–9, in class or at home.

Pacing

Logic-stage readers (grades 6–9) can usually manage a section a week on their own, reading a few chapters most days. Use the questions to move from what happened to why it happened: motives, causes and consequences. A long section can take two weeks without spoiling the plan.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on A Christmas Carol

Week 1: Stave 1

Read: Stave 1

On Christmas Eve the miser Scrooge refuses his nephew's invitation to dinner, turns away two gentlemen collecting for the poor and grudges his clerk Bob Cratchit a day off. At home he sees Marley's face in the door knocker, and the ghost of his old partner, weighed down with chains, warns him that three spirits will come.

Discussion questions

1. What does Scrooge's treatment of his nephew and his clerk show about him?
2. What do Marley's chains stand for?
3. Why does Marley want to save Scrooge?

Escape room: The Heavy Chain (lockedlessons.com/rooms/christmas-carol-stave-1/)

Week 2: Stave 2

Read: Stave 2

The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge himself as a lonely schoolboy, his loving sister Fan and the joyful Christmas ball given by his old master Fezziwig. Finally he sees Belle, the young woman who released him from their engagement because he had come to love money more.

Discussion questions

1. How does seeing his younger self affect Scrooge?
2. What does Fezziwig teach Scrooge about being an employer?
3. Why does Belle end the engagement?

Escape room: Shadows of the Past (lockedlessons.com/rooms/christmas-carol-stave-2/)

Week 3: Stave 3

Read: Stave 3

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the busy streets on Christmas morning, the Cratchits' small but happy dinner with Tiny Tim, Christmas kept by miners, lighthouse keepers and sailors, and his nephew's party. Beneath his robe the spirit reveals two wretched children.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Scrooge begin to care what happens to Tiny Tim?
2. What do the scenes at the mine, the lighthouse and the ship add?
3. What warning does Dickens give through the two children?

Escape room: A Giant in Green (lockedlessons.com/rooms/christmas-carol-stave-3/)

Week 4: Stave 4

Read: Stave 4

The silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge businessmen talking carelessly of a death, a dead man's belongings sold at old Joe's shop and a young couple relieved by the same death. The Cratchit house is quiet with grief, and in the churchyard Scrooge sees the stone that tells him who the dead man is.

Discussion questions

1. Why is this ghost silent?
2. Why does nobody mourn the dead man?
3. Can the future that Scrooge sees be changed?

Escape room: The Silent Phantom (lockedlessons.com/rooms/christmas-carol-stave-4/)

Week 5: Stave 5

Read: Stave 5

Scrooge wakes on Christmas morning a changed man. He sends a boy to buy the prize turkey for the Cratchits, makes a generous promise to the portly gentleman collecting for the poor, goes to dinner at his nephew's, and surprises Bob Cratchit the next morning.

Discussion questions

1. Is Scrooge's change believable?
2. Which of his good deeds matters most?
3. What does Dickens want his readers to do after reading the book?

Escape room: A Changed Man (lockedlessons.com/rooms/christmas-carol-stave-5/)