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Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

Frankenstein in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 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 9–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

Rhetoric-stage students (grades 9–12) can read a section a week independently, with time to annotate and to write. The questions suit seminar discussion or short written responses, and the escape room makes a quick check on the reading before the conversation or the essay. Some sections are much longer than others, so look ahead and give the heaviest weeks extra time.

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 Frankenstein

Week 1: Letters and Chapters 1–5

Read: Letters and Chapters 1–5

The explorer Robert Walton, sailing north, writes to his sister about a stranger taken on board from the ice. The stranger, Victor Frankenstein, tells of his childhood in Geneva, his reading of the old alchemists, his mother's death and his studies at Ingolstadt, where he gives life to a creature and flees in horror on the night it wakes.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Shelley begin with Walton's letters?
2. What drives Victor to make the creature?
3. Why does Victor run from what he has made?

Escape room: The Spark of Being (lockedlessons.com/rooms/frankenstein-letters-and-chapters-1-5/)

Week 2: Chapters 6–10

Read: Chapters 6–10

Victor recovers, then learns that his young brother William has been murdered. Glimpsing the creature in a storm, he suspects the truth but stays silent while the servant Justine is tried; sick with grief and guilt, he travels into the Alps and meets the creature on the sea of ice.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Victor not speak up to save Justine?
2. How does the landscape reflect Victor's feelings?
3. What do you expect the creature to say?

Escape room: Ice and Innocence (lockedlessons.com/rooms/frankenstein-chapters-6-10/)

Week 3: Chapters 11–16

Read: Chapters 11–16

The creature tells his story: his first days, his shelter beside the De Laceys' cottage, how he learns language by watching them, and the story of Felix and Safie. He reads the books he finds, reveals himself to the blind old De Lacey, is driven away by the family, takes revenge and demands that Victor make him a companion.

Discussion questions

1. How does the creature learn what it is to be human?
2. Why does the De Laceys' rejection hurt so much?
3. Is the creature's demand reasonable?

Escape room: Lessons Through a Wall (lockedlessons.com/rooms/frankenstein-chapters-11-16/)

Week 4: Chapters 17–20

Read: Chapters 17–20

Victor agrees to the creature's bargain but delays at home, then travels with Clerval down the Rhine and through England to Scotland. Working alone in the Orkneys, he destroys the second creature, the creature threatens him, and Victor's boat drifts to Ireland.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Victor destroy the second creature?
2. What does the creature's threat mean, and how does Victor misunderstand it?
3. Was Victor right or wrong to break his promise?

Escape room: The Broken Promise (lockedlessons.com/rooms/frankenstein-chapters-17-20/)

Week 5: Chapters 21–24

Read: Chapters 21–24

In Ireland Victor is imprisoned for a murder and then released, and he returns home. He marries Elizabeth, but their wedding night at Evian ends in terror, his father dies, and Victor pursues the creature across Europe and Asia to the ice, where Walton's last letters take up the story.

Discussion questions

1. Who is more to blame for the tragedy, Victor or the creature?
2. How does Walton's decision about his voyage connect to Victor's story?
3. What does the creature feel at the end?

Escape room: The Chase North (lockedlessons.com/rooms/frankenstein-chapters-21-24/)