Charles Dickens is widely renowned as one of the most influential writers of the 19th Century. His voice helps millions of people around the world gain a greater understanding of what life was like for people during the Victorian era.
Born on the 7th of February 1812, Charles Dickens was more than a novelist; he was also a well-established journalist, editor, illustrator, and even social commentator, but is best known for his classic novels. Dickens spent much of his early life in poverty, working in a factory as a young boy, in a family that was struggling to survive, and he often wrote about the struggles of the poor in his work. One of the great legacies of Charles Dickens is how he managed to bring to light the struggles of the poor and help make positive change in society.
Today, one of the biggest struggles our students face in modern classrooms is understanding and visualising the world that Dickens was trying to describe. The abject poverty of Victorian London was vastly different to the world that our students now occupy and often terms and descriptions used in the books can be lost when our students have no frame of reference. That’s why we’ve developed three, brand-new, Avanti’s World scenes to celebrate the birthday of one of our greatest writers.
Explore 3 Famous Dickens Novels in Virtual Reality
From today, students can delve deep into the world of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and a Tale of Two Cities, and walk in the shoes of some of literature’s most well-known characters.
Experience the workhouse as Oliver Twist and walk your way through the grimy Victorian streets, through Fagin’s lair all the way through to the sunny countryside at the Maylie’s cottage.
Wander the streets of London and Paris and compare the two in A Tale of Two Cities, looking for clues as to what life would have been like for the characters living in and around revolutionary France.
Students can even walk in the shoes of Pip and experience his life in the countryside and his move to London and into high society, straight from the page of The Great Expectations.
By giving students the opportunity to experience Dickensian settings first-hand, we can equip them with the tools they need to analyse and comprehend texts that may at first seem daunting or even alien to them. Whether you’re using ClassVR headsets to explore the settings in virtual reality or using the Avanti’s World browser to set reading and assess understanding, any student of Dickens’ literature will benefit from these incredible new scenes.
Implementing VR into Your Charles Dickens Lessons
Through the power of the Eduverse (the educational metaverse), you and your students can seamlessly work as a class between the digital and physical worlds. You can host your lesson in the Parish Workhouse before sending students off to explore independently and then come together in the real world to share what you found or send students off in small groups to explore the streets of revolutionary Paris together before creating physical writing describing what they discovered.
With ClassVR and Avanti’s World you can fully immerse your students in the world of Charles Dickens and provide them an unparalleled literacy learning experience that they’ll never forget.
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