The Addams Family is back in a Netflix series, Wednesday. It features eight episodes, four directed by Tim Burton. It centres around Wednesday, the daughter in the Addams family, played by Jenna Ortega, and who is starting at Nevermore, boarding school for outcasts.
The Addams Family, created by American cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker in 1938, is a satirical inversion of the ideal American family. The original cartoons gave birth to numerous TV adaptations and feature films.
For this A2 work unit, we suggest using only the first part of the trailer as an introduction to Nevermore Academy and the main characters. It will be followed by a presentation of the school, meant to provide your students with some ideas and vocabulary to help them write and perform their own school presentation as a final task to the unit.
Vocabulary and grammar
- Lexical fields of strangeness, sarcasm.
- Outcasts, rejected pupils, pupils who feel different.
- Expressing purpose.
Pronunciation
- Stress and intonation in reading the school presentation.
Culture
- Basic information about Edgar Allan Poe.
- The Addams Family as a recurring theme in American culture.
For more on a boarding-school theme, check out our Escape Games cycle 3 pack, game 2: "Get out of school".
Copyright(s) :
Courtesy of Netflix © 2022
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> Tim Burton and Sidney Lumet Honoured at Lyon’s Lumière Festival
> Tim Burton: Gloriously Peculiar
> A TV Series of Unfortunate Events
> Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli
> Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
> The House with a Clock in its Walls
Tag(s) : "being different" "boarding school" "Edgar Allan Poe" "Escape games cycle 2" "gothic" "The Addams Family" "the Pilgrim Fathers" "Tim Burton" "U.S. culture" "U.S. history"