Stage 1
A1
Te e n
Readers
Characters
Mr Sowerberry
Oliver
Mrs Sowerberry
Doctor Losberne
Mr Bumble
Monks
Dodger
Fagin
Bill Sikes
Nancy
Mr Brownlow
Rose Maylie
Mrs Bedwin
Mrs Maylie
Charles Dickens
Oliver tells Mrs Sowerberry that Noah said
horrible things about his mother but she doesn’t
listen to him. She throws him in a cold, dark room.
She closes the door but she forgets to lock it.
Oliver stays in the room for many hours. It
is very late and the house is silent. Mr and Mrs
Sowerberry are asleep. Oliver doesn’t know what
to do. He didn’t like the workhouse and he doesn’t
like Mr and Mrs Sowerberry and Noah. Then, he
has an idea.
He decides to run away*. He slowly opens the
door to the room and quietly walks to the kitchen.
Then, he opens the kitchen window and jumps
out into the street, but he doesn’t know where to
go. He can see the church and the baker’s and the
butcher’s in the town centre. Then, he sees a big
road. He runs down the road, away from the town
and Mr Sowerberry’s shop and the workhouse.
to run away to leave a place you don’t like
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Oliver Twist
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After-reading Activities
Grammar
1 Where does Oliver live? Number the boxes.
A ■ Mr Brownlow’s townhouse
B ■ Rose’s cottage
C ■ Fagin’s house
1 The workhouse
D ■
E ■ Mr Brownlow’s cottage
F ■ Rose’s townhouse
G ■ Mr Sowerberry’s shop
2 Complete Oliver’s family tree. Use the words in the box.
mother
father
half-brother
aunt
sister
father
Edwin is Oliver and Monks’ .................
1 Monks is Oliver’s ..................................
2 Agnes is Oliver’s ...................................
3 Rose is Agnes’ .............................. and Oliver’s ..............................
Reading
3 Read the sentences and tick only the ones that are true.
✓
Bill goes back to London.
■
1 Charley helps Bill escape.
■
2 Bill dies.
■
3 Charley finds a job on a farm.
■
4 Fagin escapes from prison.
■
5 Monks doesn’t give Oliver his money.
■
6 Mr Brownlow adopts Oliver.
■
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Vocabulary
4 Find these words in the wordsearch.
document farmhouse painting prison
rock rope wedding woods alleys
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Writing
5 Complete Oliver’s diary entry. Use the words in the box.
lives
went
play
live
go
was
Dear Diary,
I’m very happy today. I’m in my new home in the countryside
with my new family. Mr Brownlow is my new father and I
(1) ..................... with him and Mrs Bedwin in a beautiful cottage.
We have got an enormous garden and I (2) ..................... outside
every afternoon. My aunt Rose (3) ..................... nearby with her
husband Harry and Mrs Maylie. We all (4) ..................... to Rose
and Harry’s wedding last week. It (5) ..................... great! We often
(6) ..................... to visit them and we have lots of delicious cakes
for afternoon tea.
Love,
Oliver
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Focus on...
Biography
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born
on February 7th 1812 in
Portsmouth, England. His
mother was called Elizabeth
and his father was called
John. His father was in the
Navy and worked in an office
and his mother stayed at
home to look after the family.
They lived in Portsmouth,
near the sea, for a few years
and then they moved to Kent
in the south east of England
and finally to London. Charles
had five brothers and two
sisters.
1 January 1850, Charles
Dickens at his writing desk.
A Bad Event
A lot of English children were too poor to go to school but Charles was very lucky and he started
when he was nine years old. He liked school but when he was twelve years old, something bad
happened. His father didn’t have any money to pay the bills and he went to prison. Charles’
mother and his brothers and sisters all went to prison too because they didn’t have a place to
live and they had no money to buy food.
First Job
Charles didn’t go to prison but he stopped
going to school and went to work in a
factory. He was sad and lonely without
his family and he didn’t like working in
the factory. It was a horrible place and he
worked very hard for little money. He went
to visit his family on Sunday afternoons
and he liked talking to them all and playing
with his little brothers. He didn’t like it when
he had to go back to the room where he
was staying in Camden Town. The house
belonged to his mother’s friend and she was
a kind lady but Charles wanted to be with
his family.
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Back to school
Early works
He was very happy when his father
came out of prison a few months
later. John Dickens inherited some
money from a relative and used
the money to pay his bills and the
family went home. Charles went
back to school for three years and
he left when he was fifteen.
He started work in an office and later became a journalist
on a local newspaper. He also started writing stories. His
first story, A Dinner at Popular Walk, was published in 1833
and his first book, Sketches by Boz, in 1836. Charles Dickens
wrote a lot of very popular books and many of his stories
were about poor people and all their problems. He never
forgot about his terrible experience as a child and many of
his characters are young boys in difficulty.
Famous Stories
He wrote Oliver Twist between 1837
and 1839 and many others such as
David Copperfield (1849) and Great
Expectations (1860-1861). He also
got married in 1836 to a lady called
Catherine Hogarth. They had ten
children together but separated in
1858. Charles had a girlfriend, the
actress Ellen Ternan, and they stayed
together for many years.
The first edition of Oliver Twist.
Hobbies and Interests
His Tomb
He loved travelling and visited many
places including Italy and America and
even wrote some travel books. He also
loved going to the theatre and wrote
some plays too. He performed at the
theatre for Queen Victoria in 1851.
Throughout his life, Charles Dickens
worked on a lot of projects to help people
who were in unfortunate situations,
including young, unmarried mothers andd
sick children. He also spoke about the
problem of slavery in America and how it
was wrong.
He died in 1870 and is buried in Poets
Corner in Westminster Abbey, London.
Charles Dickens made a great contribution
to English literature and his tomb is near
those of other famous English writers
such as Rudyard Kipling and Thomas
Hardy.
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