AchieveReading High School Sample

High School Sample Reading &

Writing Lessons

AchieveReadingI n s t r u c t i o n a l I n t e r v e n t i o n

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©2013 This information is confidential and proprietary to Catapult Learning™. For internal distribution only.

AchieveReading

HS Reading — Lesson 10

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HS Reading — Lesson 10 AchieveReading

Focus on Reading: Finding details, drawing inferences

Objective: Students will use details to draw inferences based on extracted historical information in a biographical text.

Text Information: Dickens’ London, from David Perdue’s Dickens Page, Dickens website

Question: How does “Dickens’ London” belie the “good old days” idiom?

Standards:

R.I.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

R.I.11-12.2 Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

Summary:In this lesson students will

• Read a biographical/historical text

• Determine the central idea

• Track specific details

in order to draw inferences about the time period and a modern reader’s thoughts and assumptions about that time period.

Resources:

Teacher Lesson Manual Student Anthology

K-W-L Chart, Appendix A, Page GG Dickens’ London, page 47


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AchieveReading 3 ©2013 This information is confidential and proprietary to Catapult Learning™. For internal distribution only.

R: 10HS Reading — Lesson 10 AchieveReading

Activate and Assess Relevant Knowledge (ARK) (5 minutes)

Make connections between this new content and what students may already know:

• From previous chapters or sections (if they have been reading from the larger work)

• From general knowledge of the selection (from peers or from library bookshelves)

Provide new information as necessary to help create context and fill knowledge gaps.

Assess student understanding of the text and genre about to be read. Discuss the 19th century and ascertain what students may already know. Ask students what kind of content they expect to encounter in a nonfiction text. Provide background information where it is needed in order to understand the selection.

ASK STUDENTS: Have you ever heard someone talk about the “good old days”?

TELL STUDENTS: Today we’ll be reading about Victorian London in the mid-1800s at the time Charles Dickens was writing and we will be using details to find out if these really were “good old days.” We’ll have to draw inferences from what we read in order to find that out.

TELL STUDENTS: Please share any facts or details you know about Victorian life in England or Charles Dickens.

ASK STUDENTS: Does anyone know what it means to draw an inference? (If not, ask: Have you ever been able to tell how someone feels without them telling you?) Have you ever found that you understand a character in a story more than other people in class? If so, you were making inferences—drawing conclusions about people or stories based on things that might not be stated outright. We will be doing that as we read today.

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0HS Reading — Lesson 10 AchieveReading

Direct Instruction (10 minutes)

Introduce the reading skill using a Teacher Think Aloud.

• Teacher reads a text portion aloud

• Teacher explains and models the skill process out loud using the text

• Students observe as teacher models critical attributes of the focus skill

Using a Think Aloud strategy, model for students how to preview an informational text. Emphasize the overall features of the text, headings, sub-headings and other features that aid comprehension.

TELL STUDENTS: Let’s take a look at the top of the text. The first thing we can see is a man’s face and a cityscape. Where do you think this is?

(London)

How can you tell?

(It says so in the title)

Who do you think the man is?

(Charles Dickens)

How can you tell?

(It says so; I recognize him)

TELL STUDENTS: Does the cityscape in the picture look old or modern?

(old)

How can you tell?

(no skyscrapers; old fashioned looking)

Today we’re going to read a text that will tell us about an important time in history.

We will use details in the text to draw inferences—that is to understand more than just what’s written on the page.

I’m going to start by reading the first paragraph aloud to you and talk through my thinking and how I would complete a K-W-L chart if I were on my own and reading this. Drawing inferences is sometimes about seeing connections, and using graphic organizers to make quick notes can help us to do that.

TELL STUDENTS: After looking at the heading and the name of the document, I would want to take a look to see how long the document is (4 pages) and if there are any headings, sub-headings, pictures, maps or other things that I might be able to use to make sense of the text (model reviewing headings, quotes, pictures, links at the end).

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(London)

How can you tell?



(Charles Dickens)

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(old)

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R: 10HS Reading — Lesson 10 AchieveReading

ASK STUDENTS: Now what can I predict the passage will be about?

(London when Dickens was alive; Sanitation, disease, the law, the poor)

Is this sounding like “the good old days”?

(not so much)

Model first reading TELL STUDENTS: I’m going to start now by reading the first paragraph with a basic purpose—I want to figure out what this article is going to be about. I am predicting that it will be an introduction to what London was like during Charles Dickens’ lifetime. I am basing my first prediction on the title, subheadings and the pictures I have already previewed.

Read first paragraph aloud to students.

“Dickens applied his unique power of observation to the city in which he spent most of his life. He routinely walked the city streets, 10 or 20 miles at a time, and his descriptions of nineteenth century London allow readers to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the old city. This ability to immerse the reader into time and place sets the perfect stage for Dickens to weave his fiction.”

TELL STUDENTS: There were some interesting things in there that I need to go back and look at again.

First, does it seem that my initial prediction was correct?

(yes, it’s about Dickens and London).

One of the things that stuck out to me was that the man walked—a lot! 10 to 20 miles is a lot of walking! What can I infer from that?

(Dickens liked to walk, he didn’t have a car/carriage, he was healthy).

I also learned that his descriptions of London in the 1800s let his readers experience sights, sounds, and smells of the city. This tells me that there were things to look at, things to listen to, and things to smell. The last one interests me. If I were going to think about the world we live in today, I don’t think I’d add “smell” to my list of important things to describe, so this is interesting to me and it helps me start the inference-making process. I’m also thinking that “smell” and “good old days” don’t seem to go together.

Model for students how to use a K-W-L graphic organizer to organize notes. Review the headers and their meanings before proceeding.

TELL STUDENTS: To take out their K-W-L Chart graphic organizers.

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0 ASK STUDENTS: Does anyone recall what the letters stand for?

(what I already know-what I want to learn or my questions, and what new information I learned from reading the text)

TELL STUDENTS: I am going to use a K-W-L Chart to collect information from what I’m going to read. The first thing I will write on the organizer is what I already know about Dickens and this time period.

ASK STUDENTS: What years encompassed the nineteenth century?

(Anytime from 1800-1899)

What do you already know about the nineteenth century?

(no electricity, no cars, no advanced medicine)

WRITE in the K-W-L Chart, “K” column:

• Dickens-Author, wrote Oliver Twist

• 19th Century-no electricity, transportation was limited etc.

TELL STUDENTS: It seems to me that this being about the 1800s is pretty important, it means Dickens might not have chosen to walk all that distance—he may not have had another option. We’ll see if we learn more about that later, but I can add a question note in the “W” column about that.

WRITE in the “W” column, “walk on purpose?”

TELL STUDENTS: Writing “question” notes in the “W” column is like having a conversation with the future. You write the question down to remind yourself to find the answer for it as you read. When you find your answer, you can write it down, and then draw a line connecting the two notes.

TELL STUDENTS: Another question I want to write down is, “Why are smells important?” I hope to answer this question as I read.

ASK STUDENTS: Is there anything else in this first paragraph that we should be noting on our organizer?

(answers will vary)

Any more thoughts on whether these were the good old days?

(answers will vary)

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(London)

How can you tell?



(Charles Dickens)

How can you tell?



(old)

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DRTA/Guided Reading (20 minutes)

DRTA

• Discussion format that focuses on making predictions

• Students use information in the text to make evaluative judgments

• Lesson includes DRTA Cycle: Predict, Read, Verify by Citing Text Evidence

Using a DRTA strategy, have students read the next paragraph of Dickens’ London

TELL STUDENTS: Now that we’ve previewed our document and learned how the graphic organizer can help us write predictions/ questions and note answers, we’re going to start reading with a more specific purpose. We want to see if our questions are answered, if what we think is true really is, and if we can find more in-depth information. As we are reading, we are also going to use the information we locate to try to infer information that is not directly stated.

We are going to read this selection so that at the end of the class, we will be able to write an answer to the question, How does “Dickens’ London” belie the “good old days” idiom?

TELL STUDENTS: There are two words in this question that you might not know, ‘belie’ and ‘idiom’. (Ask if students know them, if not, offer the following definitions:

Belie: (of an appearance) fail to give a true notion or impression of (something); disguise or contradict.

Idiom: an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own (e.g., rain carts and dogs, see the light).

(Select a volunteer from the group to read aloud the next paragraph)

“Victorian London was the largest, most spectacular city in the world. While Britain was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, its capital was both reaping the benefits and suffering the consequences.”

ASK STUDENTS: Is there anything in those sentences that seems like a detail we may want to look into further? Anything in there that gives you an idea of what might be coming next?

(largest city, Industrial Revolution, “suffering consequences”)

Have students add any questions and answers they think of, to the “W” and “L” columns of the graphic organizer throughout this section.

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0 TELL STUDENTS: Listen to find out what kinds of changes London was experiencing.

(Have the student continue reading)

“In 1800 the population of London was around a million souls. That number would swell to 4.5 million by 1880. While fashionable areas like Regent and Oxford streets were growing in the west, new docks supporting the city’s place as the world’s trade center were being built in the east. Perhaps the biggest impact on the growth of London was the coming of the railroad in the 1830s which displaced thousands and accelerated the expansion of the city.”

ASK STUDENTS: What were some of the changes?

(More people, docks etc.)

ASK STUDENTS: Why are the docks important?

(Bring into the city many more goods to support the population)

ASK STUDENTS: What can we infer might have been some effects of the changes that were occurring? How does the text support your inference?

(Answers will vary—Congestion, “4.5 million souls…” homelessness, “displaced thousands…”)

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(London)

How can you tell?



(Charles Dickens)

How can you tell?



(old)

How can you tell?






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DIFFERENTIATION

9-10: ASK STUDENTS: Based on the first two paragraphs, what do you think the “central ideal” of this text might be?

(that London in 1880 was dirtier, smellier, and simply worse than our modern world)

What information did you write on your G.O. that supports those ideas?

(walk around and help students find and share the support they have in their notes)

Point out how their details helped them identify the central idea.

ASK STUDENTS: How does that central idea relate to our focus question?

(it answers it)

So why do we need to keep reading?

(without proof, it’s just someone’s opinion. We need to read on to get more facts and details)

11-12: ASK STUDENTS: Based on the first two paragraphs, what do you think the “central ideal” of this text might be?

(that London in 1880 was dirtier, smellier, and simply worse than our modern world)

What information did you write on your G.O. to support those ideas?

(walk around and help students find and share the support they have in their notes)

Point out how their details helped them identify the central idea.

ASK STUDENTS: How does that central idea relate to our focus question?

(it answers it)

So why do we need to keep reading?

(without proof, it’s just someone’s opinion. We need to read on to get more facts and details)

TELL STUDENTS: As you continue to read, start comparing the statements at the beginning of the document with statements at the end. See if you can find ways that the introductory paragraphs are different from the later paragraphs. How do the ideas build on one another?

(You couldn’t understand the later parts if you didn’t read the first)

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0 Student teams read the third paragraph and fill in their K-W-L charts while teacher circulates

(continuing the main lesson...)

TELL STUDENTS: Now you’re going to do the same thing in a group as you read the next paragraph. Again, your job is to write down questions and predictions using the text and your own thoughts.

TELL STUDENTS: Read to find out what the effect of this growth was?

Have student pairs continue reading the following paragraph:

The price of this explosive growth and domination of world trade was untold squalor and filth. In his excellent biography, ‘Dickens’, Peter Ackroyd notes that, “If a late twentieth-century person was suddenly to find himself in a tavern or house of the period, he would be literally sick—sick with the smells, sick with the food, sick with the atmosphere around him”.

When students are done reading:

TELL STUDENTS: Let’s add to the “L” column information. What can you add from this paragraph?

(answers will vary)

ASK STUDENTS: What can you infer from this paragraph? Remember to provide evidence from the text.

(Illness must have been excessive, “untold squalor and filth…”)

TELL STUDENTS: You are now going to read the remaining text independently.

ASK STUDENTS: What should you be doing as you read?

(using the K-W-L chart to ask and answer your own questions, as you read)

Have students read independently, completing the K-W-L chart.

TELL STUDENTS: As I circulate, you’re going to read on your own while writing questions and answers on your organizer as you go. You may use the back of the chart if the columns become filled.

Discuss the findings students have listed on their graphic organizers as a group.

When students are done:

ASK STUDENTS: What are some of the questions and answers you wrote on your organizer.

(answers will vary)

What does that tell us about the 1880s and Charles Dickens’ world?

(answers will vary; help students draw inferences from what they read, helping to lead them to possible answers for the focus question)

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(London)

How can you tell?



(Charles Dickens)

How can you tell?



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How can you tell?






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Independent Practice (Using the focus skill) (10 minutes)

Discuss any areas of difficulty students encountered; answer questions.

ASK STUDENTS: What are some of parts of the reading which you found confusing, if any? (answer any questions)

Have students use their graphic organizer to write an answer to the question:

How does “Dickens’ London” belie the “good old days” idiom?

TELL STUDENTS Now, you will be using details from the text together with your inference skills to answer the question we asked at the beginning of the lesson, “How does “Dickens’ London” belie the ‘good old days’ idiom?” by referring to the notes on your G.O. Use the box at the bottom of the K-W-L chart to write your answer to the question. In order to answer this question, you can turn it into your topic sentence by writing:

“Dickens’ London” belies the ‘good old days’ idiom by showing us…

DIFFERENTIATION

9-10: HAVE STUDENTS: complete the sample sentence, then find and add the details they think best explain how the text “belies the ‘good old days’ idiom”. Have them use at least three details from their notes to support their opening sentence.

11-12: HAVE STUDENTS: return to their notes and find the ways the text builds on the central ideas of how hideous London could be in the 1880s. Have them circle items and draw lines connecting ideas that built on one another.

(smells mentioned in intro become details about the horses and manure, then become details about personal hygiene)

Once they’ve traced a few details as they build through the selection, have students complete the prompt by showing how the details they found add to each other to create a solid argument that the text “belies the ‘good old days’ idiom”.

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KWL ChartK

What I KnowW

What I Want to KnowL

What I Learned


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(London)

How can you tell?



(Charles Dickens)

How can you tell?



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AchieveReading High School

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AchieveReading

HS Writing — Lesson 10






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HS Writing — Lesson 10 AchieveReading

Focus on Writing: Explanatory Text/Evidence: finding and organizing details

Objective: In this lesson students will use details to draw inferences based on extracted historical information in a biographical text.

Text Information: Dickens’ London, from David Perdue’s Dickens Page website

Question: In writing, how do we select organize and analyze informative content to effectively answer the question, ”How does Dickens’ London belie the “good old days” idiom?”

Standard:

W.(9-10, 11-12).2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content

Summary:In this lesson students will

• select content

• organize content

• analyze strength of content

in order to write an evidence paragraph containing information from a text selection.

Resources:

Teacher Lesson Manual Student Anthology

Informational/Explanatory Chart Appendix A, Page HH

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Conduct an oral review of the selection they read in the reading lesson, recalling details about the 19th century that they noted on their K-W-L charts. Ask selected students to read their writing response answer from the associated reading lesson.

TELL STUDENTS: Think back to the historical document we read about Charles Dickens and what London was like when he lived and wrote there. What do you recall from that text?

(London was smelly, poor, and sick)

TELL STUDENTS: To review their K-W-L chart from when they read the text as well as review the answer they wrote to the lesson question.

ASK STUDENTS: Who would like to read their answer aloud? (Have several students share.)

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0HS Writing — Lesson 10 AchieveReading


Introduce the writing task using a Teacher Think Aloud.

• Teacher explains and models the process out loud


Model for students how to examine the question to be sure they know what is expected of them for the writing task.

TELL STUDENTS: At the end of our reading lesson, we wrote a brief answer to the question, “How does “Dickens’ London” belie the “good old days” idiom? Today we are going to revisit the same question but this time we are going to learn how to write a well-constructed evidence paragraph that supports our answer to the question.

I’m going to talk you through how I would approach writing an evidence paragraph using this kind of writing prompt. The first thing I’m going to pay attention to, is that the question says “HOW does…” not just “Does…”. This tells me that I’m looking for proof of something. I am not trying to determine whether something is true or not.

The second thing I’m going to notice is that belie and idiom are important words and I’m going to need to get comfortable using them. It is possible to use other words, but it would have to be more words. For example, to say “belie” a different way would require me to write something like, “How does ‘Dickens’ London’ prove that there is no truth in the ‘good old days’ idiom?” That’s a waste of words when I could just say “belie”—and adding more words to a complicated thought can often make the important part get lost in the extra words.

The last thing I’m going to think about is the work I have already done on this text. I know when I read this the first time that I had to provide details in my answer. Now I’m wondering if the details I wrote down are good enough to use in an effective evidence paragraph. Good details would be things I actually quoted from the text or things that are very specific. If I wrote down “people got sick a lot” that would be weak. It’s vague and anyone could guess that. But if I wrote down “Until the second half of the 19th century London residents were still drinking water from the very same portions of the Thames that the open sewers were discharging into,” that would be strong because it’s a detail that works as proof since I can quote it from the text.

TELL STUDENTS: Before we go any further, look at your writing and K-W-L-organizer from when we read this before, and circle anything that you think is proof that London in the 1800s was not the “good old days.”

TELL STUDENTS: to share some of their findings.

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Have students use their Informational graphic organizer to expand their details into evidence or proof.

TELL STUDENTS: Now, working on your own, I want you to jot down why you think the detail you put into “point 1” proves that London in the 1880s wasn’t “the good old days”. It might be as simple as, “anytime you have open sewers running by peoples’ front doors, it can’t be ‘good’ anything.” Do this for all three of your points.

TELL STUDENTS: Now, read to yourself your details and your “whys” in the order you put them in. If you’re not happy with the order, renumber them (don’t erase and rewrite).

TELL STUDENTS: Now you’re going to transfer your notes from your organizer to a sheet of paper. Don’t just copy, however, use this chance to improve what you wrote. In your response, try to expand your “why” statements. You should incorporate the proof you collected and explain how this is evidence by using your own thoughts and comments so that your writing is stronger than the notes you have on your organizer.

TELL STUDENTS: Remember to put quotations around direct evidence from the text. It is also a good idea to put the page number where you found the evidence in parentheses at the end of the quote.

TELL STUDENTS: A good evidence paragraph proves the point you are trying to make.

Evidence of Learning (Paragraph review using writing rubric) (5 minutes)

Poor people in London at this time didn’t have many rights. If you were poor you might get sent to a workhouse. “The workhouse was little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed” (p.70). There is no way that you could have “good old days” while you have families treated like this. It was also easy to get sick. Poor people and people who lived in the city lived near open sewers that carried disease. “Several outbreaks of Cholera in the mid 19th century, along with The Great Stink of 1858, when the stench of the Thames caused Parliament to recess, brought a cry for action” (p.68). Cholera could kill you, but the smell of the place might get to you first. Because people didn’t have washing machines or even indoor plumbing, it was hard to stay clean. “Inside the problem is not much better. Personal cleanliness is not a big priority, nor is clean laundry. In close, crowded rooms the smell of unwashed bodies is stifling” (p.67)

Students might have a topic sentence.

Students should have their proof in quotation marks. If you can help them identify the location of their quote with a simple page number it will help them get used to citing sources later on.

Using a text like this, students may use some humor in their “why” statements.

This is a “why” detail

Students may not be using transition sentences yet.

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Guided Practice (10 minutes)

• Teacher guides students as they work to practice using the focus skill or tool

• Students answer questions about the process they are using to practice the lesson objective

Think-Pair-Share, How does Dickens’ London belie the “good old days” idiom? Using information collected on their K-W-L charts and comparing it with a brief review of the reading selection, add notes to the K-W-L chart if necessary then choose and number the evidence in order of strength, the three strongest details (proven in the text).

TELL STUDENTS: Now we’re going to Think-Pair-Share our question in order to find the details we need to prove that London in the 1800s was not the “good old days.” First, I would like you to look at your K-W-L notes from the Dickens’ London reading lesson and number the proof you find, giving your strongest proof a “1” and numbering down to the weakest proof. For example, strong proof would be a fact you could prove with data or a fact you can quote from a reliable source. Weak proof would be an opinion—even an opinion you quote from someone else. After you do that, skim back over the reading selection, letting your eyes slide over the words and see if you catch anything you remember that you didn’t write down before. Jot those things down now. (Think)

TELL STUDENTS: to pair up to discuss the question and the need for strong proof that London was not “the good old days” in the 1800s. (Pair)

TELL STUDENTS: While you are discussing with your partner(s), I am going to pass around a graphic organizer. When you feel you have three excellent details which prove our question, you may put those details into “point 1”, “point 2”, and “point 3” on your INFORMATIONAL graphic organizer. Determine with your partner(s) which order would best serve your writing (i.e., would it be best to begin with your strongest detail or to end with it?)

NOTE: Since this is a writing exercise focusing on writing a body paragraph, students only complete the portion of the G.O. that supports it.

Transfer the numbered details to the INFORMATIONAL graphic organizer in boxes “point 1” “point 2” and “point 3”

TELL STUDENTS: To share their details. Encourage students to listen in order to decide whether they should change their details or not (i.e., at this point it isn’t “copying” if someone has an idea you want to use, too. You will write about it your own way, they will write about it in their own way. That isn’t copying). (Share)

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Informational/ExplanatoryName: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Date: _________________________________

Introduction

Body

Point 1 Point 2 Point 3

Conclusion


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AchieveReading

High School Anthology






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Informational Selections: Dickens London AchieveReading High School

ARHS Anthology 47 ©2013 This information is confidential and proprietary to Catapult Learning™. For internal distribution only.

Dickens LondonDickens applied his unique power of observation to the city in which he spent most of his life. He routinely walked

the city streets, 10 or 20 miles at a time, and his descriptions of nineteenth century London allow readers to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the old city. This ability to immerse the reader into time and place sets the perfect stage for Dickens to weave his fiction.

Victorian London was the largest, most spectacular city in the world. While Britain was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, its capital was both reaping the benefits and suffering the consequences. In 1800 the population of London was around a million souls. That number would swell to 4.5 million by 1880. While fashionable areas like Regent and Oxford streets were growing in the west, new docks supporting the city’s place as the world’s trade center were being built in the east. Perhaps the biggest impact on the growth of London was the coming of the railroad in the 1830s which displaced thousands and accelerated the expansion of the city.

The price of this explosive growth and domination of world trade was untold squalor and filth. In his excellent biography, Dickens, Peter Ackroyd notes that, “If a late twentieth-century person were suddenly to find himself in a tavern or house of the period, he would be literally sick—sick with the smells, sick with the food, sick with the atmosphere around him”.

Imagine yourself in the London of the early 19th century. The homes of the upper and middle class exist in close proximity to areas of unbelievable poverty and filth. Rich and poor alike are thrown together in the crowded city streets. Street sweepers attempt to keep the streets clean of manure, the result of thousands of horse-drawn vehicles. The city’s thousands of chimney pots are belching coal smoke, resulting in soot which seems to settle everywhere. In many parts of the city raw sewage flows in gutters that empty into the Thames. Street vendors hawking their wares add to the cacophony of street noises. Pick-pockets, prostitutes, drunks, beggars, and vagabonds of every description add to the colorful multitude.

Inside the problem is not much better. Personal cleanliness is not a big priority, nor is clean laundry. In close, crowded rooms the smell of unwashed bodies is stifling. It is unbearably hot by the fire, numbingly cold away from it.

At night the major streets are lit with feeble gas lamps. Side and secondary streets may not be lit at all and link bearers are hired to guide the traveler to his destination. Inside, a candle or oil lamp struggles against the darkness and blacken the ceilings.

In Little Dorrit Dickens describes a London rain storm:

In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.

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Sanitation and DiseaseUntil the second half of the 19th century London residents were still drinking water from the very

same portions of the Thames that the open sewers were discharging into. Several outbreaks of Cholera in the mid 19th century, along with The Great Stink of 1858, when the stench of the Thames caused Parliament to recess, brought a cry for action. The link between drinking water tainted with sewage and the incidence of disease slowly dawned on the Victorians. Dr. John Snow proved that all victims in a Soho area cholera outbreak drew water from the same Broad Street pump.

Sir Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer of the new Metropolitan Board of Works (1855), put into effect a plan, completed in 1875, which finally provided adequate sewers to serve the city. In addition, laws were put in effect which prevented companies supplying drinking water from drawing water from the most heavily tainted parts of the Thames and required them to provide some type of filtration.

In the StreetsAfter the Stage Carriages Act of 1832 the hackney cab was gradually replaced by the

omnibus as a means of moving about the city. By 1900 3000 horse-drawn buses were carrying 500 million passengers a year. A traffic count in Cheapside and London Bridge in 1850 showed a thousand vehicles an hour passing through these areas during the day. All of this added up to an incredible amount of manure which had to be removed from the streets.

Cattle were driven through the streets until the mid 19th century. In an article for Household Words in March 1851 Dickens, with characteristic sarcasm, describes the environmental impact of having live cattle markets and slaughterhouses in the city:

“In half a quarter of a mile’s length of Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly slaughtered oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep but, the more the merrier proof of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood but it makes the young rascals hardy. Into the imperfect sewers of this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of corruption, engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to rise, in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your sleeping children will most readily absorb them, and to find its languid way, at last, into the river that you drink.”

In Oliver Twist, Dickens describes the scene as Oliver and Bill Sikes travel through the Smithfield live-cattle market on their way to burglarize the Maylie home:

It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses.

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The Smithfield live-cattle market was finally moved to the city slaughterhouses in Islington in 1855.

The Law The Metropolitan Police, London’s first police force, was created by Home Secretary Sir Robert

Peel (hence the name Peelers and, eventually, Bobbies) in 1829 with headquarters in what would become known as Scotland Yard. The old London watch system, in effect since Elizabethan times, was eventually abolished.

The PoorThe Victorian answer to dealing with the poor and indigent was the New Poor Law, enacted

in 1834. Previously it had been the burden of the parishes to take care of the poor. The new law required parishes to band together and create regional workhouses where aid could be applied for. The workhouse was little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed. The true poor often went to great lengths to avoid this relief.

Dickens, because of the childhood trauma caused by his father’s imprisonment for debt and his consignment to the Blackwell factory to help support his family, was a true champion to the poor. He repeatedly pointed out the atrocities of the system through his novels.

With the turn of the century and Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 the Victorian period came to a close. Many of the ills of the 19th century were remedied through education, technology and social reform... and by the social consciousness raised by the immensely popular novels of Dickens.

Source: From David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Page: http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/dickens_london.html The sole purpose of this Web site is to educate and increase awareness of Dickens’ life and works to a new generation of readers. This text selection was reprinted with permission.

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