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Teaching The Woman in Black

The other ghostly Christmas tale.

  • Activities: 13
  • Quiz Questions: 60

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Turn on all the lights and crank up some cheerful music—you're going to need it with this one.

Susan Hill's book has all the right elements: a big, creepy house; spooky kids; a mysterious woman; and a slow and almost excruciating build-up to the horrifying end. If your high schoolers can't get excited about all that, you might want to check their pulses.

In this guide, you'll find

  • a chance to create the musical score for a hypothetical movie version of the tale.
  • a look at the winter story tradition, and an opportunity for your students to create their own chilling story.
  • an analysis of the themes of appearances and isolation in the novel and the opportunity for students to create their own creep-tastic version of Eel Marsh House.

Put the "chill" in "chilling" with Shmoop's guide to The Woman in Black.

What's Inside Shmoop's Literature Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring literature to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 13 – 18 Common Core-aligned activities to complete in class with your students, including detailed instructions for you and your students.
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.
  • Reading quizzes for every chapter, act, or part of the text.
  • Resources to help make the book feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.
  • A note from Shmoop’s teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the text and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching The Woman in Black?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: In The Woman in Black, appearances matter. Susan Hill doesn't mince words when it comes to describing the look of the woman in black or Eel Marsh House. Basically, if it looks desolate, scary, and haunted, you can bet that it is. Looks are not deceiving in this story.

In this assignment, students will analyze the themes of appearances and isolation in The Woman in Black and create their own creep-tastic version of Eel Marsh House.

Materials Needed: Materials! Lots and lots of art supplies and construction materials like cardboard boxes, construction paper (mostly dingy in color), paint, glue, colored pencils, markers, crayons, Popsicle sticks, other sticks, recycling materials, whatever other goodies you can find, plus a PowerPoint gallery of haunted house photos (This can be easily put together by grabbing some haunted house images off Google and inserting them into your presentation.)

Step 1: Susan Hill certainly does a good job at creating a certain atmosphere in describing Arthur Kipps' experiences. When reading the descriptions of Eel Marsh House, the reader gets the sense of isolation, but by all measures, Kipps describes the house as being "handsome."

Show students the PowerPoint gallery of haunted house photos. Ask students to pay attention to the similarities and differences of the houses.

Step 2: Discuss similarities and differences among the houses. Ask students: 

  • Do any of the houses suggest that someone lives there?
  • Do any suggest that a normal, everyday family lives there?
  • Why or why not?
  • What is it with haunted houses existing in isolation, anyway?

(Try to build on this question since isolation is a major theme from The Woman in Black.)

Step 3: Now ask students: 

  • How does Eel Marsh House's appearance relate to other haunted house clichés?
  • Is it pretty much what we expect from a haunted house?
  • If so, why?

Direct them to these helpful Shmoop pages if they need an assist.

Step 4: Have students free write a paragraph describing how the isolation theme presented in Eel Marsh House foreshadows Arthur's eventual isolation. Ask them to share their best writing ideas with the class.

Step 5: As a class, come up with singular descriptive words to describe Eel Marsh House. Write them on the board.

Step 6: Break students into groups to begin construction on a haunted house. Students should use the PowerPoint pictures, the descriptive words, and context clues from the book as they work on making spooky models of the Eel Marsh House.

This project will be more meaningful (and completed more artfully) if you stretch the lessons and construction of the mansions over a week or two.

Step 7: After students have completed their models, consider inviting fellow teachers in to "judge" which house best fits the description of Eel Marsh House. Reward the winning group with some chocolate eyeballs, which can be obtained here.

Instructions for Your Students

We know that in the real world, appearances don't (or shouldn't) matter. However, no one told Susan Hill, because in The Woman in Black, appearances matter big time. You get your foreshadowing on just by Hill's description of Eel Marsh House or some dude's gaunt hands. Basically, if it looks desolate, scary, and haunted, you can bet that it is. Looks are not deceiving in this story.

Today you'll analyze the themes of appearances and isolation in The Woman in Black and create your own creep-tastic version of Eel Marsh House.

Step 1: Susan Hill certainly does a good job at creating atmosphere when describing Arthur Kipps' experiences. When looking at the description of Eel Marsh House, the reader gets the sense of isolation, but by all measures, Kipps first describes the house as being "handsome." Sure, it looks "handsome" at the beginning. But we're sure that Arthur did not maintain this opinion for long.

Take a peek at the images of "haunted" houses your teacher projects. Pay attention to the similarities and differences of the houses.

Step 2: Discuss similarities and differences among the houses, focusing on these questions: 

  • Do any of the houses suggest that someone lives there?
  • Do any suggest that a normal, everyday family lives there?
  • Why or why not?
  • What is it with haunted houses existing in isolation, anyway?

Check out this link for lots of glorious quotes and insights pertaining specifically to the theme of isolation in the story.

Step 3: Be ready to discuss how Eel Marsh House's appearance relates to other haunted house clichés. Is it pretty much what we expect from a haunted house? If so, why?

Check out these pages for help in answering this question.

Step 4: Free write a paragraph describing how the isolation theme presented in Eel Marsh House foreshadows Arthur's eventual isolation. Share your best ideas with your classmates.

Step 5: As a class, you'll come up with singular descriptive words to describe Eel Marsh House, which your teacher will list on the board.

Step 6: Now for the fun part—in groups you'll begin construction on a haunted house. You should use the PowerPoint pictures and the descriptive words and context clues from the book as you work on making spooky models of the mansion.

Step 7: Complete and show off your spooky model.