How to Teach Frankenstein: A Full 5- to 7-Week Unit, Plus 5 Book Pairing Lessons
Whether you're building a complete Frankenstein unit from scratch or already teaching it and need support for specific chapters, here's what CommonLit offers for both.
Victor Frankenstein spends months building a creature out of pure ambition, brings it to life in one triumphant instant, and then spends the rest of the novel running from what he made. Mary Shelley wrote it in 1818, and the questions it raises about science outrunning responsibility haven't gotten any less relevant since.
CommonLit supports teaching Frankenstein in two different ways, and which one you need depends on where you are in your planning.
CommonLit 360 is a full, ready-built curriculum: a multi-week sequence of reading, writing, vocabulary, and discussion lessons that walks a class through the entire novel from start to finish. Knowledge-building lessons guide students towards a Culminating Task worthy of students’ time.
A Book Pairing is something smaller: a handful of standalone supplemental lessons, each matched to one specific chapter or scene, meant to support a novel you're already teaching on your own, whether that's inside or outside of CommonLit 360. Here's what each one actually includes.
New to CommonLit? These lessons are free with an educator account. Go to CommonLit.org, click "Sign Up," choose "I Am an Educator," and confirm your school email to unlock the full Book Pairing.
Option 1: Teach the Full Unit With CommonLit 360
If you’re staring at your planner, thinking to yourself: how am I going to teach this novel? our 360 unit might be for you. CommonLit 360's 12th Grade, Unit 2 is a complete, ready-to-teach unit built around the novel, no lesson planning required.
The unit runs five to seven weeks and is built around two essential questions: is ambition a positive or negative force, and what responsibility do scientists have for the technologies they create? From there, it's fully mapped out for you:
- An introduction activity to launch the unit
- 11 reading lessons that move chapter by chapter through the novel, each one targeting a specific skill like characterization, tone, setting, or structure
- Anne Sexton's poem "The Ambition Bird," built directly into the reading arc as a companion text
- A set of supplemental texts on science, consciousness, and ambition, including works from E.M. Forster and Nietzsche
- 4 writing lessons that build toward a culminating research presentation connecting the novel's themes to a real, modern scientific issue
- Vocabulary instruction, daily discussion prompts, and a grammar lesson on syntax, all pulled directly from the text
- 2 Related Media Explorations and an optional on-demand essay on Shelley's use of allusion
In short: if you're teaching Frankenstein as a full unit, CommonLit 360 has already done the planning. You just need the novel itself, since it isn't included and has to be sourced separately.
Option 2: Already in the middle of teaching Frankenstein? Use Book Pairings for Specific Moments
If you're already teaching Frankenstein and have a plan, you need a handful of short lessons that support the moments in the novel that are hardest for students to sit with on their own.
That's what a Book Pairing is built for: a small set of short lessons, matched text by text to specific volumes and chapters in the novel, that build the background knowledge students need to see past the monster and into what Shelley is actually arguing about ambition, isolation, and consequence. Each one comes with its own summary and a "When and How to Pair" note telling you exactly where to use it and what to ask.
Here are five CommonLit lessons from the full Book Pairing for Frankenstein, in the order you'd actually use them, plus exactly when and how to bring each one in.
"Scientists Clone Human Embryos To Make Stem Cells" by Rob Stein and Michaeleen Doucleff
Read this before students start the novel. It puts a real, modern scientific debate in front of them, so ask them to keep tracking the ethical questions in this article as they watch the Creature suffer for Victor's choices.
"Orpheus and Eurydice" by Ovid
Pair this myth after Volume 1, Chapter 4, right after Victor successfully brings the Creature to life. Ask students to compare Orpheus's attempt to reverse death with Victor's attempt to conquer it, and what each man is willing to risk to do it.
"Home Burial" by Robert Frost
After Volume 1, Chapter 6, when William is discovered dead, pair this poem about grief. Ask students how Victor's reaction to his brother's death compares to the way Frost's characters process loss, and what each one is actually avoiding.
"Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield
Introduce this short story after Volume 2, Chapter 7, when the Creature finally works up the nerve to approach the family he's been secretly observing. Ask students what Miss Brill and the Creature have in common in how badly they want to connect with people who don't want them.
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale
Save this poem for after students finish the novel. Teasdale writes about nature continuing on regardless of human tragedy, so ask students how Shelley uses nature imagery throughout the book, and what it means that the natural world outlasts every character in it.
We picked five Book Pairing lessons for this post, but the full Book Pairing for Frankenstein has eight in total, so there are a few more waiting if you want to round out the unit.
For teachers: If you're planning the full novel study from scratch, look into CommonLit 360's 12th Grade, Unit 2 before you start building your own lesson plan. If you're already underway, pull two or three Book Pairing lessons into whatever chapters are coming up next. And if Frankenstein isn't the only novel on your reading list this year, there's a good chance CommonLit already has a pairing built for that one too. Browse the full Book Pairings library and search your other titles.
For administrators: If your ELA team is deciding between building their own Frankenstein unit or adopting one that's already built, connect with the CommonLit team to see how CommonLit 360 can work for your ELA department,.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Book Pairing on CommonLit?
A Book Pairing is a set of supplemental lessons, each built around a short story, poem, or nonfiction text, that CommonLit's team has matched to a specific novel. Every entry includes a summary and a "When and How to Pair" note explaining when and how to introduce it during the unit.
What is CommonLit 360?
CommonLit 360 is a comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum for grades 6-12 that is designed to drive student growth in reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Each grade level has 6 units of instruction that are horizontally and vertically aligned.
Does CommonLit 360 include a unit for Frankenstein?
Yes. CommonLit 360's 12th Grade, Unit 2 is a complete unit built around Frankenstein, including 11 chapter-by-chapter reading lessons, a companion poem, supplemental texts, writing instruction, and a culminating research presentation.
How long does the CommonLit 360 Frankenstein unit take to teach?
The unit is designed to run 5 to 7 weeks, assuming 90 minutes of daily instruction.
What's the difference between the CommonLit 360 unit and a Book Pairing for Frankenstein?
The CommonLit 360 unit is a full instructional arc meant to replace lesson planning entirely. A Book Pairing is a smaller, standalone set of supplemental lessons meant to support specific moments in the novel for teachers who are already teaching it outside of CommonLit 360.
Does CommonLit have a Book Pairing for Frankenstein?
Yes. CommonLit's Book Pairing for Frankenstein includes 8 lessons in total, spanning mythology, poetry, and informational texts matched to specific volumes and chapters.
Can I print the lessons paired with Frankenstein?
Yes. Every lesson in a Book Pairing can be assigned digitally through CommonLit or printed for offline use.
