The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel published in 1903 by American author Jack London. It follows the story of a dog named Buck who is kidnapped from his idyllic life on a California estate and is forced to work as a sled dog in Canada and Alaska during the Yukon gold rush of 1896–1899. Over the course of the book, Buck becomes increasingly wild and begins feeling the instincts of his ancient wolf ancestors.
The Call of the Wild might be an excellent book to do with students in the C1 "highest level" English class becuase:
The novel is relatively short, with only 7 chapters and 34,964 words.
The story is action-packed and moves quickly.
It has a rich, challenging vocabulary.
Despite using complex sentence structures, it has a relatively “modern,” straightforward writing style that students will mostly understand.
There are at least eight screen adaptations, some of which are freely available on YouTube.
It has been translated into Latvian as "Senču asiņu balss," including a Latvijas Radio 1 reading which can be freely listened to here.
There are many different themes and topics related to the book that students could research.
Cheap English language copies are easily available in most Latvian bookstores.
The text is in the public domain and can be freely copied.
Many students love dogs.
Here you can find a collection of materials that has adapted the book into tasks that could be done with students as they read it during "Unit II" of the C1 level course. The material is designed to be printed out on as few pages as possible, saving trees and making it so the students (or the school) do not need to buy their own copies unless they wish to. Answer keys and extra suggested comprehension and discussion questions are included.
Here you can find a map of all of the places mentioned in The Call of the Wild so that students might have an easier time following the events of the story.
Here you can listen to a free audiobook reading of The Call of the Wild.
Here you can watch a very short documentary with photos from the Klondike Gold Rush to better visualize where the story takes place.
Here you can find a number of film adaptations on YouTube for Unit IV on writing a review of a film adaptation:
· The 1935 film version of The Call of the Wild starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young (one of the absolute worst films I’ve ever seen in my life despite the talent — they turned the story into a surprisingly boring romantic comedy)
· The 1983 Japanese anime version of The Call of the Wild (surprisingly good and mostly faithful to the plot of the book.)
· The 1997 Canadian TV movie version of The Call of the Wild (despite the relatively low budget, this is one of the most faithful versions to the book and is decently acted)
· The 2000 film version of The Call of the Wild (this was originally a 13-episode TV series that was edited down into a 2-hour film that was released on DVD. The production quality is high, but this is quite different from the book and the uploaded video quality is very low.)
· The 2009 film version of The Call of the Wild (a children’s movie that follows more of the plot of Jack London’s other dog-related novel White Fang — this is even less related to the book than the 1935 version, but this movie is still at least watchable.)