ANSWERS FOR GRADE 9 HOME LANGUAGE READER

POETRY
Ode to cockroaches
Philip de Vos

Pre-reading
1. This question is designed to activate prior experience and knowledge: to link what they know with
what they are setting out to understand. Many if not most learners are likely to say they react with
revulsion. Others may be indifferent. Allow learners who know facts about cockroaches to share their
knowledge.

During reading
2. This does praise cockroaches but it becomes increasingly clear that it is designed to amuse or
entertain rather than present a serious tribute.

Post-reading
3. abcb ddee fghg
iijjkk lmnmom
pqrq stut
The first three (4-line) sections present the case for cockroaches and show our unjustified response to
them. The next two (6-line) sections make a strongly emotional appeal. The last two (4-line) sections
return to the “facts” to show how cockroaches will finally triumph.
4. This is not really a serious poem. Learners should explore at least two of the clues. Example: A clue
to his not being serious is the use of absurd images to create sympathy for the cockroach such a “a
creature with soulful eyes”. It would be impossible for the cockroach to have any expression in its
eyes. His tone throughout is mock seriousness. Another example is the “Please don’t despise…”.
5. Learners will probably need the opportunity to do a web search to test what the speaker says.
Although there is a good deal that is fanciful (such as that their mothers preen and wash them and that
they are lovable), surprisingly much of what the speaker tells us is correct. They do clean themselves,
they have been on earth since pre-historic times, and cockroaches have been known to survive nuclear
explosions.
6. Cockroaches have some surprisingly admirable qualities./Other options that have merit.
7. A nuclear bomb (atom bomb, hydrogen bomb). Nuclear bombs destroy human life.
8. They would no longer have their worst enemy – humans.
9. Open-ended. Class discussion should allow learners a chance to reflect on the poem and encourage
them to take account of new insights, even in a small way. They could also reflect on whether the
speaker’s humorous approach is more persuasive than a set of scientific facts in encouraging a change
of attitude.

The serpent
Theodore Roethke

Pre-reading
1. We use serpent in literary contexts. The word reminds me of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
(Allow for students who do not have this background.)
During reading
2. It means behaving in a way that a serpent normally would.
3. He was unhappy with living like a serpent, he has been unable to find a mate, he has no inner
happiness and he did not enjoy being in his home (hole).

Post-reading
4. He uses the capital letters for comic effect, to suggest the importance of the serpent’s behaviour, but he
also uses the capitals to suggest where to stress as you read.
5. The serpent has a very harsh, unpleasant voice that other animals hate. He makes an “Awful Racket”,
“a Horrible Note”.
6. He refers to them as “propounding” their views. This word is generally associated with serious views
on important matters expressed by people who have the authority to do so.
7. a) Being able to sing loudly
b) No, to have a real prospect of a career in singing, you have to have a voice that thrills or delights
large enough audiences to provide you with a good income.
8. “Commodious” suggests spacious accommodation (It is a huge tuba that one could almost live in) and
“End of Next Week” is a comic way of saying that the birds flew as far from him as they could.
9. a) The rhyme of “futile” with “Tootle” depends on “futile” being pronounced with an American
accent so that it sounds like “tootle”.
b) This activity is designed to allow the learners to consider the way that particular accents affect
meaning. Focus on the exploration rather than a narrow answer to the question. (I am inclined to
think that the poem is funnier when read with an American accent.)
10. Allow learners enough time to practise before they perform. This could be a useful peer assessment
opportunity. Focus on constructive feedback that could improve the performance. This is an
opportunity for them to enjoy as they learn.

Chivvy
Michael Rosen

Pre-reading
1. This open-ended activity allows the learners to recall some of the things said by others (parents,
teachers, older siblings). A brain storm activity could be a useful way of handling this.

During reading
2. The poem is like a list with all lines except the last two as single sentences. Punctuation is not really
necessary. But this also suggests the child’s experience of an unending flow of chivvying.

Post-reading
3. “No one thinks you are funny.”
4. The speaker suggests that adults are always trying to control and shape children’s behaviour. (There
could be some overlap with the answer to Question 2. This is an opportunity to explore further.)
5. Suggestion: “We grownups have to say things like:
6. a) Adults rule children’s lives and do not allow them the freedom to make decisions. It is ironic that
they criticise them for not making decisions.
b) The irony in the last two lines make it humorous./Other reasons that have merit.
7. Open-ended. Keep this light-hearted.

A poem for the rainforest

Song of the Xingu Indian
Judith Nicholls
Pre-reading
1. Rainforests absorb carbon from the atmosphere during the day and release oxygen at night. When
they are chopped down or destroyed in other ways, large amounts of carbon dioxide that they would
have absorbed are released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas (leading to what is often
referred to as the greenhouse effect). This leads to global warming, drought, floods and climate
change. We in South Africa, as part of the Earth, are affected along with every other part of the
globe.(Many species of insects and animals also lose their habitat.)

During reading
2. During the whole class feedback session, allow learners to share what they have noted. (The first
paragraph laments the desolation and loss that the developers have brought about. The next two
stanzas, which give the developer’s ruthless perspective, reflect arrogance (“I’ll list the ones we
need”), indifference (the line) “That’s roughly right, give or take a few square miles”) and aggression
(“No burn the rest …”) as well as a dismissive tone (“You’re new to this! I see”).
The next two stanzas (Dusk and Shadows) reflect an environmentalist’s perspective of the damage
caused. There is a tone of distress/deep sadness and underlying anger at the devastating effect on
insect and spider communities. The tone in the next stanza is reflective: night brings respite from the
noise and destruction caused by the teams sent in to destroy the forest. In the final stanza there is a
tone of finality: the trees are gone and with them the people. The land is arid and the river no longer
symbolises life – it looks at the dead land and “weeps”.

Post-reading
3. d). a protest poem/song. But it has something of a traditional song about it too: traditional songs quite
often embody protest.
4. “Only take the best,”/“burn the rest”.
5. They are the men who drive the bulldozers or operate the heavy machinery.
6. The spider is the last of her species in this area so she can’t lay fertile eggs.
7. The verbs in the first stanza describe the loss the speaker feels at being robbed of his home
environment so that it is desolate and his people move elsewhere to try and find food and shelter. The
last stanza is (a) more emotional (scorches, weeps) and (b) has an air of finality about it: the land that
they knew how to live in has been destroyed forever, and the people have not only moved on, but
have flown forever: their culture has gone.
8. The discussion of the readers’ interpretation should be done in the groups as part of the preparation
before each group “performs” the poem.
9. This can be done in a variety of ways. The learners can work individually or in groups. Report back
can take various forms: among others, written formal reports, posters (could be factual or ones that
raise awareness of the serious environmental threat that destroying rainforests holds), debates, a Carte
Blanche type review.

The eagle
Lord Tennyson

Pre-reading
1. Suggestions: Ruthless killing of weaker animals/Beauty of their flight/Cries they make

During reading
2. The eagle is personified. The description of its claws as crooked hands emphasises the way its
powerful claws grip on to the rock./The contrast between “crooked” and “hands” suggests the
ruthlessness and angular strength of the eagle. There is something wonderful and frightening about it.
Post-reading
3. The three lines of each stanza rhyme. This ties together each of the two sections. But the words
(hands, lands, stands) allow us to see the eagle as he sits immobile on a rock, and then to see the
speed and power of his falling on his prey, in the second (crawls, walls, falls).
4. Eagles live in isolated places, away from other activity.
5. The eagle is sitting near the top of a high cliff, so the sea is so far below him that the waves look like
wrinkles. This emphasises the distance.
6. a) “And” suggests the eagle is getting all his power ready to drop at terrific speed onto his prey.
b) It fits in well. In the rest of the poem, we discover that the eagle carefully targets its victim and
waits for the best opportunity to take action.
c) The eagle is a very successful hunter as he targets his prey and waits for the best opportunity to
attack it.
7. Open-ended. There are number of effective images. Learners must explain the image clearly.

Leviathon
Douglas Livingstone

Pre-reading
1. This is designed to activate prior knowledge in some learners and build necessary knowledge in
others: to link what they know with what they are setting out to understand.

During reading
2. The speaker does this by making the third stanza, where the lizard is caught and swallowed, the
shortest. The entire action is summed up in one word “gone”.

Post-reading
3. The lizard. (The snake is presented as evil and ruthless, while the lizard is presented as helpless.)
4. a) The lizard is basking in the sun and totally unaware that the snake is nearby.
b) Something that is obese usually finds it difficult, if not impossible, to move quickly. The snake
looks like that, but can move like a flash in catching and swallowing something as it does here.
5. The puff-adder is compared to “khaki”, a drab colour, and “pus”, a revolting liquid. These are similes.
6. a) Both were swallowed by a ‘monster’. Unlike Jonah, however, the lizard is not spewed out. It is
eaten and digested by the “Leviathan”.
b) “deadly” and “implacably”. Other words add to the effect.

The nightwatchman
Fhazel Johennesse

Pre-reading
1. The hardships are that it is hard to stay awake all night and the nighwatchman does not have a
comfortable seat. It is also hard to keep warm. The dangers to be faced are that at any point he might
have to fight for his life/might be attacked or even killed by ruthless criminals.

During reading
2. This is designed to alert learners to the need to recognise that they need to look beneath the surface.
The difference between reality and appearance is a key theme in literature.

Post-reading
3. The speaker is an observer: he watches carefully and with real interest. He reaches into the other
man’s situation and suddenly senses the watchman’s tense waiting beneath the apparently quiet scene.
4. “taut” and “agitated”. Both suggest that the nightwatchman is on edge and anxious. “Taut” refers to
the way in which is body is hunched forward, and “agitated” fingers show that he is aware that he
might have to use his knobkerrie at any time.
5. The poem suggests that he is thinking about having to use the knobkerrie to attack an intruder – or is it
that the watchman is looking forward to a fierce fight? Could it be some of both?
6. It suggests that the speaker notices something that is not obvious at first and this makes him rethink
his view. At first he has felt sorry for the nightwatchman and has seen only his hardship. Now he
becomes aware that the nightwatchman is in danger and could be a dangerous adversary.
7. Learners may take either option. They should be able to make a case for their view.
His smile is not a real smile but a trick of the light. This is a clue to the fact that this is a serious
situation. The answer should be tied to the option that they take in the first part of the question.
8. Open-ended. Allow learners to suggest an answer that is clearly related to reading and understanding.
Class discussion could enrich the learners’ ability to explore poetry. Their suggestions may relate to
the speaker’s growing awareness of the complexities of this situation and the way in which his
attitude to the nightwatchman changes. They may also relate to the difficulties that this kind of format
and punctuation present to the reader.

At Woodward’s gardens
Robert Frost

Pre-reading
1. Open-ended. This is probably best done as a brief whole class discussion.

During reading
2. He thinks that making the monkeys experience the effect of reflecting the sun through the
magnifying glass would help them understand what happens.
3. The boy is consciously and patronisingly using simple language because the monkeys may learn that
this thing burns even if they can’t understand how, as he can.

Post-reading
4. They use their senses: sight, feel, taste, smell and hearing and they tend to take things apart.
5 a) He is trying to show each of them that a magnifying glass can be used to burn things.
b) The monkey put his paw up to his nose as the boy was focusing the sun onto it.
6. “Within a million years of an idea”
7. The point is that knowledge is only valuable when you understand how to use it.

Walls
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali

Pre-reading
1. Some suggestions:
They build walls to protect themselves from thieves or attack./They build walls to keep people inside
a particular area, e.g. a jail./They build walls to mark boundaries.

During reading
2. The two kinds of walls are forms of protection.

Post-reading
3. a) This is not meant as a compliment. (All the examples given have had a negative effect/have
brought pain and division.)
b) They want to protect themselves and others (either from people outside the wall or from people
kept inside the wall (inmates in a jail).
4. Suggestion: It was inspired by self-interest (political motivation) and it ignored the effects it would
have on people’s lives./It was inhumane/cruelly divisive.
5. It symbolises the division between the Jews and the Palestinians and their inability to find a peaceful
solution.
6 a) The wall around a person’s heart.
b) The characteristics are that it was built because of fear, there is no way through it, and it cuts off
all possibility of change. Its advantages are that it prevents the person from being hurt in the short
term, and no one can break it down. Its disadvantages are that it prevents the person from having
a loving relationship and from emotional or spiritual growth.
c) Open-ended. Encourage learners to imagine real situations.

Blues for District Six

Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim)

Pre-reading
1. This is designed to activate prior knowledge as well as to build knowledge where learners do not have
the necessary background. Give learners who have the knowledge an opportunity to share this; and
give learners who do not, an opportunity to ask questions.

During reading
2. In the first stanza, the southeaster is really just a breeze. In the second stanza, it is blowing powerfully
causing destruction.

Post-reading
3. a) Something tragic has happened. District Six has been flattened by the demolishers and the
people who used to live there have been forcibly removed to areas on the Cape Flats.
b) They both start with exactly the same sentence.
The lines are generally shorter in the first stanza which contributes to the sense of excitement and
purposeful activity. The long lines in the second stanza underline the lack of activity in the
deserted District Six, while the one-word lines emphasise the dispiritedness. The short second
stanza underlines that there is little left now of the vibrant community depicted in stanza one.
c) The wind is unthreatening in the first stanza and contributes to the sense of thriving activity, but
in the second stanza, although it is the same season of the year (New Year’s Eve), times have
changed and the circumstances in the district are very different. The wind is a ruthless force that
roars over the mountain and makes mournful sounds. It reflects the suffering and sadness that the
people who were there have endured since they were forced to leave..
4. a) The mood is that of desolation.
b) “nostalgia”, “grim”, “vacant”, “sad”, “gloom”, “ghosted”, “moaning”, “deserted”
c)
Stanza one Stanza two
“The emerald bay waved its clear waters” “The moaning bay mourned its murky waters”
“The restless southeaster” becomes a “bloodthirsty southeaster”
“The noisy dockyard” becomes a “deserted dockyard”
“The southeaster skipped” becomes “The southeaster roared”
 “Slumbering lion’s head” becomes “hungry lion’s head”
“Crackled” becomes “ghosted”
5. This suggests that people in District Six were richly in tune with each other.
6. Suggested answer: The repetition of the “m” sound contributes to the sense of mournfulness/deep
pain.
7. This should be handled sensitively. Learners should have the opportunity to reflect quietly and the
atmosphere in the class should be serious during the discussion or writing.

To Philippa Pell
David Pell Goodwin

Pre-reading
1. Learners should give their own interpretations. Encourage them to offer explanations. Suggestion: I
think the baby views the world with complete confidence. She looks as if she has just been fed. All
her needs have been met.

During reading
2. Learners might have a different favourite day and have various reasons for it. Those who say
Saturday probably see it as their favourite day because they are free to do some of the things they
enjoy doing, e.g. playing sport, visiting friends, going shopping.

Post-reading
3. a) On weekdays, it would be done hurriedly, but on Saturdays there would be more time to do it.
b) The minimum of time is spent doing them.
4. People usually react with disgust in such cases. The baby just watches with interest, without reacting..
5. Adult: “scheme” and “plan”. Baby: “unconcerned” and “sleeping”.
6. It suggests that the baby is naturally sure that its needs will be met. (The phrase “lilies of the field”
comes from the Bible: Jesus says that although they do not worry about the things humans usually do,
they are more gorgeous than the most brilliantly clothed king.)

Forgotten people
Nkathazo ka Mnyayiza

Pre-reading
1. This is an invitation to explore the feelings of particular people. Suggestion: It leaves one with a
feeling of emptiness and worthlessness and deep loneliness, which is what this man seems to be
feeling.

During reading
2. The theme is of a breakdown of society (failure to care for anything or anyone/neglect of social
responsibility).

Post-reading
3. a) The gates are in a state of disrepair.
b) The dogs have skins diseases and they and the chickens have not been fed.
c) He has a “dry and empty stomach”.
4. a) It means that he is very weak and dispirited.
b) “slouched into bed”, “to await another empty day or death”
5. All of the things mentioned contribute to a sense of the hopelessness of the scene: one thing after
another.
6. This man is only one of the many people in this desperate situation.

Confession
Chris van Wyk

Pre-reading
1. Usually one needs to feel sorry for what one has done for a confession to work.

During reading
2. The speaker makes up excuses or reasons for why he ate the mulberries. He is explaining.

Post-reading
3. Confession usually relates to some serious wrongdoing. In this case, this a really trivial offence. It
adds to the absurdity of the situation.
4. It suggests that the person is speaking hesitantly, perhaps pretending to fumble because he doesn’t
know how to put his confession which is not really a confession.
5. a) “threatened to explode”: The mulberries are compared to a dangerous weapon. “all over/my/best
shirt” emphasises the damage they could do
b) He ate the mulberries because he could not resist them/because he knew how delicious they
would be.
6. Some learners may not have been in this kind of situation. In that case, they need to imagine a
situation.

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pre-reading
1. Suggestion: I would expect him to feel that the statue should not be housed there because it paid
tribute to someone who had been a tyrant./Any other appropriate answer that shows the learner is
thinking.

During reading
2. This creates an opportunity to develop the learners’ ability to read aloud well. You might like to
suggest that they look at aspects such as tone, pace and stress (or emphasis). This could be followed
by an opportunity to work in pairs to see how well they can succeed in reading for dramatic effect.

Post-reading
3. This is open-ended. Some possibilities: awe, incredulity, desire to find the rest of the statue.
4. He was unpleasant (“frown”), contemptuous of others (“wrinkled lip” and “sneer”), and “ruthless”
(cold command).
5. He intended this to frighten off any powerful leaders who might want to challenge his position. This
is evident in: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
6. A scene of rich agriculture and astonishingly impressive city buildings.
7. It adds to the sense that even the biggest or most impressive achievements of man do not last,
although people often delude or bluff themselves that they have made a permanent mark.
8. “antique”: It suggests that he and his power belong to the distant past, that they did not last.

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’

William Shakespeare

Pre-reading
1. a) Open-ended. This would make an interesting class discussion.
b) Learners will have different views, probably based on their first-hand knowledge of relationships.
This would make an interesting class discussion.

During reading
2. This is designed to give learners a particular purpose and focus while they read the poem.

Post-reading
3. “love is not love/which alters when it alteration finds”
4. It refers to love.
5. Here the ‘it’ is compared to the southern cross or another star that sailors use at night to navigate; a
fixed marker.
6. He is saying that love is fixed, that it does not move or change.
7. The alterations are those caused by aging.
8. Time is personified by being referred to as ‘his’ rather than it, as if it were human.
9. The poet says that if his argument is wrong, then he never wrote the poem. Since the reader has just
read the poem, the poet is saying his argument is true.
10.Open-ended. Allow for different answers.
SHORT STORIES

Flight
Sindiwe Magona

Pre-reading
1. Discuss woman’s role with the class, hopefully several different views will come up, e.g. the
traditional role of wife, mother, homemaker, cook, cleaner, supporter of her husband, a subsidiary role
essentially. Others may see the role differently as equal partner, breadwinner, a worker in her own
right, as well as a homemaker. Talk about the choices available to women today. Discuss the
traditional role of pleasing her in-laws. Is this a popular woman’s role today or not? Why? Why not?
Discuss. Allow the learners’ to express their views and reasons for these.

During reading
2. The use of an indigenous language gives the story a more traditional village setting, a sense of culture
and a more rural feeling. We know what is being said because of the context, someone is running
away and people are shouting after her to come back. Several times there is a translation given.
It also reflects the fact that South Africa has many languages.
3. The young men are all away working on the mines.

Post-reading
4. a) She is young, newly married, lonely and unhappy with her new position far away from her own
home and where, as new wife, she is given all the heavy work to do and left to look after her in
laws while her husband is away working on the mines for eleven months out of twelve.
 b) She is young and light of foot as she is running away from what she dislikes and towards a
happier life, plus the mist too would make her appear to be “floating” above the ground as we
cannot see her feet moving under her long dress.
5. a) Sounds: “cries shattered the stillness of the saucer like village”; “ echoes bounced from the hill
tops”; “clashed mid-air”; ricocheted and fell in jumbled noises that boomed invading our ears and
jamming out other sounds”.
b) The beauty of the day: “the clouds wept and showered soft tears of mist onto the silent
mountain”; “The clouds, not to be outdone, wept”; “thick dark spears fell”; “the sun smiled and
the mist disappeared in a spray of long, hot, yellow needles, children of the sun”; “the mountain
was playing a game of hide and seek with the sun” Any of these.
6. The new wife, as she is running away from a life she hates and may be caught and sent back where
she would almost certainly be punished for running away. Also the old man and his family who were
her in-laws, as if she does manage to escape they will have no one to take care of themselves and the
household. They would lose not only the wife of one of the young men, but the lobola paid for her by
the uncle.
7. a) The thrill of the escape is written from the child’s perspective, as it was so exciting to watch.
The sympathy for her uncle is the adult view, looking back with hindsight she should have
sympathised with her uncle not his runaway wife.
b) The adult’s perspective. As a child she would not have realised how hard her aunt was made to
work by her in laws; she would just have been relieved that she did not have to work so hard
herself. Later she would see others in this position, maybe even be in the same position herself
and realise the unfairness of things./The opportunity to have an education would have given her
other options (e.g. entering a profession) and given her an insight into what life is like for rural
women.
8. It is a kind of initiation into the new community.
The other women welcome the opportunity to have less (perhaps, no) work to do.

Loyalties
Adewale Maja-Pearce

Pre-reading
1. To be loyal is to be faithful, steadfast and true to someone or something, to be unwavering in your
support of a person or ideal.

During reading
2. a) the young son, age twelve.
b) That there is to be a new state of Biafra. They were no longer Nigerians but Bianfrans.
c) Ojukwu is the leader of the new state of Biafra.
3. By word of mouth, by listening to what other people have to say about events, through rumours.
4. The women. No matter who is in charge the wife states that they are still out of firewood, and the
goats need taking care of whether they are Biafran or Nigerian.
5. The joke is in the suggestion that five Biafran women are stronger than twenty Nigerian men (which
makes Nigerian men seem very weak indeed). Plus the teacher is also making it sound just like a
maths problem.
6. A subservient one. Men are in charge and women should not interfere or have any opinion of their
own.
7. a) The Biafrans.
b) Irony, saying one thing but meaning the opposite. The title of the story is “Loyalties”, but the men
here are anything but loyal, they have changed their allegiance from Nigeria to Biafra and back to
Nigeria by the end of the story. They have shown no loyalty at all in fact.
Noorjehan
Achmed Essop

Pre-reading
1. a) Discuss what is meant by an arranged marriage and a marriage union that is freely chosen by the
couple involved. Which do most of the class prefer? Why? Discuss the pros and cons to each sort
of marriage. Why would an arranged marriage be more or less successful? They don’t know each
other, don’t have feelings for each other, often have never met before being married. Why are the
reasons against or for an arranged marriage unacceptable in the learners’ eyes?
2. Because she is going to be married and her parents see no reason for her to carry on with her studies
as she will no longer be needing them as a married woman they are not considered to be important.

During reading
3. a) She appears to be unhappy, in fact overwhelmed by it all as she asks her teacher to go to her
parents and talk to them about forcing her into a marriage that she does not want.
b) Because her husband to be comes from a wealthy family and her own husband-to-be, when she
was married, was only a shop assistant.

Post-reading
4. a) Obliteration means the wiping out/erasing her as a person in her own right. When she marries she
will no longer be her own person but merely her husband’s wife with no rights of her own/ with
no chance to continue her education.
b) Encourage the class to express their opinions ad explore those of others. Discuss the loss of an
individual’s rights, and the rights or wrongs of her parents to insist on this marriage. There may
be conflicting views here and you need to have a discussion with your learners about such
traditions and cultural practices. What is romantic about the idea of being rescued? Sentimental
actually means drippy or pathetic. Is she being pathetic do you think?
5. a) Quote: “I then said that it did not seem reasonable to provide girls with a modern education and
then expect them to follow tradition in their private lives”.
b) He is her teacher and what she is suggesting is that he should be the one to take her away from
her parents and as a teacher he cannot do this, it would be morally wrong. She is one of his
learners and though he may be sympathetic to her plight it is not his responsibility to remove her
from her family and go against their wishes.
6. a) He is the only person she feels she can trust and she has hopes that he will marry her and thus
rescue her from a forced marriage.
b) She tries to put things back onto a more formal basis when she realises that he is not in a position
to help her in the way she wants, to take her away and become engaged to her himself, she is
disappointed in him and she reverts to their former teacher/pupil relationship by calling him
“Sir”.
c) That she is perhaps in love with him and had plans that they could be together.
d) They make him realise what Noorjehan’s hopes were, to be with him! He is stunned and now
feels guilty that he had not realised her feelings for him and he is saddened that he has let her
down, both as a man and as her teacher.

The village shop

Michael Anthony

Pre-reading
1. a) It is much smaller and has far less stock, but offers a more personal service as everyone knows
everyone in a village store.
b) They do not have a vast number of clients and have to pay more to wholesalers than bigger stores
therefore not as much money is made and not as many goods are available for sale.

During reading
2. Discuss the rights and wrongs here. The debts are owed to the shop really but the customers make use
of a legal loophole to avoid payment of their personal debts. Learners should explore why this is
wrong and what happens to the shop when people do not pay their debts. They should also consider
who has really won if the shop is then forced to close down?
3 a) Ma Moon Peng is now all on her own with no one to help to take care of her but herself, to do this
the shop must be made to succeed.
b) That all sales must be paid for in cash, there will be no more credit given to anyone.
4. a) They do not like it at all and therefore decide that if they do not receive credit then they will no
longer shop at Ma Moon Peng’s store.
b) Ma Moon Peng finally had no real choice, either she could go back on her decision and offer
them credit and once again receive no payment or she could stick with her decision against
allowing credit and still have no trade and no payment, or she could give up the store and return
to China. She was beaten.
Post-reading
5. a) He remembers the shop from his childhood when his father had owned it and he professes to be
very attached to it.
b) He is attracted to and wishes to be near the beautiful Ma Moon Peng.
c) Having seen the beauty of Ma Moon Peng he is determined to buy the store and so be closer to
his new love
d) No, he is doing exactly what Lee Peng did, allowing his customers to have credit which they will
fail to repay. Eventually he too will be bankrupt. OR perhaps the opening of a bar will bring in
more money and if he does not allow his customers too much credit he may make the business
work for him?
6. Ma Moon Peng is very proper lady and honour was important to her. She opens the doors and
windows wide so that her neighbours from the village can see everything that is going on inside the
shop while the sales agreement is being signed, so that they would have no reason to gossip about her
meeting with Lee Wah later.
7. The story is about the village shop, village people, and village life in general. It shows how neighbours
and friends can sometimes react in ways that you could not imagine and how one poor widow is left
to deal with their uncooperative attitudes. The story also shows how history often repeats itself.

In the shadow of war

Ben Okri

Pre-reading
1. That the war has not yet started but is there hanging over the people like a dark shadow. I expect it to
be about the build-up or events leading up to war.

During reading
2. a) An eclipse is when the light of the sun or moon is intercepted by another body between it and the
eyes of the person viewing it. This interception results in a loss of light as one body covers the
other. Superstitions surrounding eclipses are that the dead would start to walk about and sing and
that eclipses ate children.
 b) The people suggest that she is a ghost (“she casts no shadow and that her feet do not touch the
ground). The people are very simple and superstitious and not well educated.
c) They say that she is a spy.
3. They are often at the local bar where they drink and fall asleep and leave their guns on the table in
front of them. Their uniforms are not smart and buttoned up as they ought to be and are not the right
size – one soldier has split his pants because they are too small for him. They are in the habit of
giving children money to spy on others and they treat the strange woman with cruelty and contempt
shouting at her and hitting her and spitting when she speaks to them.

Post-reading
4. She is helping to feed women and children who are starving because they are on the wrong side of the
fighting soldiers. She knows that this is both dangerous for her and illegal yet she continues to do it.
5. a) They think that she can lead them to rebel fighters they believe are hiding nearby so that they can
kill them.
b) She is probably shot /killed by the fat soldier.
c) He passes out from fear and the horror of seeing the woman shot in the stomach
6. a) He wants to save his son’s life by pretending that his son should be grateful to the soldiers for
bringing him home instead of letting him tell the story of the horrors he has just witnessed.
b) He overrides what the boy is trying to say and pretends that has seen nothing of real importance,
and to hide the fact that the boy has seen them murder someone. He does this in order to save the
boy’s life. The soldiers are in charge and can therefore do whatever they want and he knows this.
7. a) The father wants to cover everything up, the violence, the atrocities, the cruelty, the murders, to
live and let live under the new forces in charge, whereas the woman wants to help those who
were on the wrong side of the conflict as she sees them as human beings in great need. She has no
hesitation about placing her own life in danger in order to help them.
b) The son wants to reveal exactly what he has seen as he was horrified at the soldier’s treatment of
the woman. He does not realise that to do so would put his own and his family’s lives in danger
too.

The luncheon
W. Somerset Maugham

Pre- reading
1. To take care of his guests every need. To make sure that they have all they need to eat and drink.

During reading
2. He states that he had a tiny apartment in Paris and that he was barely earning enough to keep body
and soul together.
3. a) She does not think that she does, like many people she has a very twisted view of her own eating
habits.
b) In tone and yet he is also being very honest as he really can say that he does only eat one thing as
that one thing is all that he can afford.
c) The narrator is.
4. It is amazing that the woman can even get up from the table with all that she has eaten, in fact she
cannot have any room left at all for the “little more” she states that one should leave space for. If she
does not eat luncheon, as she states here then what has she just eaten? A snack?

Post-reading
5. The narrator is poor, thin struggling and talented. He is polite and is never once rude to his greedy
guest. He allows her to order whatever she likes and does not object – the perfect host, in fact. The
 woman is greedy and completely oblivious to the poor writer’s financial difficulties. She is only
interested in her food and gives not a thought to the cost of her “simple tastes”. Any quotes referring
to the writer’s poverty and good manners and the woman’s greed and insensitivity are acceptable
here.
6. That he will not have enough money to pay the bill and will have to borrow from his guest to do so.
7. When he meets his luncheon guest again many years later he sees that she has put on an enormous
amount of weight; she is fat as a result of all her “luncheons”.
8. a) Sarcastic.
b) Furious, angry.
c) He would then not have been the perfect host and we would not have sympathised with him and
disliked the woman and he and we, would not be able to see the funny side of the story years
later when she is shown to be fat as a result of her blatant greed and her preying on others as she
once preyed upon the narrator.

Tickits
Paul Melinski

Pre-reading
1. No set answer here. Allow the class to talk about people they have known who were different in some
way, perhaps blind, in a wheelchair, autistic or mentally challenged in some way.

During reading
2. a) Firstly by the spelling of Tickets as tickits and the wording used on the tickets themselves. Eg. to
mush in way (too much in way).
b) We see his pride in his sparkling white sneakers,, his polishing the tiny smudge off Patrolman
McVee’s shoes, his reaction to the man throwing papers on the grass and his avoidance of
puddles. At home he is clearly upset by the mess in the bungalow, the smell of cabbage, the spilt
alcohol and the unacceptable sight of his mother smoking drinking and lying in an untidy heap
3. He reacts with respect and friendliness taking an interest in Toby’s tickets. He knows Toby’s
circumstances; that he is mentally challenged and from a far from perfect home background and he
sympathises with him and treats him as a friend.

Post-reading
4. a) That she is probably a single mother, that she smokes and drinks and does not have a great deal of
interest in her son (perhaps because she is unable to accept his disability) nor in keeping the house
clean.
b) Lazy, unsympathetic, slovenly.
c) She does not appear to have much interest in him nor respect for him.
5. a ) He likes things to be perfect and things are far from perfect at home, yet she is his mother and he
feels that he cannot tell his mother what to do, so he writes her tickets instead.
b) He is trying to make his world perfect in the only way he can, by stopping others from making it
imperfect by their actions. He can keep control of the outside world in this way but is not in
control of his home life and never can be
6. He likes perfection and polishing his shoes is one of the ways that he can achieve perfection for
himself.
7. Leave him alone. If it helps him and does not harm anyone else what is wrong with his trying to
improve the world?

Splendours from Ramoutsa

Herman Charles Bosman

Pre-reading
1. Discuss what the title could be referring to. The wonderful countryside? A splendid something or
other that can only be found in Ramoutsa .

During reading.
2. He refers to the Indian as “only an Indian” and then implies that the Indian is a cheat when he says
the Indian “was weighing out things with his foot on the scale” (thus giving his customers less than
they pay for and again when he implies that the Indian adds sand to the yellow sugar he sells.

Post-reading
3. They will last because most of the people of the Marico enjoy and can relate more to stories with a
local flavour. They will never travel to India and therefore the stories will never feel as true or be as
interesting to them as the ones about the Marico.
4. a) Because they are stories without any relevance or setting that they know. Strange stories from
a strange land.
b) He wants romance in his life and the Indian’s stories are exotic and different and not just about
local affairs. He wants to be taken to somewhere new and exciting. They help him to escape his
ordinary life and become the dashing prince who never realised that the princess came to see him,
loved him.
5. a) She is hoping to see Krisjan. She is in love with him and wants to be near him.
b) The Indian princess also comes to be near the prince that she loves, as does Lettie who loves
Krisjan. Neither man realises this though.
c) She is different only in the fact that she does not wear expensive jewels or ride on an elephant,
but her motives are just the same as the Indian princess.
6. Krisjan is unable to see what is right under his nose. He is too caught up with the romance of the
Indian prince and princess’s story to see his very own princess right there in the Marico waiting for
him.

Fear
H.E. Bates

Pre-reading
1. a) Discuss fears in general with the class. What exactly do the learners fear? Why do they fear these
things?
b) Again discuss any differences, remember the age difference, maybe someone will mention death
and dying.
c) Face it. Gain an understanding of your own fears? We often grow out of being afraid as we mature
and learn to understand where the fear is coming from. Knowledge is power.

During reading
2. He appears to be most afraid of the darkness that came with the storm.
3. He tries to reassure him that it is just a storm and tells him that he is too big to be frightened of a
storm now. Then he sings to the boy to distract him from the thunder and darkness and allows him to
hide his head in his lap to escape from the lightning and thunder.

Post-reading
4. “ the trees that surrounded it were dark with whispers”/“it seemed as if the black sky was pushing the
trees down on the hut”/“immense shaking rolls of thunder”/“The rain throwing itself against the
 windows in a sort of grey passion”/ “there came thunder as if a great beast sat roaring on the
roof”/“The storm was something black and cunning and old”/“the frenzied light that gave the sky a
yellow wound, which in turn spilt yellow blood”. Any three of these or some of the other images the
writer uses that have merit. The learners should give a clear explanation of the choice made.
5. a) The boy is comforted and takes pleasure from seeing the star’s falling whereas the old
grandfather sees it as an omen, he is superstitious and believes the falling star is announcing
someone’s death, perhaps even his own and he is now the one who is afraid.
b) He is afraid and does not understand the ferocity of the storm. The darkness and the thunderous
noises it brings are frightening to him and he wants to have reasons for it all to help to overcome
his fears. By the last line the storm and his fears have passed, the boy does not need the
distraction of talking, but now the old man it the one left thinking about death and now he is
fearful and trying to understand his fears.
6. Here it is up to the learners to choose their own “fear” story and explain why it was the one to affect
them over the others.

Civil peace
Chinua Achebe

Pre-reading
1. A civil community is one that looks after its members and this community has been through a civil
war and lost everything to invading soldiers, now with peace another form of war and invasion is
taking place, crime and criminals have replaced the soldiers and crime is now what they have to fight
against.

During reading
2. a) He has been though a civil war and has survived it. So has his wife. Three of his four children are
still alive and his bicycle and most of his house have also survived. He considers himself to be
lucky.
b) He managed to hide the bicycle by “burying” it in the little clearing where the dead of the camp
had been buried. After the war, the bicycle is a means of making money quite quickly as he is
able to use it to run a taxi service.
3. a) These were not miracles in the biblical sense no, but in a survivor’s sense yes, they can be a seen
as miracles. Many died and lost everything yet he and most of his family survived: his bicycle
was still where he had left it, his house was almost whole, he had some money to repair it and he
was able to make a reasonable living by ferrying people around on his bicycle, his wife cooked
food and made money and he began to run a bar, so in fact he was a fortunate man. Can they be
called miracles? Maybe not, but by working with what he had been left with he had made his life
better and so he deserved this better luck more than many others did.
b) That nothing is a mystery to God, that God knows everything that is happening and that it is all as
it is meant to be. Listen to other explanations too as the learners may come up with some
interesting ideas here. Discuss their merit.

Post-reading
4. a) Not without a bicycle.
b) The ex gratia money they receive after the war. To people who have nothing, any amount is
something. (“t was like Christmas for him and for many others like him”)
5. a) They must have been watching him when he received “egg-rasher” money that morning and
followed him home.
 b) It is just a large amount, guessing how much he had. The twenty is a more realistic amount and
one they know he probably will be willing to admit to in order to save his family. The thieves are
willing to accept whatever they can get at this stage
c) Thieves do not just rob people they also rape and murder them and he wants to save his family
and the few items they have managed to save from the war, from the thieves.
6. They are afraid that they too would be robbed or murdered if they tried to help.
7. a) His family and his home.
b) That they get on with their lives, they do not sit around complaining about their bad luck, they
work and make their own luck.
8. a) Not a great deal it would seem. They were preyed upon and threatened and their goods stolen
during the war. After the war nothing have changed except that soldiers have been replaced by
criminals.
b) That conditions for ordinary people during civil war and civil peace are one and the same.
9. I am a thief and I am with my friends. Open the door or we will make you open it.

DRAMA
The sailor’s return
Stephen Curtis

Pre-reading
1. He would be highly emotional at being back home in Simonstown as he did not believe that it would
ever happen.
He is quite overcome by thoughts of family and friends whom he has not seen for over 5 years.
He would be very sad because he has been kept a prisoner for three years and is also very angry about
everything that has happened to him.
This was an anger that called for vengeance one day and that day has finally come.
He would also be feeling great sadness at the loss of his closest friend, George and regret that he has
returned whereas George hasn't.
And last but not least he would be feeling worried that the love of his life, Dora ,has forgotten him
and found a new love and what can he do if this is so.

During reading
2. a) Alliterations: Bought these breeches
Got these glasses in Greenmarket square
Hasten home
Love and hatred curiously co-mingled compel me onward
You show an obstinate insensibility to social standing
There are many more for learners to discover and enjoy. All influence the rhythm of the speech at
that particular point and often add to the humour of the lines too.
b) Alliterations with their repetition of consonant sounds in close proximity draw the
listener’s attention to the words being spoken and as such add to the dramatic effect.
They also influence the rhythm of the speech at that particular point.
3. Billy and his fiancée Dora remain true to one another even after 5 years apart even though Dora does
not know whether Bill was alive or dead. Still she hoped for his return one day.

George and Maud, although not engaged were lovers and she too hoped for his return one day that
they might marry. She also did not look at another man.
 Cuthbert and Laura although not originally a loving couple, do finally come together in the end.
Cuthbert eventually realises he does love her (particularly after the return of Billy and the loss of any
hope in marrying Dora!) and decides to make an honest woman out of her after she has borne him a
healthy son.
Finally, La Pirhana/Pandora and Sir Perceval, ex-lovers who separated and then, after Pandora has
searched for Perceval for many years and finally found him, are quickly separated by death. They
are not united in life but hopefully are in death!

Post-reading
4. a) Cuthbert: would be wearing a very stylish up to the minute jacket and trousers, which would
probably be a little Over The Top! I feel that his attire would be brightly coloured and even
somewhat effeminately flamboyant, maybe with a striking cravat and a certain amount of shiny
male jewellery, a large watch and chain, pearl cravat pin, a showy ring perhaps and a flowing
handkerchief to mop his brow with theatrically. Although well-dressed he misses being truly
elegant.
b) Sir Perceval would wear a very expensive and elegantly cut jacket and trousers with a
sparklingly white and flowing silk shirt. His clothes would be understated and in a dark colour,
after all he is the villain and baddies wear black! He may possibly wear a hat of some sort to
complete the picture of a rich, desirable and dashing villain! He will look very much smarter than
Cuthbert does even though Cuthbert tries to outdo him in his own elegance.
c) Dora is young and very attractive, she is also very virtuous therefore her clothes would be in
keeping with her modesty. Perhaps a pretty, full length flowery dress with a modest round neck
and short puffed sleeves, a simple lacy shawl and a straw sun hat tied beneath her chin, with
colourful ribbons. Modest but still very attractive to the opposite sex, her pure and innocent look
needs to capture Sir Perceval’s jaded eye.
The above answers may be quite different to those of the learners and that is quite acceptable, as long as
they stay within the time period of the melodrama, which is 1865, and that they describe/draw clothes that
would have been fashionable around this time. Perhaps a library book showing some of the clothes of that
period would be helpful here.
5. The staging of Act Two in front of the curtain on an empty stage is to enable the set for Act Three to
be assembled behind the closed curtain ready for the final scene. This also means that there is no un-
necessary delay between scenes and the empty stage in front of the curtain allows the curtain to be
raised quickly on the new set without any props/scenery having to be removed. All very practical
considerations.
6 a) Pandora had been Sir Percival’s lover some time ago and when he heartlessly left her and sailed
away she “died” of a broken heart. She decided to search for him, as she loved him so, and when
she found him to forgive him for leaving her. BUT now she sees that he has not changed his
wicked ways as he has Dora chained up and ready to ravish. Therefore as he “killed” her and her
love for him, so now she has killed him by shooting him. A death for a death.
b) She is going to enter a convent and spend her days in prayer and meditation/become a nun, retire
from the outside world.
c) She changes her mind when Sir Percival admits, with his dying breath, that he had always loved
her best, and that he wants her forgiveness for what he did to her and that her vision of beauty
would stay with him in death and that he still loves her. Quite the charmer until the bitter end!
7. The who’s who of the final scene:
La Pihrana is Pandora (Sir Percival’s lover from over the sea).
Billy is Dora’s fiancé
George the castaway, is also Billy’s old shipmate and Maud’s true love. He is also the rightful heir to
Pilchard Hall. He is now titled Sir George of Pilchard Hall.
Jane, Pandora’s maid is George’s lost foster mother.
Eudoxia is Sir Percival’s real mother
 Sir Percival is Pandora’s lost lover and Eudoxia’s lost son who was believed to have died but has in
fact been brought up as heir to Pilchard Hall.
Samantha, Laura’s midwife, is the midwife who, years earlier, mixed up George and Perceval as
babies, and who then sold George to Jane in Muizenberg and afterwards gave Percival to the wife of
the Lord of Pilchard Hall as heir to the mansion.
I think that is all!
8. Learners should remember that melodrama is very over the top in movements, speech and emotion.
This is one occasion where big is definitely better and less is certainly not more. The key thing is to
have fun with the characters and their words.
9. Learners must make sure that they make a list of the events in the order in which they come in their
chosen scene. They can either make use of the script as it is, or improvise and use their own words
and actions. Again, the emphasis must be on enjoyment. They must feel free to be melodramatic.

FOLK TALES

Inkogiledane
As told to J. David by Shembi

Pre-reading
1. Jealousy, fear, poverty, meanness, any others that the learners are able to justify.

During reading
2. a) She is naturally beautiful and a kind and caring person, very easily led by others, brave and
compassionate.
b) Everyone else has treated her with laughter and scorn when they saw her and she expects nothing
less from one so beautiful.

Post-reading
3. a) His teeth, large red mouth and straggling hair.
b) He keeps her alive because he needs her to cook for him. It shows us how callous the cannibal is.
4. a) As a thank you for not treating her as others did, with laughter and contempt. She was kind and
caring to the old woman and she, in turn, was grateful.
b) From others who had been caught by the monster and eaten.
5. She did not tell where the girl was even when the Dimo thrust burning pieces of wood into her sores.
6. Some are pleased at her return but many of the young girls act with jealousy again. Now she has even
more beautiful jewels and skins and she is even more beautiful than before.
7. They are not rewarded because they are not caring and compassionate to the old woman as the girl
had been, all they wanted were beautiful jewels for themselves.
8. The likely answer is ‘yes’. However, learners may agree or disagree. They need to explain their
answers (relating to their own experience).
It would be interesting to follow this with a discussion in which learner recount their stories about
kindness and meanness being rewarded or not.

Mbulumila the clay monster

Julius Oelke

Pre-reading
1. That we only live true lives ourselves through our connections and interaction with others.
During reading
2. They were afraid of the monster. As individuals they felt that they could do nothing to oppose him.
3. That if we pool our talents and our skills and work as one person then we will be all the stronger for
doing so. We need to work together to achieve a common purpose, rather than work against each
other.

Post-reading
4. a) Many things make parents abandon their children:-poverty, depression, illness, the thought that it
is in the best interests of the child, also negatively, their own selfishness, putting their own needs
above those of the child, feeling that they cannot cope and passing their responsibilities on to
others. Discuss their views with the class.
b) They were not so good at foraging finding only a few roots and bulbs but were very good at
finding the deserted village and taking the villagers’ food.
5. a) The children planned to heat up a rock in the fire and when the monster climbed the ladder to
look for them they would throw it into his open mouth and down his throat.
b) Very successful. They manage to kill the clay monster.
c) The children hear a voice speaking to them from the monster’s body. When they cut him open the
chief and his villagers tumble out still alive. Very strange.
6. They say that the children are not members of their tribe so do not belong in that village.
7. The river was making a moaning sound.

Mmutla and Phiri

Phyllis Savory

Pre-reading
1. a) We can relate to animals and see their antics as entertaining and even mirroring our own without it
being a specific person we are referring to.
b) The stories are not tied then to particular people or groups of people. This makes it less likely that
people will feel threatened or judged by the stories. / This makes the stories very accessible and
humourous too, like stories told in cartoons.

During reading
2. The desert.
3. a) “Fire medicine” is protection of some sort against the veldt fires of the grasslands.
b) The hare burrows deep into the ground and makes a warren with many tunnels to hide in away
from the fire. The hyena makes a shallow cave or hole as his protection from the fires. Each
chooses a shelter, according to his own way of living/habits of their kind.
4. Suggestions:
Phiri the Hyena: sly
Mmutla the Hare: clever
Tladi the pitch-black lightning-bird: a cheat
Sekgogo the spider: resourceful, kind; helpful

Post-reading
5. He is very quickly burned by the fire as his shallow cave offered little real protection from the fire.
Mmutla’s way was far more effective because the tunnels of the warren ran deep into the ground away
from the flames and heat.
6. He has the spider weave a bag made from spider’s web around him then the spider flies up on the
breeze into the clouds taking Mmutla in his silken bag up with him and making him appear to fly.
7. Learners are free to choose their own character, but they must give a reason for their choice.
8. a) It is about all tricksters and the others in life that they cleverly manage to trick.
b) E.g. Trickery/One clever hare. Any title that focuses on the clever trickster aspect.

Spider and the crows

Dianne Stewart

Pre-reading
1. Let the learners give their choices and reasons. Discuss some of them in class before reading the
story.

During reading
2. a) He smeared a sticky substance over his hind quarters and pretended to be visiting the crows to
borrow a live coal. He then sat on a fig which stuck to his rear and, walking backwards so that the
crows could not see the fig, went home. He did this several times before the crows began to
suspect him.
b) He disturbed the chickens in their hen house much earlier than dawn making the cockerel crow
and making the crows believe that dawn had already broken.
c) How can a spider be mistaken for a crocodile? Size, shape and the number of legs make it
impossible for a spider to be mistaken for a crocodile. Very funny!

Post-reading
3. The summary should include: the story of the missing crocodile, the trickery with the gourd of mud
soup, the clever stealing, marking of a single egg time and again, the baking and eating of the
crocodile eggs and the escape across the river by boat.
4. He manages to eat most of the figs from the fig tree and then all but one of the crocodile eggs in the
nest. Not bad for a spider.
5. It is up to the learners to choose the one they feel is cleverest and to explain why.
6. Again learners’ own opinions are the most important here. Tricksters may admire tricksters., while
those who are always tricked may have reasons not to admire them.
7. a) The crocodiles have been doing all the rowing work.
b) C. amusing

How Hlakanyana outwitted the monster

Jack Cope

Pre-reading
1. Learners discussion here to be used before reading the story. The aim is to activate prior experience to
link what they know to what they are setting out to understand.

During reading
2. a) He has run away from home and was being hunted by the warriors, he was not very happy and
was tired and very hungry and hare was tasty food for him to eat, but hare was much quicker than
Hlakanyana who could not hope to catch him without using trickery.
b) He managed to persuade the hare to lie with his head flat on the ground listening for the sounds of
the buffaloes which he said were coming their way. While hare’s head was on the ground
Hlakanyana jumped onto his long ears and pinned him to the ground so that hare could not
escape.
3. Insolent means contemptuous here.

Post-reading
4. The text tells us “Hlakanyana was afraid, he wanted to run away” when he meets the monster with
one leg and one arm.
5. Learners to make their own choice here and an explanation as to why they chose it.
6. Because he is clever and naughty and children can relate to him easily as he manages to cleverly trick
others who are bigger than he is. Maybe the adult is seen to be being tricked by a child?
7. Own learners views/ choices are important here plus why they chose to admire or disapprove of
tricksters in general.

The Sultan’s daughter

I.D. du Plessis

Pre-reading
1. A riddle is a brain teaser, a puzzling question that tests your cleverness.

During reading
2. a) He is the Sultan’s only son and when the Sultan dies he will inherit the Sultan’s kingdom,
therefore the father needs to know that his son possesses both courage and wisdom to rule after he
has died. Sending him out in the world on his only will test his skills and hopefully set the old
man’s worries at rest.
b) The son will inherit his father’s throne and rule his kingdom.

Post- reading
3. That he is not a person who gives up easily and that he is very kind and generous to others in need.
4. Rajab cuts off the wings of the white bird with the sword and straps the wings onto his shoulders so
that he can fly and follow the beautiful poeteri to the witch’s house. He used the bracken to whip the
back of the poeteri as she flew in front of him. At the witch’s house he listened to the riddles that the
poeteri had to ask the young prince, he did this three nights on the run in order to help to free her from
the witch’s spell and allow the poeteri to consent to be the prince’s wife.
5. No, not really. There is nothing clever about guessing what a person is thinking.
6. Learners’ need to say at which point they were able to guess correctly. The clue is in the ointment
Rajab used both for the old woman’s twisted knee and to put the prince to sleep every night.
7. Yes or no, the learners can discuss this and give their reasons for their answers. Probably I would lean
more to the yes side because the young prince has a kind heart and so deserved to win the poeteri’s
hand and rescue her from the witch.

The sprig of rosemary

Andrew Lang

Pre-reading
1. Learners’ own accounts here.

During reading
2. set her to do = told her to do; lighted = lit; maiden = young woman; damsel = young woman;
remembered no more = would not be remembered; whither to go = where to go; spake = spoke.
There are more old fashioned words in the story, accept any suggestion that you think is valid.
3. a) The sun gave her a nut; the moon gave her an almond; the wind gave her a walnut.
b) The nut contained a beautiful mantle. The almond contained the most magnificent petticoats. The
walnut contained the most splendid court dress ever made.
c) The wind blew away all the wedding clothes of the princess so that she has nothing to wear to her
wedding.
Post-reading
4. His daughter is very ugly and he wants to see her married off as soon as he can, he does not want the
imprisoned prince to see her and change his mind.” The princess, ugly creature that she is, has not
been able to find any man to wed her”.
5. She travels the world in search of her husband determined not to stop until she has found him. She
persuades the sun, moon and the wind to help her and she uses each of their gifts as a way of getting
close to her husband, speaking to him, touching him with the rosemary sprig and stopping the
wedding.
6. Learners’ own retelling of the story. Assess on merit. Note that the disappointed princess must be the
story teller and the story must reflect her viewpoint.

The Chase of Slieve Gallion

Rosemary Sutcliff

Pre-reading
1. a) Learners own knowledge here, card magic, stage magicians, black/white magic there are many
kinds of magic.
b) Learners’ own beliefs and more important their reason for belief or non-belief.

During reading
2. a) The Danann people never grow old as ordinary mortals do.
b) Discourage her. The chieftan is already old and will grow even older as the two daughters will
not, so why would they want to marry someone with these drawbacks, it would not make sense.

Post-reading
3. Perhaps the two sisters themselves as both were magical and both wanted to marry Finn
4. She is determined to win his heart ahead of her sister Ainé.
5. a) The spell has turned him into a feeble old man.
b) They believe that he is just trying to trick them, after all he is so old and weak and Finn was
young and strong
c) They are angry that the sister has tried to cast a spell on Finn and that she had almost succeeded
in it too.
d) They had to dig into the Fairy mound and into the Fairy cavern.
6. a) He suspects that although the first drink cured him from Milucra’s spell that a second drink will
place him under her sister Ainé’s spell.
b) She wants to make him grateful to her so that he will marry her.
7. “The Bewitching of Finn Mac Cool” Assess on merit. The name should have some connection to
magic/spells/bewitching people, etc.

A clay pipe and wild honey

Cicely van Straten

Pre-reading
1. Learners own answers here again, as there is no right or wrong answer. Some may respond positively
some may not but it should make for a good discussion.

During reading
 2. She is acting within the knowledge/sayings of her own culture and traditions and therefore would be
listened to by her people. In times of hardship almost any sort of encouragement and hope would be
a positive thing so even though it may only be a superstition it can give the starving hope. There may
be other answers as well.
This would make an interesting class discussion.
3. a) Throwing special bones by a wise woman/man or sangoma and reading the future in the patterns
made by them.
b) They are sad because she is strong and beautiful and many of the young men were hoping to
marry her one day. They know that the woman sent to find the Water Giver never returns.
4. Her reaction is to obey the orders given by Isambula without question. This tells us that she is both
brave and obedient and that she is ready and willing to give up her own life for the others in the
village with no thought for herself.

Post-reading
5. The magical properties of the clay pipe are: that it can change size and shape and become a clay pot
in which to boil water; the pipe also remained hot even without coals inside it and keeps Damali
warm on her journey.
6. She fed the honeycomb to the Water Give when he was in the form of a leopard. She thrust the
burning ember into the Water Giver’s mouth when he was in the shape of a python. Lastly, she looped
the necklace over both her and the python’s neck as the flood water swept them both down the
mountain. The coal gave the Water Giver the warm heart of a man, the necklace joined Damali and
the Water Giver to become one whole person after the flood waters swept half of the Water Giver
away and they became one perfect being.
7. Learners’ opinions are important here. Why is the act chosen by each the bravest or most self-
sacrificial in their views? (I like the joining together as one perfect being, the losing of her own self in
him, an act totally unselfish and quite beautiful.)
8. Water is life and the sound of running water attests to the fact that it is giving life to the surrounding
land. It is indeed the “song of Life” for no living thing can live for long without it.
:
The snake with seven heads
Gcina Mhlope

Pre-reading
1. Answers need to come from the class but Beauty and the Beast; The princess and the Frog; Finn Mac
Cool in a previous folk tale, are a few of the examples that might come up.

During reading
2. This story is written by Gcina Mhlope, famous for her story-telling performances. You will see that
this story is intended to be read aloud or performed. Look at how the first paragraph invites us to
visualise what is happening.
The story begins with the information that Manjuza has two talents. Step by step we are given the
detail so we can visualise what Manjuza is able to do. For instance, we are not just told that she can
sing but that her voice was rich and strong. The sentences are ordered so that the teller or reader can
emphasise important parts (e.g. To see Manjuza dance, though (pause), was the very best thing to
brighten one’s day. Note the detail that is given so that “she was best known as a wedding dancer”).
This would be a wonderful opportunity to build learners’ story teller / reading aloud skills by letting
them work in pairs to work out how best to read/ tell this story.

Post-reading
3. a) Opinions of learners are needed here again. Discuss their answers. She has a right to be angry and
 disappointed, but I feel that she over reacted here. What was so hard about choosing another day?
b) Manjuza had to lie to her own children and keep her now snake/husband away from everyone in
case someone saw him as a seven-headed snake and killed him.
4. They do not kill it because none of them had ever seen a talking seven-headed snake before and they
were afraid. Some wondered whether the ancestors were trying to send the village a message.
Because of fear or the ancestors they could not bring themselves to kill it.
5. a) That most women are hysterical creatures with little or no common sense who never listen to
other people and do what they want.
b) The women pour boiling porridge over the snake. This causes the snake’s skin to blister and split
and out of the snake’s body arises her husband, alive if a little sleepy-looking.
6. He could not understand what all the fuss was about, he could remember nothing about being cursed
and being a snake.
7. She is happy. The curse has been lifted and she and her children have their husband and father back
and he has not been harmed by the curse.
8. Own choice of story. The most important part is for learners to explain their choice to the class. You
could always discuss the merits of each story if you have time.