STATIONS: Things Fall Apart

Completed?Station 1: “The Second Coming”Station 2: Nigeria TodayStation 3: Character MoralityStation 4: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Station 5: Found PoetryStation 6: Vocabulary Connection

Name_______________________________________________ Period__________

Any station work that isn’t completed must be finished for HOMEWORK!

If you FINISH EARLY, work on the extension questions on the back.

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GROUP NAME:

Although Ireland Nigeria are very different places, they share a history of civil war, religious conflict, and colonization. Chinua Achebe took the title Things Fall Apart from this poem.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

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Station 1“The Second Coming”

Step 1 T TITLE

What do you think it means?

Step 2 P PARAPHRASE *THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED FOR YOU*

(You’re welcome.)Step 3 C CONNOTATION (language)

What meaning does the poem have beyond the literal meaning?-Find and label figurative language ON THE POEM.

Write other powerful diction (word choice) in the column.

Step 4 A ATTITUDEWhat is the author’s attitude?  How does the speaker feel about himself, about others, and about the subject? Use your tone sheet to help. Write your answer in the column.

Step 5 S SHIFTSWhere is there a shift or change? Consider tone, setting, voice, etc.Label it ON THE POEM.

Write the effect of it in the column.

Step 6 T THEME

The theme must be written in a complete sentence in the column.

Step 7 T TITLE

After analyzing the poem, revisit the title. Has your understanding of its meaning

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When you’ve finished the TPCASTT, begin the imagery activity on the next page.

changed?Write your answer in the column.

Line from the poem:

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Explanation of connection:____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Draw image here.

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Compare/contrast Nigeria in Things Fall Apart and modern day Nigeria.

CROSSOVER OER: Has Nigeria changed? In what way?Use a piece of evidence from the article and your novel to write this crossover OER.

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Station 2Nigeria Today

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Please fill out the following information on this page.

Character Name:_______________________________________

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Station 3Character Morality

What is a dilemma your character faces?__________________________________

Quotation as evidence: (Don’t forget the parenthetical reference!)

Analysis:

Using Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, where does your character rank?

Stage: ________________________________________________________________________

Quotation as evidence: (Don’t forget the parenthetical reference!)

Analysis:

BIG PICTURE QUESTION: What is a THEME connected to this

character and his/her dilemma?

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Context: Marlow, the narrator, is traveling through Africa. As he enters deeper into the continent or what he calls “the heart of darkness,” he describes the people and landscape that he sees.

 We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us—who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories.

The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage—who can tell?—but truth—truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder—the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff—with his own inborn strength. Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row—is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no—I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes—I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap.

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Station 4Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Station 4 Activity: Reflection and analysis of Heart of Darkness

1. What kind of diction was used to describe the Africans? Please give at least three words for support.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What does this ________________ (word you used to describe diction above) diction tell us about the prevailing Western ideas of Africa during this time (Heart of Darkness was originally published in 1899)?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. From his interview, why did Achebe feel that it was necessary to write Things Fall Apart, a novel about Africans by an African author?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Refer to the last paragraph in the novel, what do you think Achebe was trying to communicate to people that believed in Conrad’s view of Africa?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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5. It is very clear that Achebe attempts to present a complex narrative of Africa. Was this approach successful in dispelling the single story (Conrad’s view)? Why or why not? Please use evidence from Things Fall Apart._____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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*Read extension material if you have time! It will enrich your Socratic Seminar and essay! *

Found Poetry focuses on rearranging words to create a different meaning. You will use words or phrases that create the effect you are seeking and eliminate whatever words or images he sees as unnecessary.

The central idea is to devise a completely new text from previously published words and images, which the reader is free to interpret as he wishes.HINTS:

• Your poem does not need to be about the original topic.• Each line does not need to be a complete sentence• Pay attention to how the poem looks on the page, the length of lines, how line are grouped, etc.• Try repeating lines or single words throughout poem.

Use this area to construct your poem below:

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Station 5Found Poetry

When you’re finished, publish your poem to the Google Classroom under “Found Poetry” assignment.

Synonym/Short definition Connection

abominable

adroit

amenable

bellicose

castigate

diatribe

ethereal

facile

goad

gregarious

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haughty

heinous

ignominy

inculcate

innocuous

insidious

insouciant

licentious

misogyny

obdurate

petulant

plethora

pusillanimous

ruminate

salient

sycophant

Extension Activity(Do this when you finish early)

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Station 6Vocabulary Connection

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