LITERATURE
READER
UNIT-1
PREREADING ACTIVITY
Objectives
To encourage students to share their personal experience.
To enable them to express themselves in grammatically correct language.
To sensitise the students to family bonding / values.
To sensitise the students to the needs of grandparents
Task - Individual Work
Write a page in your diary about an emotional moment with your grandparents or any elderly person you hold dear.
Or
Write a letter to your grandparents telling them all that you want to say but have never said.
Approximate Time: 1 period
Procedure
Adiscussion on the significance of living with grandparents can be initiated.
After the discussion, the teacher instructs the students to write the letter.
Some of the letters/diary entries could be read out.
The letter/diary could form a part of the portfolio.
Criteria for Assessment
1 mark may be awarded for each of the following
Relevance to the theme Use of anecdotes and incidents Coherence of ideas Appropriate language Originality and innovativeness Feedback Students can also be encouraged to edit their own work.
The edited versions showing the process of improvement could be displayed.
Some of the language errors could be discussed in the class.
The Portrait of a Lady
My grandmother and I were good friends. My parents left me with her when they went to live in the city and we were constantly together. She used to wake me up in the morning and get me ready for school. She said her morning prayer in a monotonous sing-song while she bathed and dressed me in the hope that I would listen and get to know it by heart; I listened because I loved her voice but never bothered to learn it. Then she would fetch my wooden slate which she had already washed and plastered with yellow chalk, a tiny earthen ink-pot and a red pen, tie them all in a bundle and hand it to me. After a breakfast of a thick, stale chapatti with a little butter and sugar spread on it, we went to school. She carried several stale chapattis with her for the village dogs.
My grandmother always went to school with me because the school was attached to the temple. The priest taught us the alphabet and the morning prayer. While the children sat in rows on either side of the verandah singing the alphabet or the prayer in a chorus, my grandmother sat inside reading the scriptures. When we had both finished, we would walk back together. This time the village dogs would meet us at the temple door. They followed us to our home growling and fighting with each other for the chapattis we threw to them. When my parents were comfortably settled in the city, they sent for us. That was a turning-point in our friendship. Although we shared the same room, my grandmother no longer came to school with me. I used to go to an English school in a motor bus. There were no dogs in the streets and she took to feeding sparrows in the courtyard of our city house.
As the years rolled by, we saw less of each other. For some time she continued to wake me up and get me ready for school. When I came back she would ask me what the teacher had taught me. I would tell her English words and little things of western science and learning, the law of gravity, Archimedes' Principle, the world being round, etc. This made her unhappy. She could not help me with my lessons. She did not believe in the things they taught at the English school and was distressed that there was no teaching about God and the scriptures. One day I announced that we were being given music lessons. She was very disturbed. To her, music had lewd associations. It was the monopoly of harlots and beggars and not meant for gentlefolk. She said nothing but her silence meant disapproval. She rarely talked to me after that. When I went up to University, I was given a room of my own. The common link of friendship was snapped.
Please refer to attached file for CCE Teachers Manual on Manual Assessment of Literature Part 1