The Sunday News
Charles Dube
WHEN you choose to assist learners you should be prepared for any eventualities like going forward and backwards. You do this to satisfy the learners’ needs.
This does not matter whether you assisted the same learner in the immediate past week or a long time ago. I say this because one learner is in a state of panic after having been studying a wrong literature set book and is a couple of months before the final public examinations arrive.
The question is, “What do I do now?” The blame game is in the air which will solve nothing. The ideal solution is for the affected learner and the like to get up and get the right set book.
There is still some time even though it seems very short for anything to be done. Obviously, the natural reaction is to panic, but, do not let your brains go into disarray. Relax and grab the correct set book and start reading. Take your time and do not rush. According to experts they stumble those that run fast.
Read the text throughout for the first time in the usual way. Go over it for the second time.
In cases where you are fortunate the text gives an introduction, chapter summaries or questions after each chapter, you go over them and you are likely to get the gist or basic meaning of the text. You are already doing a crash programme so make sure you go over those chapter summaries to understand the plot.
Thereafter move on and try to understand characters.
All these activities can be done within a short space of time. Faced with such a predicament learners can be helped through provision of extra lessons.
This is where extra help is needed unlike when learners engage in extra lessons throughout their junior and senior school levels. As stated earlier on this page, extra lessons are unnecessary to some learners except that they enjoy being out avoiding household chores.
Being caught up in unfortunate circumstances as stated above should not be an excuse for a poor performance in the examinations because it is now a change of text only.
The methods of studying the text have not changed except where the learner needs to be reminded the basics. My assumption is that at this juncture you have learnt how to write about a long text in detail and as a whole. You have learnt to make valid points about characters and themes in the text.
Show that you understand the relevant contexts and give a personal response to the text and build this into your writing.
Make sure you continue reading the text so as to acquaint yourself with details so that you can select them from the text and comment on them in response to your task. This might mean referring to particular events in the plot or things the characters say and do. You should also be able to back up your points with short quotations and write about the effects of the language.
These points might appear relevant in the long term and not for somebody trying to catch up with time, the bottom line is for the learner to remember them so as to score high marks in the examination regardless of the mishap. Today’s literature questions come in essay and passage-based form.
Learners might decide to concentrate on passage-based questions only to find them difficult to answer. Of course, passage-based questions appear easier to answer as they give the learner some knowledge of where in the text they appear.
However, the trick questions might not require information given there. At times questions demand knowledge of what takes place before or after that. Learners with little knowledge of the text are disadvantaged.
They should make sure they approach such questions cautiously. Having said all this on this particular subject, it could be worthwhile to go over these reminders for the learners who might have missed out on earlier articles.
When learners study a chosen text, they might look at how it presents a particular way of life and how this reflects or influences the way they think about their own.
They might discover situations that seem unfamiliar. However, they are also likely to recognise similarities in the hopes and dreams shared by people around the world.
In different texts, maybe according to cultures, learners might witness a world of harshness and struggle. They might be shocked by prejudice and injustice.
They might admire how people cope with racism and marvel at how people stand up to loss and tragedy. They should think of the texts they are studying and look at the openings of the novel they are studying.
When looking at openings they should think about the following questions:
“How does the story start? What is the first paragraph or page made up of? How are you drawn into the story? What holds your attention? How much does the writer tell you? Is it possible to tell how the story will develop?” When writing about characters, you should try to think about how particular characters are important to the text as a whole. Who are the main characters of the story? What strikes you about them? Are there interesting conflicts and relationships between the characters?
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