A Handful of Dates Lesson Plan

A Lesson Plan in Literature I.

Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

infer character traits; b. complete complete a character character map by incorporating incorporating their their own characteris characteristics tics to the characters of the story; and c. compose compose letters letters that are are addressed addressed to to the people people that they admir admire e most. II.

Subject atter: A. !opic opic:: A "andful of #ates by !ayeb Saleh $Africa% &. 'efer eferen ence ce:: exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/c exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/curriculum/m11 urriculum/m11/activity4 /activity4 .php (. ate ateri rial als s used: used: ) copie copies s of the short short story story *A "and "andful ful of #ates+ #ates+

III.

rocedure: A. oti otiva vati tion on

Single Word Descriptions  !he teacher calls a pair of students to the front. She lets one of  the them stat state e a sing singlle word ord that that repres prese ents nts the the most ost adm admirab irable le characteristic of his pair. !he student then accompanies the word with a very brief e-planation as to why he has chosen that word. After After that, the pair pair e-ch e-chan ange ges s roles oles and repea epeatt the the proc proced edur ure. e. $or $ords ds that that have have alr already eady been been give given n must must not not be repea epeate ted, d, but but the the stud studen ents ts are are encouraged to use their synonyms.% &. resent resentation ation of the the /esson /esson a. !he teacher gives a short introduction introduction of the short story. story.

A "andful of #ates, reprinted in this lesson in its entirety, is a short story published, originally in Arabic in 0123, in a collection of  stories by 4l !ayeb Salih called !he edding of 5ein. !he action of  this story occurs in the 6ctional setting of the village of ad "amid, which is in (entral Sudan. !his short story is told through the eyes of  a young boy as he e-periences an epiphany, a critical moment of  awareness that perhaps mar7s his passage from a child to an adult.  !he boy8s love and admiration for his grandfather is diminished as the boy listens to his grandfather describe asood and observes the (. /esso /esson n ro rope perr

Throwing Questions  !he teacher as7s a 9uestion. After giving  minutes of thin7ing time, she throws a small ball to a particular student. !hat student is then obliged to answer the 9uestion. After answering, he throws the ball to another student to let him answer the same 9uestion. !his procedure is repeated until the teacher signals them to proceed to the ne-t 9uestion.  !he teacher couples the students answers with short discussions for further clari6cations. ossible ive at least three and justify your answer. 2. hat adjectives can you use to describe the boys grandfather= >ive at least three and justify your answer. ?. "ow are the boy and his grandfather di@erent= 3. hy did the boy e-press so much admiration for his grandfather= . hy did the boys admiration for his grandfather diminish= 2. If you were the boy, would you react in the same manner as he did when he witnessed the true colors of his grandfather= hy= B. hich character in the story is most similar to you= 4-plain your answer. #. 4nrichment

Modied Character Mapping  !he teacher groups the students. 4ach group chooses a character from the story and completes a character map using the characteristics of their own members. !hey then present their answers in front.

characteristic

characteristic

characteristic

name of character

characteristic

characteristic

characteristic

4. 4valuation  !he teacher lets the students write letters addressing the people that they admire most. 4ach letter must contain a description of the person being admired, the reasons for the students admiration, the time when it began, and a short narration of an e-perience where his admiration for that person either wavered or strengthened.

C. (losure  !he teacher as7s the students on what they enjoyed about the te-t and the days activities. She further as7s them about the things that they have learned.

ID.

Assignment:  !he teacher instructs the students to write a single paragraph where they compare themselves to the boy in the story.

A Handful of Dates by !ayeb Saleh Short story published, originally in Arabic in 0123, in a collection of stories E!he edding of 5einE. !he action of this story, as with many of the stories written by 4l !ayeb Salih, occurs in the 6ctional setting of the village of ad "amid, which is in (entral Sudan. !his short story is told through the eyes of a young boy as he e-periences an epiphany, a critical moment of awareness that perhaps mar7s his passage from a child to an adult. !he boy8s love and admiration for his grandfather is diminished as the boy listens to his grandfather describe asood and observes the treatment of the man, for whom the young boy feels a li7eness.

I must have been very young at the time. hile I don8t remember e-actly how old I was, I do remember that when people saw me with my grandfather they would pat me on the head and give my chee7 a pinch ) things they didn8t do to my grandfather. !he strange thing was that I never used to go out with my father, rather it was my grandfather who would ta7e me with him wherever he went, e-cept for the mornings, when I would go to the mos9ue to learn the Foran. !he mos9ue, the river, and the 6elds ) these were the landmar7s in our life. hile most of the children of my age grumbled at having to go to the mos9ue to learn the Foran, I used to love it. !he reason was, no doubt, that I was 9uic7 at learning by heart and the Shei7 always as7ed me to stand up and recite the (hapter of the erciful whenever we had visitors, who would pat me on my head and chee7 just as people did when they saw me with my grandfather.  Ges, I used to love the mos9ue, and I loved the river, too. #irectly we 6nished our Foran reading in the morning I would throw down my wooden slate and dart o@, 9uic7 as a genie, to my mother, hurriedly swallow down my brea7fast, and run o@  for a plunge in the river. hen tired of swimming about, I would sit on the ban7 and gaHe at the strip of water that wound away eastwards, and hid behind a thic7 wood of acacia trees. I loved to give rein to my imagination and picture myself a tribe of  giants living behind that wood, a people tall and thin with white beards and sharp noses, li7e my grandfather. &efore my grandfather ever replied to my many 9uestions, he would rub the tip of his nose with his fore6nger; as for his beard, it was soft and lu-uriant and as white as cotton wool ) never in my life have I seen anything of a purer whiteness or greater beauty. y grandfather must also have been e-tremely tall, for I never saw anyone in the whole area address him without having him loo7 up at him, nor did I see him enter a house without having to bend so low that I was put in mind of the way the river wound round behind the wood of  acacia trees. I loved him and would imagine myself, when I grew to be a man, tall and slender li7e him, wal7ing along with great strides. I believe I was his favorite grandchild: no wonder, for my cousins were a stupid bunch and I ) so they say ) was an intelligent child. I used to 7now when my grandfather wanted me to laugh, when to be silent; also I would remember the times for his prayers and would bring him his prayer rug and 6ll the ewer for his ablutions without his having to as7 me. hen he had nothing else to do he enjoyed listening to me reciting to him from the Foran in a lilting voice, and I could tell from his face that he was moved. One day I as7ed him about our neighbor asood. I said to my grandfather: I fancy you don8t li7e our neighbor asood=  !o which he answered, having rubbed the tip of his nose: "e8s an indolent man and I don8t li7e such people. I said to him: hat8s an indolent man=

y grandfather lowered his head for a moment; then, loo7ing across the wide e-panse of 6eld, he said: #o you see it stretching out from the edge of the desert up to the ile ban7= A hundred feddans. #o you see all those date palms= And those trees ) sant, acacia, and sayal= All this fell into asood8s lap, was inherited by him from his father.  !a7ing advantage of the silence that had descended on my grandfather, I turned my gaHe from him to the vast area de6ned by words. I don8t care, I told myself, who owns those date palms, those trees or this blac7, crac7ed earth ) all I 7now is that it8s the arena for my dreams and my playground. y grandfather then continued: Ges, my boy, forty years ago all this belonged to asood ) two)thirds of it is now mine.  !his was news for me, for I had imagined that the land had belonged to my grandfather ever since >od8s (reation. I didn8t own a single feddan when I 6rst set foot in this village. asood was then the owner of all these riches. !he position had changed now, though, and I thin7 that before Allah calls me to "im I shall have bought the remaining third as well.E I do not 7now why it was I felt fear at my grandfather8s words ) and pity for our neighbor asood. "ow I wished my grandfather wouldn8t do what he8d saidJ I remembered asood8s singing, his beautiful voice and powerful laugh that resembled the gurgling of water. y grandfather never laughed. I as7ed my grandfather why asood had sold his land. omen, and from the way my grandfather pronounced the word I felt that women was something terrible. asood, my boy, was a much)married man. 4ach time he married he sold me a feddan or two. I made the 9uic7 calculation that asood must have married some ninety women. !hen I remembered his three wives, his shabby appearance, his lame don7ey and its dilapidated saddle, his galabia with the torn sleeves. I had all but rid my mind of the thoughts that jostled in it when I saw the man approaching us, and my grandfather and I e-changed glances. e8ll be harvesting the dates today, said asood. #on8t you want to be there= I felt, though, that he did not really want my grandfather to attend. y grandfather, however, jumped to his feet and I saw that his eyes spar7led momentarily with an intense brightness. "e pulled me by the hand and we went o@  to the harvesting of asood8s dates. Someone brought my grandfather a stool covered with an o-hide, while I remained standing. !here was a vast number of people there, but though I 7new them all, I found myself for some reason watching asood: aloof from that great gathering of people he stood as though it were no concern of his, despite the fact that the date palms to be harvested were his own. Sometimes his attention would be caught by the sound of a huge clump of dates crashing down from on high. Once he shouted up at the boy perched on the very summit of the date palm who had begun hac7ing at a clump with his long, sharp sic7le: &e careful you don8t cut the heart of the palm. o one paid any attention to what he said and the boy seated at the very summit of the date palm continued, 9uic7ly and energetically, to wor7 away at the

branch with his sic7le till the clump of dates began to drop li7e something descending from the heavens. I, however, had begun to thin7 about asood8s phrase, the heart of the palm. I pictured the palm tree as something with feeling, something possessed of a heart that throbbed. I remembered asood8s remar7 to me when he had once seen me playing with the branch of a young palm tree: alm trees, my boy, li7e humans, e-perience joy and su@ering. And I had felt an inward and unreasoned embarrassment. hen I again loo7ed at the e-panse of ground stretching before me I saw my young companions swarming li7e ants around the trun7s of the palm trees, gathering up dates and eating most of them. !he dates were collected into high mounds. I saw people coming along and weighing them into measuring bins and pouring them into sac7s, of which I counted thirty. !he crowd of people bro7e up, e-cept for "ussein the merchant, ousa the owner of the 6eld ne-t to ours on the east, and two men I8d never seen before. I heard a low whistling sound and saw that my grandfather had fallen asleep.  !hen I noticed that asood had not changed his stance, e-cept that he had placed a stal7 in his mouth and was munching at it li7e someone sated with food who doesn8t 7now what to do with the mouthful he still has. Suddenly my grandfather wo7e up, jumped to his feet, and wal7ed toward the sac7s of dates. "e was followed by "ussein the merchant, ousa the owner of the 6eld ne-t to ours and two strangers. I glanced at asood and saw that he was ma7ing his way toward us with e-treme slowness, li7e a man who wants to retreat but whose feet insist on going forward. !hey formed a circle around the sac7s of  dates and began e-amining them, some ta7ing a date or two to eat. y grandfather gave me a 6stful, which I began munching. I saw asood 6lling the palms of both hands with dates and bringing them up close to his nose, then returning them.  !hen I saw them dividing up the sac7s between them. "ussein the merchant too7 ten; each of the strangers too7 6ve. ousa the owner of the 6eld ne-t to ours on the eastern side too7 6ve, and my grandfather too7 6ve. Knderstanding nothing, I loo7ed at asood and saw that his eyes were darting to left and right li7e two mice that have lost their way home.  Gou8re still 6fty pounds in debt to me, said my grandfather to asood. e8ll tal7 about it later. "ussein called his assistants and they brought along the don7eys, the two strangers produced camels, and the sac7s of dates were loaded onto them. One of  the don7eys let out a braying which set the camels frothing at the mouth and complaining noisily. I felt myself drawing close to asood, felt my hand stretch out toward him as though I wanted to touch the hem of his garment. I heard him ma7e a noise in his throat li7e the rasping of a sheep being slaughtered. Cor some un7nown reason, I e-perienced a sharp sensation of pain in my chest. I ran o@ into the distance. "earing my grandfather call after me, I hesitated a little, then continued on my way. I felt at that moment that I hated him.