The Moment Before the Gun Went Off - session 3

• Engels
• Voortgezet speciaal onderwijs
• Leerroute 4

Welcome to Mrs Everstijn's online classroom

Literatures - short stories

Inge Everstijn-Veldhuizen

The Moment Before the Gun Went Off

by Nadine Gordimer

Lesson series:

1. Introduction + instruction key concepts + first reading
2. Second reading = reading comprehension
3. Post reading activities
   

Lesson series - learning objectives:

Students can…:

• explain key concept Apartheid
• explain key concept whiteness
• explain key concept core & periphery
• explain the impact of whiteness and core & periphery on key concept Apartheid.
• analyse literary texts using key concepts, STEAL method and the historical lens.
• offer underpinned reader responses
• learn in a collaborative setting

Session 3 - post reading

This session is focussing on critical thinking, implied meaning and text analyses (Beach, Appleman, Becho & Simon, 2016).

Class discussion on:
* What stands out to you. Explain why. (student’s own answer)
* Comparisons with Gordimer’s The Moment Before the Gun Went Off. (Elaborate funeral; luxurious coffin; women dressed in black)

What stands out to you.
Explain why.

Name comparisons between the funeral of Steven Biko and Gordimer’s story "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off".

Post reading - ending

Gordimer’s original story has one final sentence which was deleted for teaching purposes.

“The young black callously shot through the negligence of the white man was not the farmer’s boy; he was his son.”
1)    Does this change your opinion of the accident and the behaviour of certain characters? Explain why or why not.
2)    Which clues can you find in the text that hinted to Van der Vyver’s paternity.

Post reading - characters

1)    Use the attached STEAL-method grid (p15) to analyse Marais Van der Vyver, Alida Van der Vyver, Lucas, the young wife and the dead man’s mother.

2)    Looking at this grid what stands out and can you link this to any of the three key concepts; Apartheid, Whiteness and Core & Periphery?

Post reading - characters

Post reading - perspective

In this short story several perspectives have been mentioned. In your group analyse the death of Lucas from your assigned role, either the anti-apartheid movement prosecutor or the Afrikaner farmer’s community barrister for Marais Van der Vyver.

1)    Write an opening’s statement for the trial.
2)    Prepare for a debate in which you must battle against the opposing group (El Majidi, Janssen & de Graaff, 2021).

NOTE: According to El Majidi, Janssen & de Graaff in Levende Talen Tijdschrift (December 2021), students who receive debate education improve their writing skills significantly. 

Scaffolding: group members selection, individual work instead of group work, assessing discussion instead of participating, suitable for students with select mutism or other though similar communication problems.

Post reading - homework/assessment

Personal response: Write a 16-line review of Gordimer´s The Moment Before the Gun Went Off in which you offer your personal view on the story, link it to context and another medium, e.g. literary text, movie, lyrics etc., current affairs or your personal life (Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs, 2021).

Gordimer’s aim: According to The Norton Anthology English Literature; Major authors – volume 2 by Greenblatt (2019), Gordimer’s aim was “to evoke by way of the personal and of the precisely observed particular a broader political and historical totality.” (p1458). Do you agree? Explain why or why not in an essay-style text of 140 - 190 words. HELP: Gold B2 First new edition p166 & 167 + 180.  

Differentiation - enrichment

Who:  

What: 

How:  

Help:   

Result:

Done:  

individual / pairs / groups

Create your own trailer to this short story

film or design using a editing tool

none

shown in class

Send to teacher [e-mail]