Lesson Plan in Afro-Asian Literature

I. Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:
A. Gain insights about African life through their short story;
B. Relate one's experiences to the short story
II. Motivation
The teacher will ask the students the following questions:
Do you consider yourself as an honest person?
If yo know a friend has done something dishonest, would you tell the truth to the people?

III. Presentation
Short story: As the Night, The Day by Abioseh Nicol and Sierra Leone.
The reading activity will be done through “Predictions”. The teacher will group the
students and will be given strips of paragraphs from the story. When they reach the end of the
paragraph, the teacher will ask some questions to the students to predict what will happen next in the
story.

Reading 1
Question: What do you think happen on the the thermometer that Bandele is using?
Reading 2
Question: Why do you think Bandele said to Kojo to “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”
Reading 3
Question: Why do you think Mr. Abu asked all of the students to come back?
Reading 4
Question: Do you think Bandele will speak the truth this time?
Reading 5
Question: Why did Kojo got to school early?

IV. Valuing
Write a letter to someone whose honesty has impressed you.
 As the Night, The Day

Kojo and Bandele were walking towards the laboratory with their science manuals in their
hands. They looked around the laboratory for Mr. Abu, the lab attendant but he was not around. Basu,
another student, was looking out the window. The two African boys proceeded to perform their
experiment.

“They say it is hotter inside the flame than on its surface,” Kojo said. “I wonder how they
knew.”

I think you mean the opposite,” Bandele answered. “Let's try it,” he continued.

“How?”

“Let's take the temperature inside.”

“All right, her's a thermometer. You do it.”

“I'll take the temperature of the outer flame first, then you take the yellow one!”

Then Bandele held the thermometer gently forward to the flame and Kojo craned to see. The
thin thread of quicksilver shot upward within the stem of the instrument and there was a slight crack.
The stem had been broken.

“Oh my God!” Whispered Kojo.

Shut up!” Bandele said in a low voice. “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” he whispered
to Kojo. Then picking up the broken halves of the thermometer, he tiptoed to the waste bin and dropped
them in.

The rest of the class started pouring in. Basu, who ad been standing at the end of the room
limped to join the class in performing a physics experiment. After experiment, the class dispersed and
started walking across the hot grass.

“Come back, all of you, come back!” Mr. Abu's stentorian voice rang out, across them.

Vernier, the physics teacher, held up, I am afraid I shall have to detain you for an hour after
school as punishment,” Vernier said.

Some boys raised their hands to say they were to play in a soccer match.

“I don't care,” Vernier said, as he left to feth his things from the main building.

Kojo got up, feeling he must speak the truth, but Bandele spoke ahead.

“Basu was here first before any of the class,” he said firmly.

“I did not break the thermometer, sir,” he replied.

 “Well, if you did not, someone did. We shall continue with the detention,” Vernier announced.

Then the boys turned to Basu. They threw books at him. Books, corks, boxes of matches rained
on Basu. He bent his head and shielded his face with his bent arm.

“I did not do it, I swear I did not do it. Stop it you fellows,” he moaned over and over again. A
small cut had appeared on his temple and he was bleeding.

Kojo groped for something bulky enough to throw at Basu and picked up the Bible.

“Stop it,” Vernier shouted through the open doorway. “Stop it, you hooligans, you beasts.”

They all became quiet and shamefacedly put down what they were going to throw. Basu was
crying quietly, his thin body shaking.

“Go home , all of you, go home. I am ashamed of you.” His black face shone with anger. “You
are an utter disgrace of your nation and to your race.”

They crept away, quietly, uneasily, avoiding each other's eyes.

Vernier started dressing Basus's wounds, put Basu's bandaged head against his waist coat and
dried the boy's tears with his handkerchief, gently patting his shaking shoulders.

“It wouldn't have been so bad if I had done it, sir,” he mumbled, “but I did not do it. I swear to
God I did not.”

“Hush, hush. As you grow older.” Vernier advised, “you will learn that men are punished not
always for what they do, but often for what people think they will do, or for what they are. Remember
that and you will find it easier to forgive them. To thine own self be true!” Vernier held up his fist in a
mock dramatic gesture, quoting from the Shakespeare examination, declaiming to the dripping taps and
empty benches and still afternoon, to make Basu laugh.

Basu dried his eyes and smiled warmly and replied: “And it shall follow as the night, the day.”
Hamlet, Act One, Scene Three, Polonius to Laertes.”

There's a good chap. First class, Grade One. I shall give you a lift home.”

Kojo and Bandele walked down the road together.

“The fuss they made over a silly old thermometer,” Bandele began. Basu did not do it, of
course,” Bandele said.

The next day, Kojo got to school early. He told Bandele he was going to confess.

He sought Abu.

“I broke the thermometer yesterday,” Kojo said in a businesslike manner.

“Well, I never!” Abu said. “What do you think you will gain by this? Basu broke it. He came to
tell me this morning. The whole matter is settled. He should have told us yesterday, but there you are,”
he added, “I guess you cannot hope much from a Syrian boy.”