Unit 3 — Post-Colonial Voices: An Introduction

Learning objectives Link to heading

• I can read a short post-colonial extract (Achebe, Adichie, or Naipaul) and identify the writer’s stance toward the imperial archive.
• I can use voice-marking phrases (the speaker recalls, the narrator distances herself from, the text positions the reader).
• I can write a 280-word literary essay that engages a post-colonial source on its own terms.

curriculum framework (“Bildungsplan”) alignment Link to heading

• 3.4.1 / 3.5.1 Soziokulturelles Orientierungswissen / Themen
• 3.4.2 / 3.5.2 Interkulturelle kommunikative Kompetenz
• 3.4.3.2 / 3.5.3.2 Leseverstehen
• 3.4.3.5 / 3.5.3.5 Schreiben
• 3.4.4 / 3.5.4 Text- und Medienkompetenz

(Sources: https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-LF / https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-BF)

Lead-in story Link to heading

The class opened a short anthology of post-colonial writing with three openings: Chinua Achebe (1958), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003), and V. S. Naipaul (1979). Three voices, three decades, one shared problem: how to write in English without writing as the English. The class did not finish the argument that day, which Mr. Yilmaz said was a sign the books were working.

1. Activate Link to heading

Three-voice scan. Match each opening to a likely decade and continent of setting. Justify in 10 words each.

2. Input Link to heading

Reading — three openings (extracts) Link to heading

Achebe (1958, Things Fall Apart): Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements.

Adichie (2003, Purple Hibiscus): Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the étagère.

Naipaul (1979, A Bend in the River): The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

Voice-marking phrases Link to heading

the speaker recalls / the narrator distances herself from / the text positions the reader as / the opening lays claim to / the voice carries the weight of / the prose refuses the colonial register.

3. Practise Link to heading

Niveau E — controlled Link to heading

1. Match opening → likely setting (West Africa / post-colonial Africa with European parents / a Central African town).
2. T or F: Achebe’s opening foregrounds personal achievement. Adichie’s opening alludes directly to Achebe’s title.

Niveau E — productive Link to heading

3. Build 4 voice-marking sentences for the three extracts.

4. Produce Link to heading

Literary essay, 280 words. Read all three openings. Argue that one of them does the most work with the fewest sentences. Use 4 voice-marking phrases + 1 cleft + 1 quote per source.

Sample Link to heading

Of the three openings, it is Adichie’s that does the most work with the fewest sentences. The line — Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the étagère — is a direct allusion to Achebe’s 1958 title, which the narrator places quietly inside her domestic frame. The opening positions the reader inside an educated middle-class Nigerian Catholic household where the fall apart of post-colonial fiction has migrated from village politics to the broken figurines of a domestic shelf. By contrast, Achebe’s opening lays claim, with the calm of a history book, to Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond; the prose refuses the colonial register simply by treating the village world as the centre. Naipaul’s narrator, more abrasively, distances himself from sentimentality: The world is what it is. Each opening engages the imperial archive differently. Adichie’s wins, in my reading, because the allusion is buried inside an object — the étagère — that domesticates the entire post-colonial argument into one piece of furniture. The text positions the reader as a guest in a room where something has just shattered, and the shattering is, somehow, the inheritance.

5. Reflect Link to heading

• I can identify the writer’s stance toward the imperial archive.
• I can use voice-marking phrases.
• I can write a 280-word literary essay engaging a post-colonial source.

One thing in your notebook: Write one sentence using something you learned in this Unit.

Exam example Link to heading

Part A — Comprehension (~24 BE) Link to heading

Listen twice.

“Achebe’s 1958 opening lays claim, with the calm of a history book, to a village world. Adichie’s 2003 opening alludes to Achebe’s title from inside a domestic frame. Naipaul’s 1979 narrator distances himself with the line the world is what it is.”

1. Achebe year: ___ . 2. Achebe move: ___ . 3. Adichie move: ___ . 4. Naipaul stance: ___ .

Part B — Analysis (~18 BE) Link to heading

Read the three openings above.

1. Achebe — what is foregrounded: ___ . 2. Adichie — what does the opening allude to: ___ . 3. Naipaul — describe the tone in 5 words: ___ . 4. The étagère image — its argumentative role: ___ .

Part C — Composition (~18 BE) Link to heading

Insert voice-marking phrase.

1. ___ the calm of a history book.
2. ___ Achebe’s 1958 title.
3. ___ from sentimentality.
4. ___ as a guest in a room where something has shattered.

Mediation (~30 BE) Link to heading

Write 280 words: a literary essay engaging the three post-colonial openings. Use 4 voice-marking phrases.

Downloads Link to heading

Common pitfalls Link to heading

• Post-colonial is not a synonym for African — it covers Caribbean, South-Asian, and other contexts.
• Don’t celebrate or condemn — track the moves.
• Quote sparingly; integrate quotes inside your sentence.

Further reading / listening Link to heading

• Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958).
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus (2003).
• V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River (1979).

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