Unit 02: The Gifts – an Overview

Description

This story is adapted from O. Henry’s Christmas classic ‘The Gifts of the Magi’. The teaching procedure illustrates how students are taken step by step to analyse the plot, discuss the characters and respond to the theme. One special literary feature of the language, namely, word inversion, is also focused on.

The story is about a young wife who has sold her beautiful hair and spent it on a watch chain as a Christmas gift for her husband, while at the same time the husband has sold the watch to buy his wife the hair combs that she likes.

Critical thinking

Problem solving skills

Objectives

Students are able

1. 
   To retell the story with support
   
2. 
   To respond to the characters in the story and relate their behaviour to their experiences
   
3. 
   To identify and discuss the theme
   
4. 
   To make evaluative comments about the story
   
5. 
   To appreciate the use of special literary features to enhance meaning
   
6. 
   To rewrite sentences with word inversion into a standard form and vice versa.
   

Writing style: the use of literary features

• 
  The use of colour and repeated words to strengthen mood and feeling
  

• 
  The use of word inversion to reinforce meaning
  

• 
  Intensive reading and interpretation
  
• 
  Reading, listening and speaking: Jigsaw activity for sequencing events in the story
  
• 
  Speaking: Whole class / group discussion (on characterization and theme/ message)
  
• 
  Writing:
  

~ Story review

~ Sentence transformation

• 
  Writing and artwork
  

1. 
   Story text of The Gifts (2 versions: one abridged, one simplified)
   
2. 
   Sentence cutouts (2 versions)
   
3. 
   Story map framework
   
4. 
   Discussion guidelines (2 versions)
   
5. 
   Story Evaluation Chart
   
6. 
   Worksheets for sentence transformation (2 sets)
   
7. 
   Website on O.Henry for reference:
   

• 
  Two versions of texts are provided to cater for learners of different abilities (The simplified version is for less able learners and the abridged version is for more able ones.)
  
• 
  The plots in the two story versions are identical, but adaptation has been made in terms of sentence complexity and choice of vocabulary.
  
• 
  Differentiation also lies in the support given in doing the while-reading and post-reading tasks: the discussion guideline and worksheets for the less able students are given with more prompts, and there are some extended tasks on the theme and language study for more able students.