Free Resources for Things Fall Apart
- Erica Margaret
- Nov 1, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 7
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While digging through my Things Fall Apart materials, I realized that I have taught this book in a few different contexts: to advanced 8th graders in 2008, advanced 10th graders in 2012, and then to my IB SL Language & Lit students in 2018. I don't recommend trying to teach it to 8th graders. I don't really remember what I was thinking or why I did that, but I did enjoy reading it with my 10 Intensified and 11 IB, for different reasons. 10 Intensified and IB 11 are different classes, so I taught the book a bit differently for each. I combined all of the materials for all of the classes and then regrouped them in a way I thought would be most helpful (pre-reading/during/after/extension, etc.). Please enjoy theses (mostly) free Things Fall Apart resources.
Things Fall Apart Pre-Reading Materials
(IB & 10 Intensified)
I start every unit with some background building activities that help students prep their brains for the plot and themes of the book. The close reading helps us get used to the language of the novel and "opening lesson" introduces students to one of our unit themes: examining how our biases affect our judgement.
Things Fall Apart Plot/Comprehension Activities (During Reading-10 Intensified)
During reading activities help students process the plot of different chapters. The travel journal was my attempt to do this is a more creative way. I used all of the below "durning" activities with my 10 Intensified kids. When the kids are in 10th grade, we are trying to do analysis, but still in a more fun, hand-ons way, hence the products below.
Travel journal (paid product) -middle chapters
Plot/Comprehension Activities for IB
"During reading"
IB is a lot different than 10 Intensified. The students have intense summative assessments to prepare for and so the "during" activities were different than what I did with my 10 intensified kids. The year I was teaching this class, the IB oral assessment required students to do an oral analysis of a passage we had studied in class together. Hence, we closely studied a lot of passages. Once the students started reading the book, the format of each was as follows:
Reading quiz
Hand out passage
Give students time to annotate/prep passage
Class discussion about passage
Here are the handouts that I used with my IB students:
Early in Unit
Along with the reading calendar, we gave the students a bookmark with annotating requirements. We required students to annotate the book in order to prepare for the IB oral exam.
Middle of Unit
Reading quizzes. I would break up my unit test and just use the chapter questions each class. This was really important to do with the IB kids because I needed them to stick to the reading calendar and be ready for discussions. They are busy kids so reading would often get bumped to the bottom of the "to-do" list. Giving them reading quizzes encouraged them to keep up with the reading. Things Fall Apart Multiple Choice Unit Test (paid product)
Things Fall Apart Close Reading Passages
Here are the passages we analyzed as a class. Most of the passages I typed up if I had time, but if not, I just had the kids annotate in their books. In IB we had students purchase their books so that they could write in them. There are discussion questions for each passage.
Things Fall Apart 1st Page Close Reading (IB)-Chapter 1
Bride Price Passage (Students annotated in their book for this one.)
Ogbanje Passage Analysis (Students annotated this passage in their book.)
At this point in the novel, I start crying every time. Prepare your tissues.
Things Fall Apart Summative Activities (End)
Things Fall Apart Socratic Seminar (paid product)
Things Fall Apart Tests & Quizzes
10 Intensified or 11 IB
Things Fall Apart Connected Texts
"The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling (sets colonialism context)
Purple Hibiscus
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a contemporary Nigerian writer. She has published quite a few books but these are the ones I have used in the classroom. I have asked students to read Purple Hibiscus with Things Fall Apart and write a compare contrast paper. As well as bringing the Ibo from Things Fall Apart into modern day, it is just a darn good story that I enjoy reading every time.
Americanah
We studied Americanah in my IB Lang & Lit IB SL class and there's a direct allusion to Things Fall Apart.
Here are a few materials from the Americanah unit:
Well, that covers it. This is the end of my free Things Fall Apart resources. I hope they are helpful in getting you started.
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