Response to Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"

I recently enjoyed re-reading Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart." I first read this novel in my 10th grade non-honors ELA class when I was 15 and living in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I can definitely see using this text if the curriculum asks for multiculturalism of some sort. Even if the curriculum doesn't ask for multiculturalism, the text is still valuable and can be used to teach to other learning targets. It really two stories in one, and how Achebe intersects his topic with his focus allows for myriad teaching strategies. Theme, plot development, characterization, symbols and motifs, the book offers it all.

Achebe's hidden world can be difficult for struggling students to comprehend--in my 10th grade class we read the whole book aloud and never had to read parts for homework (non-honors)--but it is written at a reading level that is very low. Achebe writes with such fluidity, concision and clarity that it is very easy to read. This means that it is a good text that can be shared with struggling readers to encourage them in reading difficult texts. While the reading level is low, the comprehension level can be challenging and provides ample opportunities to have students identify the tribal terms, ask clarifying questions, make predictions, etc. As a teacher I could use this text to provide my students with practice (I have a good worksheet idea in mind that pulls passages from the text) in using contexts to identify words they are unfamiliar with too.

For a higher-level class, concentration on how the two parts compare and contrast, how Achebe maintains the balance between his topic and focus, theme development, etc., all prove that this novel can be used as a valuable instructional text.

This is also a text that can be used in a humanities class as it provides ample opportunities to teach social studies in addition to ELA.