Teacher's Guide
A. LESSON INFORMATION
B. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
C. BOOK INFORMATION
D. TEACHING STEPS

Module 1 - No Poverty

This lesson is designed for Junior High School students and aims to develop students’ critical literacy and understanding of the issue of Social Inclusion in the topic of ‘No Poverty’ through multimodal literacy. Using the picture book “The Suitcase”, students will develop their critical thinking by expressing their ideas about the issue of poverty and social inclusion through reading activities.

Students develop key literacy skills through various strategies. Read Aloud enhances listening and vocabulary, while the 5W1H approach (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How) helps break down and analyze texts. Previewing and predicting encourage students to infer what will happen next, and Writing Reflection allows them to express their thoughts and understanding. Together, these strategies enrich students’ comprehension and critical thinking on the issue of No Poverty.

Students will engage in multimodal learning through a series of interactive activities in the students’ worksheets. In the main activities, they will explore the front and back covers of the book, encouraging them to make predictions about the content. Next, they will meet the author and characters of the story, gaining a deeper understanding of the narrative’s background and the key figures involved. Finally, students will listen to the story, enjoy its progression, and respond with their reflections, enhancing their comprehension and critical thinking skills

Cross-subject connections will be made in:

  • Social Studies: Practicing social relationships can be explored through activities that emphasize understanding social interactions, teamwork, tolerance, and social values such as empathy, cooperation, and social responsibility.
  • Civic Education: Fostering friendships and social relationships can be linked to understanding citizenship, respect for diversity, and responsible community participation.
  • Art and Culture: Learning about different cultures and art from different countries. Create visual representations, like art exhibitions to raise awareness about society.

The module also ties into children’s interests such as dance contest, culture, and granparents and children’s rights such as best interest of the child, family guidance as children develop rest, play, culture, arts,  with reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 1, which focuses on No poverty issue.

By the end of this module, students will be able to:

    1. Identify the main characters and the setting of the story.
    2. Explain the moral value of the story (Lawzi Condition).
    3. Discuss the importance of SDG 1 (No Poverty) and how it applies to their community.
    4. Analyze the events in the story critically to understand how the character overcome his problem.
    5. Evaluate the social inclusion issue in the story problem and relate it to their real-life condition.
    6. Create a personal reflection on how they can contribute to create No Poverty condition in society based on their learnings from the story.

Book Title: The Suitcase
Author: Mbongeni Nzimande
Illustrator: Elizabeth Pulles
Publisher: Indwa Publisher
Illustrative Style: Spread Illustration
Synopsis:

With the big dance contest just days away, Lwazi fears he’ll have nothing to wear. With a little help from his Gogo and the spirit of his Mkhulu, he might just get everything his heart wishes for.

The book was 23 pages, originally written in isiZulu local language, as one of the Results in Education for All Children (REACH)’s projects supported Room to Read and local South African publishers to create 20 new books in South African languages

Link to the book: The Suitcase

PART A. PRE-ACTIVITIES

1. Introducing No Poverty
Begin by prompting students to reflect on the condition of poor people around them and address the issue of no poverty. Post guiding questions (e.g., “Do you know anyone that life is less lucky than you?”, “What do you feel about poor people?’, “Do you share with your friends?”) in a class discussion forum for students to respond. Introduce the concept of “no poverty” and encourage them to share their thoughts online.
2. Exploring the Front and Back Covers
Strategy: Previewing, Visualizing, Predicting.
Post the image of The Suitcase’s front cover and ask students to predict the story by observing the details. Have them answer questions in a discussion thread (e.g., “What is the story about? What does the logo tell you?”). Afterward, share the back cover summary and ask more questions to deepen their predictions.
3. Meeting the Author
Provide a short biography of the author, Mbongeni Nzimande, and discuss where he is from the condition in his original country, and his background in writing the story about No Poverty.

PART B. MAIN ACTIVITIES

1. Reading and Enjoying the Story
Strategy: Visualizing, Questioning, and Identifying
Share an audio or video reading of the story, or have students read it themselves. Afterward, guide them to respond to comprehension questions from the orientation, complication, and resolution of the story. Students can submit answers in a quiz or discussion post in class.
Lead students to comprehend the story through the Generic Structure of Narrative Text which are: Orientation, Complication, and Resolution Questions. The orientation emphasizes the characters, settings, theme, and initial conflicts of the story. The complication questions will lead the students to comprehend the conflict, obstacles, or challenges that are faced by the main character. The Resolution questions will help the students know how the conflicts are resolved, provide closure to the events, and discuss how the characters have changed and how the story ends.
2. Bringing Out Student’s Voices
Strategy: Connecting, Inferring
In this step, bring out the student’s voices to reflect on the story, share their opinions, and relate it to students’ real experiences. Encourage students to relate the story to their lives by posting reflection questions (e.g., “If you were Lawzi, what would you do?” How will you solve Lawzi’s problem?”). They can share their responses on paperboard or another online platform.
3. Reflecting Student’s Feelings
Strategy: Evaluating
Have students reflect on their emotions after reading the story using emoticons or short-text answers. Explore the students feeling after they read the book, what they have learned from the book, and What they want to do after reading the book. What is the impact of the book on the students, teachers can relate the story to the students’ real-life
4. Activating Vocabulary (AV)
Lead students to activate new words from the story through the HeKU Table Activity. Guide the students to find words from the storybook in this following category: words that they never heard before, words that they ever heard but did not know the meaning of, words that they ever heard and know the meaning of, and some words that they know and they ever use the words in sentences and utterances. Provide a list of new vocabulary words from the story (e.g., “grumpy”, “proud”, “sniff”). Ask students to define the words using context clues from the text and complete the table. Have them write sentences or utterances using these words that they already know and submit them for class assignments. Teachers can download the HeKU Table.
Ask the students to work on the vocabulary exercise to assess their vocabulary mastery.
Link to Answer Key of Vocabulary Exercise

PART C. EXTRA ACTIVITY (Optional)

At this part, the teacher can create an extra activity outside the module that is related to the context of the story. Ask students to create unique costumes from waste materials and challenge their creativity to imitate the character in the story. Students can write the procedure of making the costume in English and present it in front of the class. All students can have a simple fashion show of their creations and a photo session of their artwork. Teachers can also conduct art exhibitions of the students’ creations.