Case study: Journey to Jo’burg by Beverley Naidoo
Blackwell First School in an English midland county uses a dilemma-led approach to learning (Kidd, 2020) where the children are invited to pose and discuss dilemmas in decision-making in order to give them experience of the variability of human experience. Helen Townsend planned a three week teaching sequence for her class of eight and nine year olds based on Journey to Jo’burg by Beverley Naidoo as part of the ‘Go Global’ theme for the year group for that term. For the first part of the sequence, one of the key the learning objectives was learning to pose questions. Before introducing the class to the novel, Helen asked them to tell her what they knew about apartheid and gradually revealed the painting ‘Apartheid’ by Ndabuko Noli, asking ‘Where might this be? What can you see? How does it make you feel?’ She also asked them if it reminded them of anything else they knew. Some of the children’s comments were:
The police have white skin and they are arresting people with black skin. I don’t think they have equal rights.
This might be in America because Rosa Parks wasn’t treated well by white people.
I would feel petrified if I was a Black person because they haven’t done anything wrong and the police are treating them badly.
Nelson Mandela tried to help Black people have equal rights.
Following this, Helen showed the class an image of Beverley Naidoo with speech bubbles explaining about her own childhood:
When I was growing up as a child I was the child who had two mothers. I had my own mother as well as a different mother who, although she was looking after me, really belonged to some other children.
I called her Mary but her proper name was Mma Sebale. She had her own children but was not allowed to live with them. They lived 150 miles away and she only saw them when we went on holiday.
One awful day she received a telegram informing her that two of her children had died of a disease called diphtheria. It was not possible for me to get that disease.
The children read information about Apartheid and asked each other questions to deepen their understanding. Finally, Helen posed a dilemma: ‘How could I (Beverley Naidoo) let the world know what was really happening? What could I do to tell my nieces and nephews about South Africa and the situation?’ With their learning partners, the children thought of ideas, giving reasons. Helen explained that to tell this story to the world, Beverley wrote the novel Journey to Jo’burg. Helen had wrapped up the book and gradually unwrapped it, talking about the cover and the blurb. Before starting to read the book, she showed the class the letter included at the back which describes it as an ‘undesirable publication’. This was in Durban, 1985. Helen explained that the book was only published and taken off the banned list in South Africa after Nelson Mandela was released. The class discussed what might make a book ‘undesirable’ and why it could be read in other countries but not in South Africa.
After shared reading the first part of Chapter 1, Helen asked the children to offer questions about what was happening and demonstrated how to rank questions in order of relevance to what they wanted to find out, for example, if they could only ask one of their questions, which one would it be. After reading to the end of the chapter independently, to consolidate this work the children created questions to ask of the key characters and made sure they could answer any questions they posed.
After reading the beginning of Chapter 2, Helen modelled drawing the setting and the children drew their own sketches, adding thoughts about how Naledi and Tiro were feeling throughout their journey. Max adds thought bubbles to his drawings which say ‘This is going to take a while.’, ‘Ow it’s hot! A ticket would help.’, I’m too huuungry!’ and ‘Gulp! This is scary!’
Figure W18.1.1
Max’s summary drawing
The work continued with the children working and writing in role as they followed Naledi and Tiro’s journey and witnessed the treatment they observed and experienced. In writing letters to Nono, their grandmother, Millie’s descriptive detail captures the atmosphere and heat of the children’s journey:
Two days ago, very early in the morning, we left for Jo’burg. The red dusty road was hot so Tiro and I decided to walk along the nice cold grass. As we were walking, we saw some fields full of oranges, I picked some and it was getting dark as a boy (a very kind boy) gave us a place to stay and some sacks for warmth.
And Max captures Naledi’s feelings and also incorporates footnotes, as in the novel, to explain Tswana terms:
After that, a kind Black lorry driver gave us a lift to Jo’burg but he brought up the mines which made us sad because Rra* died down there… We were delighted when we got safely to Jo’Burg! The kind driver gave us money to get the bus.
We’re about to get on the bus and were going to find Mma*. Don’t worry, me and Tiro have stuck together like a limpet on a rock.
Love from Naledi xxxx
(*Rra – their father *Mma – their mother.)
The final piece of work was a first person recount about the police raid in Chapter 8 The Police. This extract shows how Alice has entered into Naledi’s feelings, and the fear evoked by the policemen:
Whilst we were on the platform, out of the blue, came millions of policemen appearing from each side of the track. It was like a magician made them appear. Everyone froze up as they were so terrified. It was commotion again! People started rummaging in pockets searching for their pass. One boy said, ‘I left my pass at home.’
The policeman shouted back ‘Hou jou bek!’1 And…SLAP! The boy started shouting out his address as he was carried away.
1 ‘Hou jou bek!’ means ‘shut up’ in Afrikaans.
Reflecting on the work, Helen felt that:
It was one of the most enjoyable sequences of learning I have taught because of the children’s engagement with the plot and characters and the empathy the children showed. They were eager to read more of the book each day and find out what happened to Naledi and Tiro. They showed real concern.
The dilemma-based learning about Beverley Naidoo and exploring artwork gave the children a good understanding from the start about Apartheid. The children made excellent connections between the fictional events and the real life of the author and were extremely engaged in class discussions.
References
Kidd, D. (2020) A Curriculum of Hope: As rich in Humanity as in Knowledge. Carmarthen: Independent Thinking Press.
Naidoo, Beverley (2008) Journey to Jo’burg. HarperCollins. ISBN 8601404260902.
Rhetorical devices
Attention to rhetoric is becoming a feature of official curriculum documents and teachers are introducing children to rhetorical conventions for talk and writing which can help them to analyse and construct texts which are meant to convince an audience to believe in a particular point of view. Some examples which might be used in the classroom:
Anadiplosis: the use of the same word at the end of one sentence and at the beginning of the subsequent sentence, for example, ‘Honesty leads to trust. Trust leads to confidence. Confidence leads to success.’ This gives the impression that it is an undeniable progression.
Anaphora: repeating certain words or phrases at the beginning of sentences to increase the force of the point being made, for example the famous repetition of ‘I have a dream’ in Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in the civil rights march on Washington in August, 1963. The rhythmic repetition emphasises the message.
Tricolon (or ascending tricolon): a series of three words, phrases, or clauses, for example, ‘I have seen the dangers, I have witnessed the challenges, and I have marvelled at the courage shown by this group of young people’ suggesting the completeness of the speaker’s experience.
Alliteration: repetition of the initial sound of each word for effect, for example, ‘He is a bully, a braggart and a buffoon.’ Each extra repetition of the alliterative letter adds weight to the point.
Hyperbole: an exaggerated statement for example, ‘I shall completely transform the structure of the internet overnight.’ which is meant to show any opposition that to be convincing or authentic they will have to do more than you.
Hypophora: asking a question then answering it, for example, ‘Do you know what courage means? Courage means being able to speak about your fears’ to draw attention to the final statement.
Expeditio: listing possibilities then explaining why all but one of them is useless, for example, ‘If you are worried about something, you might buy a parrot and try to have a conversation with it; you might talk to yourself in the mirror; you might have a discussion with the television; or you might ring a friend because only a real human being can give you the support you need.’ This indicates that the speaker has thought of all the possible options and only one is correct or sensible.
Antiphrasis (irony): mismatch between expectation and reality, for example, after watching a tedious film saying ‘Well that was interesting, wasn’t it?’ Often meant as humour, irony draws attention to a point through juxtaposition of what a listener might expect and saying its opposite.
Children enjoy knowing correct terminology, so they might be asked to try out some of these devices and, importantly, look for them in examples of speech or writing. Importantly, to fulfil the principles of classical rhetoric, all rhetorical speech or writing should be truthful, show empathy and be based on evidence.