The Old Man and the Sea: Reading & Writing materials

I designed these materials to go along with the novella to help Second Language Learners who are studying the First Language course using the Cambridge CIE and Oxford AQA exam boards. This was their first real exposure as to how they would deal with language, imagery, tone, inference etc. and use the skills they were taught in previous lessons. The materials can be used over multiple lessons or as a longer holiday homework (my students had a 4 week holiday in which to complete the assignments). There are 9 tasks connected to the reading of the book; 5 are shorter and 4 are longer. It is obviously up to the teacher how to use the materials, but either pack can be set as homework or classwork and for individuals, pairs or groups. Both the short and long tasks are closely combined with the 15 ppts attached as part of this resource. The resources are as follows:

Short 1: Author’s biographical details (set as classwork or homework)
Short 2: Why was the book written? (as above)
Short 3: First impressions of the book (as above)
Short 4: Vocabulary and interesting techniques found in the book (as above)
Short 5: Character biography of Santiago (as above)
All of these exercises can be found on the ppts

Handout 1: What have you learned about the protagonist of the story?
Handout 2: Pick an interesting passage and annotate, comment on vocabulary etc.
Handout 3: Personal reflection on reading the book
Handout 4: Change part of the story
Also found on ppts. These responses are only suggested answers to the set questions; you and your students could obviously supply different but equally relevant answers.

My students did find it challenging but they did enjoy it. It definitely gave them a new insight into how the English language can be used to convey many different ideas and images.