site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Kw94qjdQA&t=127s

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13951696

ILOs

• Understand the general nature, purposes, and techniques of literature with a sense of its relationship to life and culture.
• Recognize a representative selection of literary works by major writers (including notable stylistic devices and features) representing a diversity of prominent historical and cultural traditions and issues.
• Understand the biographical, historical, and cultural contexts of a representative selection of works by major writers.
• Identify the relationships among the literary works studied and the philosophical, religious, political, social, and economic milieus of the cultures and subcultures within and among which they were written.
• Think, write, and speak about literary texts critically and effectively.

Primary Post

Choose two of the following prompts to address in this week’s DF. Indicate the number of your prompt in your post. The length of each post should be 250 words minimum. Research is necessary for this week’s DF. Consult and cite at least one reputable source in EACH of your posts. Your source may provide cultural or historic information, or it may share a scholar’s view on a facet of the novel. Some resources have been provided in this week’s reading and viewing materials.

• 1.  Things Fall Apart is a story of the devolution of individual and collective identities. Parts II and III are focused on this dissolution. Part I, however, is focused on Okonkwo’s rise and the development of his tribal identity. How does Okonkwo build his identity? How does honor motivate him? In what ways do fear and pride drive him?

• 2. Discuss 2-3 of the Igbo traditions included in Part I of the book. What does each tradition reveal about the values of Umuofia and its people? What do they reveal about Okonkwo specifically? Why might Achebe include descriptions of many of these traditions as part of his mission to “re-write the history of Africa”?