A+Long+Way+Gone

//A Long Way Gone // by Ishmael Beah

Essential Questions = Life =
 * What happens when the will of an individual is in conflict with the will of the majority?
 * To what degree is a society responsible for protecting its children?
 * What role does music play in people's lives?
 * How can veterans of war reintegrate into society?
 * What are "blood diamonds"?

Literature
 * What is a memoir?
 * To what degree do memoirs reveal truth?
 * What is the difference between factual truth and story truth?
 * How does Beah succeed (or fail) at making a reader understand his experience?
 * Some critics have said that not all events have happened as stated in the book. What does Beah say about these claims?
 * According to Zinsser (in the memoir article), people should "be yourself, speak freely, and think small." To what degree does Beah accomplish this?

Anticipatory Set
Directions: Read each statement. Determine whether you strongly agree, somewhat agree, are neutral, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree. Explain your reasoning for your stance. Be ready to discuss your responses.
 * 1) Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions in all cases.
 * 2) A country has a right to use all of its citizens, regardless of age, as soldiers.
 * 3) Children, aged 13-17, should be able to fight for their country if they want to do so.
 * 4) Guns give people power.
 * 5) All people are capable of evil.
 * 6) Children have a right to a carefree childhood.
 * 7) There is always hope in life.
 * 8) If someone kills your family member, you should be able to seek revenge.
 * 9) Drug use render people unable to make good decisions and, therefore, people on drugs are not responsible for their actions.
 * 10) Once somebody has committed an evil act, he/she is unable to be a productive member of society.

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Have you heard Kanye West's song "Diamonds are Forever"? Read the background information about the song to learn a little bit about it.

[|Background of "Diamonds are Forever"]

Setting/Historical Context What are "blood diamonds"?

Country Background/Historical Background
Where is Sierra Leone? What caused civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990's? [|CIA-- The World Factbook, Sierra Leone]

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// **Diamonds of War, National Geographic** //

Author Study Who is Ishmael Beah?

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=[|CNN Interviews and Article with Beah]=

Let's listen to Beah in his own words:

Beah's Home Page

<span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Study Guide/Reading Questions

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 1-3 =

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. How did Ishmael Beah’s grandmother explain the local adage that “we must strive to be like the moon” (p. 16)?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Why has Ishmael remembered this saying ever since childhood? What does it mean to him?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 3. As Chapter 2 begins, we flash forward to Ishmael’s new life in New York City. He relates a dream of pushing a wheelbarrow. What is in the wheelbarrow, and where is he pushing it? What does Ishmael mean when he says, “I am looking at my own” (p. 19)?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. “That night for the first time in my life,” writes Ishmael in Chapter 3, “I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life” (p. 22). What prompts him to observe this? How old is he at the time? Also, who are the five boys with whom Ishmael flees at the end of this chapter?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">5. Why did the rebels attack the towns so fiercely? What was their goal? Does it make sense to you? (24)

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 4-6 (26-48) =

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Why, after their escape, do Ishmael and the other boys sneak back into the village of Mattru Jong?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Commenting on how a rebel soldier had interrogated an old man, Ishmael writes: “Before the war a young man wouldn’t have dared to talk to anyone older in such a rude manner. We grew up in a culture that demanded good behavior from everyone, and especially from the young” (p. 33). Where else in A Long Way Gone did you encounter the brutal, thuggish, or even sadistic behavior of young rebels—or of other young people?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 3. When the rebels overtake Beah and his brother and friends, they submit them to selection processes. Why? What were the rebels selecting for? What did they see in Beah and his brother, Junior?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. In Chapter 6, how and why do Ishmael and his companions start farming in the village of Kamator? Why is farming so difficult for Ishmael?

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 7-9 =

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 1. What does Ishmael tells us was the “most difficult part of being in the forest” (p.52)? And who are the six boys Ishmael encounters after wandering and surviving in the forest on his own for more than a month? Where does he know some of these boys from?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Who is the anonymous man with the fishing hut near the ocean, and how doeshe help to soothe and heal the severely scalded feet of Ishmael and the others? Later, how are the lives of all seven boys saved by rap music—specifically the music of LL Cool J?

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 10-12 (69-100) =

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Describe the “name-giving ceremony” (p. 75) that Ishmael recollects his grandmother telling him about. Who attended this ceremony, and what did it entail in the way of preparation, purpose, ritual, and food?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Also, what do we learn in Chapter 10 of the various backgrounds of Ishmael’s companions? And how does Saidu die?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Who is Gasemu? Why does Ishmael befriend him and then later try to strangle him?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. At the village of Yele, a pivotal shift in this memoir begins when Ishmael goes from being an observer and victim of savage, war-triggered violence to being both of these things as well as a perpetrator of such violence. How does this shift happen? Do Ishmael and his companions have any choice in making it?

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 13-15 (114-138) = <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">media type="custom" key="28114739"

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. In Chapter 13, the boy soldiers are given white tablets by their army superiors.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">What are these? Why they being handed out?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. What do Ishmael and the other boy soldiers do when they’re not out on a mission? What movies do they like to watch, and why? What else to they do with their spare time?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">3. At one point, the lieutenant tells them, “We are not like the rebels,those riffraffs who kill people for no reason” (p. 123). Is this true?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Also, why is Ishmael promoted to junior lieutenant? How did he achieve this new rank?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">5. As Chapter 15 begins, a dreadful, nightmarish routine is, by now, firmly in place—“In my head my life was normal,” Ishmael writes (p. 126). How long has he been a soldier? And what happens to Ishmael and Alhaji, and a few other select boys, in the town of Bauya? Where are they taken, and by whom?

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Who is Mambu? Why does Ishmael take a liking to him? And who is Esther, and why does Ishmael—later on—take a liking to her?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Benin Home, where Ishmael undergoes psychological, emotional, and social counseling, as well as physical and medical attention, is where he keeps hearing the “this isn’t your fault” remark from various staffers and professionals. Does he ever really accept this mantra? Explain.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">3. In Chapter 17, Ishmael describes “the first time [he’d] dreamt of [his] family

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">since [he] started running away from the war” (p. 165). Paraphrase this nightmare,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">explaining how it differs from the many other dreams we’ve heard about from

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ishmael. Also, explain how the dream illustrates his inner conflicts.

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chapters 19-21 =

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13.3333333333333px; vertical-align: baseline;">4

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. As he is leaving Benin Home, Ishmael says farewell to his friend Alhaji, who

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">salutes him while whispering, “Goodbye, squad leader.” “I couldn’t salute him in

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">return,” Ishmael writes (p. 180). Why?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">2.Describe the family Ishmael goes to live with after his eight-month

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">rehabilitation. Who are they? How is he related to them? What does he think of

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">them? Is he entirely honest with them? Which members of his new family is Ishmael

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">closest to?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">3. What is the “open metal box” (p. 186) that Ishmael is so confused by? Why and

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">where has he encountered this box?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. How does Ishmael’s experience of New York City differ from what he had pictured

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">beforehand? What does he like most about New York? What doesn’t he like?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">And why is he visiting New York in the first place? Identify some of the meaningful

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">personal and professional contacts that our narrator makes there.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">5. How does Uncle Tommy die? And how, if at all, is his death facilitated or even

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">triggered by the civil war fighting that has reached Freetown and its environs?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">6. This memoir ends with a striking image, as Ishmael sees a mother telling her

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">two children a story that he had also heard as a child. It’s a memorable fable that

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">touches on several of the key themes of this book, including violence, family, storytelling,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">childhood, and African village life. But it also carries a message of sacrifice.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Explain how this last message also reverberates throughout A Long Way Gone.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">7.. Look back to the short “New York City, 1998” prologue that begins this memoir.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">What is it, exactly, that Ishmael’s friends find so “cool” about his past? Do you

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline;">think his friends, after reading this book, would still feel that way? Why or why not?















<span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Vocabulary

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Preview of Vocabulary
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<span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Post-reading Activities <span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Discussion Questions

<span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Writing Assignments

<span style="background-color: #48d656; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">So What?/Community Connections

=[|Human Rights Watch]= In what other countries are children used to fight wars? What is being done to stop this problem?

= After the War/Updates = [|Sierra Leone, 2012]

[|New York Times article/Sentencing of Charles Taylor]

[|Blood Diamonds (ABC News/Naombi Campbell as witness)]
=[|Sierra Leone Refugee Allstars]=

= = <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1;">[|Child Soldiers Initiative (Initiative to End the Use of Child Soldiers)]

= **Poster/Presentation** = (from Amnesty International Human Rights Education Program) Choose a topic that is important to you.


 * 1) What are the external factors that affect personal choice on this issue?
 * 2) What are the players involved in this issue? Who has the most power? The least?
 * 3) How does each group affect the other?
 * 4) In what ways is each group limited by ideology, culture, and/or position? (What are the influencing factors?)
 * 5) What choices are available to each group?
 * 6) How can the actions of one group open options for the other group?
 * 7) What actions are currently being taken by each group to address the issue in question?
 * 8) Are the actions effective, given the limitations and power of each group and the ways in which the groups interact?
 * 9) What actions would increase the effectiveness of the movement?
 * 10) How would those actions affect the other groups?
 * 11) What choices could the individual make to more effectively create a change?
 * 12) How can individuals work together to address the issue in question?

Did you know that the film // Blood Diamond // is set in Sierra Leone? Check out this preview:

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