Languag

e
Standard:

discovering the power to influence tone, mood, style, voice, and

meaning

Language 9-10

To be college and career ready in language, students must have firm control over the conventions of standard English. At the same
time, they must come to appreciate that language is as at least as much a matter of craft as of rules and be able to choose words,
syntax, and punctuation to express themselves and achieve particular functions and rhetorical effects. (CCSS, 51)

Featured Skill: Students will understand how

placement of punctuation, including semicolons and
colons, can affect meaning in a short story.

Grade Level:

10

(Suggested for grade 10)

Lesson Summary:
In this lesson, students will read, reread and analyze the language use in the short story
The Train from Rhodesia by Nadine Gordimer.

Theme and/or Essential

Question

Featured Text
Primary Text:
The Train From Rhodesia by Nadine
Gordimer
Secondary Text (choice of the
following):
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Crythe-Beloved-Country/AlanPaton/9780743262170/excerpt
Any other 10th grade novel that examines
the effects of colonialism
Process

Activity

How do choices in use of punctuation

affect meaning?
How can the use of specific diction
and imagery affect the overall tone of
a work?
When a new culture supplants a
traditional culture, what are the
effects of the cultural clash on
members of both cultures?
What are the immediate effects of
colonialism?
What are the long-lasting effects of
colonialism?
Instructional Steps

Language Page 1

Instruction

Modeling
and
explaining
the featured
grammar
skill

1. Background: Students should, in grades 6-8, learn about

semicolons, colons and other punctuation and how the use of
specific punctuation can convey specific meanings. Students
may not have explored using punctuation in terms of
purposeful inclusion in order to impact meaning. Students
may not have an understanding of the choices they have in
punctuation and how those choices ultimately create
emphasis on a particular element.
2. In this particular lesson, the teacher will not model the
featured skill. Students will engage in a close reading of the
short story The Train from Rhodesia by Nadine Gordimer in
order to determine the usage and impact of the grammatical
conventions. This lesson guides students to discover the
impact of usage in a piece of writing. For students to become
well acquainted with the text, multiple opportunities to read
the selection will be necessary.

in ContextPractice

Reading 1: Student reading

Reading
text and
identifying
deliberate
use of the
featured
grammar
skill

3. We encourage the reading of the entire selection before the

close study in order to provide a context for the particular
excerpt in this lesson. Independently, students will read and
annotate the selections from the short story The Train from
Rhodesia by Nadine Gordimer. When they annotate,
encourage the students to mark passages that show very
descriptive imagery, write questions beside parts they dont
understand and underline and then mark any other sentence
they feel may be important. Remind students that annotating
is not the underlining of the text; it is what they write in the
margins to explain WHY they underlined something. On this
first reading, students will mainly be reading for
comprehension.

Reading 2: Teacher or fluent reader reading

4.

Teachers may want to read the section aloud while being

careful not to overly influence meaning with inflection.
Students need to hear all the words pronounced correctly;
delivery includes deliberate choices that could begin to rob
students of the opportunity to make meaning based on the
word choice, word order, and punctuation. Students will want
to translate the text. As students gain understanding, they
will want to make adjustments to the translation. Teachers
may choose to break this reading into sections and stop and
ask questions as they go through the selection.

Language Page 2

Extensions
in WritingApplication

6.

Writing text
and
applying the
featured
grammar
skill in a
deliberate
way

Students will continue to annotate the short story as a group

for their groups literary device as shown above. Each group
should underline three examples of their language device on
the short story. It would work well if each group had a
different color pen to use (blue for punctuation, red for
imagery, etc.) In the margin, they should annotate the effect
of the punctuation on the story.

7. Students will then fill in the section of the chart for their

Writing: Use the featured skill(s)

10. Students will choose one of the writing options available.

(See options on student activity sheet)
11. Students will be asked to interpret, analyze and evaluate
the authors choice in language in their writing assignment.
Evaluate the use of the skill in other works, connecting their
discoveries in the Train From Rhodesia to a text they are
currently reading in World Literature.

For extension:

(Students may be provided options for extension

activities)

Additional
Resources

1. Have students rewrite paragraph 8 that begins with Here, let

me see that one OR paragraph 17 that begins The young
woman drew her head in removing all semicolons and
replacing them either with periods or with commas and
coordinating conjunctions. Students should write a paragraph
in a group that explains the effect of the change of
punctuation on the overall meaning of the paragraph and of
the story as a whole. Students should present their findings
the class orally.
Fortoextension:
(Students could be provided options for

Extensions

extension activities)
2.

Students could compare the punctuation, imagery, parallel

structure and syntax (phrasing) in this short story with that in
the first chapter of novel Cry, the Beloved Country. Students
should determine if the two authors use similar techniques
and if these language techniques mirror similar themes in the
two works.

3.

Students could contrast the punctuation, imagery, parallel

structure and syntax (phrasing) in this short story with that in
the final chapter of novel Things Fall Apart. In this chapter
there is a different point of view than in the other two works
above, and there is a shift in these structures. The contrast
works well to discuss point of view.

Additional
Resources

Language Page 3

lAdditiona
NotesTeacher
on andInterventi

For Intervention and support:

Teachers should review the questions for the excerpt carefully. The
questions are intended to help the students attend to the reading for
comprehension. The use of the questions should be determined by the
students in the room. If students are able to read and comprehend without
questions that direct them line by line, then these supports can be taken
Answer keys are not provided. The lessons are intended to create
opportunities for students to rely on the text to gain independence in
reading complex texts. In this instructional model, the only wrong answers
are those that are not well supported or engage in fallacious reasoning.
It is best for teachers to engage in conversations and make instructional
decisions with a PLT about this lesson, its content, and student outcomes.
The Owl at Perdue Online Writing Lab http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
How to Use a Semicolon: The Most Feared Punctuation on Earth.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
Mumford, Carrie. Editing and My Love for the Semicolon.

Next pages: materials

Language Page 4

Text: The Train From Rhodesia

The train came out of the red horizon and bore down towards them over the
single straight track.
The stationmaster came out of his little brick station with its pointed chalet
roof, feeling the creases in his serge uniform in his legs as well. A stir of
preparedness rippled through the squatting native venders waiting in the dust; the
face of a carved wooden animal, eternally surprised, stuck out of a sack. The
stationmasters barefoot children wandered over. From the grey mud huts with the
untidy heads that stood within a decorated mud wall, chickens, and dogs with their
skin stretched like parchment over their bones, followed the piccanins down to the
track. The flushed and perspiring west cast a reflection, faint, without heat, upon
the station, upon the tin shed marked Goods, upon the walled kraal, upon the
grey tin house of the stationmaster and upon the sand, that lapped all around,
from sky to sky, cast little rhythmical cups of shadow, so that the sand became the
sea, and closed over the childrens black feet softly and without imprint.
The stationmasters wife sat behind the mesh of her veranda. Above her
head the hunk of a sheeps carcass moved slightly, dangling in a current of air.
They waited.
The train called out, along the sky; but there was no answer; and the cry
hung on: Im comingIm coming
The engine flared out now, big, whisking a dwindling body behind it; the
track flared out to let it in.
Creaking, jerking, jostling, gasping, the train filled the station.
Here, let me see that onethe young woman curved her body farther out of
the corridor window. Missus? smiled the old man, looking at the creatures he held
in his hand. From a piece of string on his grey finger hung a tiny woven basket; he
lifted it, questioning. No, no, she urged, leaning down towards him, across the
height of the train towards the man in the piece of old rug; that one, that one, her
hand commanded. It was a lion, carved out of soft, dry wood that looked like
spongecake; heraldic, black and white, with impressionistic detail burnt in. The old
man held it up to her still smiling, not from the heart, but at the customer.
Between its vandyke teeth, in the mouth opened in an endless roar too terrible to
be heard, it had a black tongue. Look, said the young husband, if you dont mind!
And round the neck of the thing, a piece of fur (rat? rabbit? meerkat?); a real
mane, majestic, telling you somehow that the artist had delight in the lion.
All up and down the length of the train in the dust the artists sprang, walking
bent, like performing animals, the better to exhibit the fantasy held towards the
faces on the train. Buck, startled and stiff, staring with round black and white
eyes. More lions, standing erect, grappling with strange, thin, elongated warriors
who clutched spears and showed no fear in their slits of eyes. How much, they
asked from the train, how much?
Give me penny, said the little ones with nothing to sell. The dogs went and
sat, quite still, under the dining car, where the train breathed out the smell of meat
cooking with onion.
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A man passed beneath the arch of reaching arms meeting grey-black and
white in the exchange of money for the staring wooden eyes, the stiff wooden legs
sticking up in the air; went along under the voices and the bargaining,
interrogating the wheels. Past the dogs; glancing up at the dining car where he
could stare at the faces, behind glass, drinking beer, two by two, on either side of a
uniform railway vase with its pale dead flower. Right to the end, to the guards
van, where the stationmasters children had just collected their mothers two
loaves of bread; to the engine itself, where the stationmaster and the driver stood
talking against the steaming complaint of the resting beast.
The man called out to them, something loud and joking. They turned to
laugh, in a twirl of steam. The two children careered over the sand, clutching the
bread, and burst through the iron gate and up the path through the garden in
which nothing grew.
Passengers drew themselves in at the corridor windows and turned into
compartments to fetch money, to call someone to look. Those sitting inside looked
up: suddenly different, caged faced, boxed in, cut off after the contact of the
outside. There was an orange a piccanin would like. What about that chocolate?
It wasnt very nice.
A girl had collected a handful of the hard kind, that no one liked, out of the
chocolate box, and was throwing them to the dogs, over at the dining car. But the
hens darted in and swallowed the chocolates, incredibly quick and accurate, before
they had even dropped in the dust, and the dogs, a little bewildered, looked up
with their brown eyes, not expecting anything.
No, leave it, said the young woman, dont take it.
Too expensive, too much, she shook her head and raised her voice to the old
man, giving up the lion. He held it high where she had handed it to him. No, she
said, shaking her head. Three-and-six? insisted her husband, loudly. Yes baas!
laughed the old man. Three-and-six?the young man was incredulous. Oh leave
itshe said. The young man stopped. Dont you want it? he said, keeping his face
closed to the old man. No, never mind, she said, leave it. The old native kept his
head on one side, looking at them sideways, holding the lion. Three-and-six, he
murmured, as old people repeat things to themselves.
The young woman drew her head in. She went into the coupe and sat down.
Out of the window, on the other side, there was nothing; sand and bush; and thorn
tree. Back through the open doorway, past the figure of her husband in the
corridor, there was the station, the voices, wooden animals waving, running feet.
Her eye followed the funny little valance of scrolled wood that outlined the chalet
roof of the station; she thought of the lion and smiled. That bit of fur round the
neck. But the wooden buck, the hippos, the elephants, the baskets that already
bulked out of their brown paper under the seat and on the luggage rack! How will
they look at home? Where will you put them? What will they mean away from the
places you found them? Away from the unreality of the last few weeks? The
young man outside. But he is not part of the unreality; he is for good now. Odd
somewhere there was an idea that he, that living with him, was part of the holiday,
the strange places.
Outside, a bell rang. The stationmaster was leaning against the end of the
train, green flag rolled in readiness. A few men who had got down to stretch their
legs sprang on to the train, clinging to the observation platforms, or perhaps
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merely standing on the iron step, holding the rail; but on the train, safe from the
one dusty platform, the one tin house, the empty sand.
There was a grunt. The train jerked. Through the glass the beer drinkers
looked out, as if they could not see beyond it. Behind the flyscreen, the
stationmasters wife sat facing back at them beneath the darkening hunk of meat.
There was a shout. The flag drooped out. Joints not yet coordinated, the
segmented body of the train heaved and bumped back against itself. It began to
move; slowly the scrolled chalet moved past it, the yells of the natives, running
alongside, jetted up into the air, fell back at different levels. Staring wooden faces
waved drunkenly, there, then gone, questioning for the last time at the windows.
Here, one-and-six baas!As one automatically opens a hand to catch a thrown
ball, a man fumbled wildly down his pocket, brought up the shilling and sixpence
and threw them out; the old native, gasping, his skinny toes splaying the sand,
flung the lion.
The piccanins were waving, the dogs stood, tails uncertain, watching the
train go: past the mud huts, where a woman turned to look up from the smoke of
the fire, her hand pausing on her hip.
The stationmaster went slowly in under the chalet.
The old native stood, breath blowing out the skin between his ribs, feet
tense, balanced in the sand, smiling and shaking his head. In his opened palm,
held in the attitude of receiving, was the retrieved shilling and sixpence.
The blind end of the train was being pulled helplessly out of the station.
The young man swung in from the corridor, breathless. He was shaking his head
with laughter and triumph. Here! he said. And waggled the lion at her. One-andsix!
What? she said.
He laughed. I was arguing with him for fun, bargainingwhen the train had
pulled out already, he came tearing afterOne-and-six Baas! So theres your lion.
She was holding it away from her, the head with the open jaws, the pointed
teeth, the black tongue, the wonderful ruff of fur facing her. She was looking at it
with an expression of not seeing, of seeing something different. Her face was
drawn up, wryly, like the face of a discomforted child. Her mouth lifted nervously
at the corner. Very slowly, cautious, she lifted her finger and touched the mane,
where it was joined to the wood.
But how could you, she said. He was shocked by the dismay of her face.
Good Lord, he said, whats the matter?
If you want the thing, she said, her voice rising and breaking with the shrill
impotence of anger, why didnt you buy it in the first place? If you wanted it, why
didnt you pay for it? Why didnt you take it decently, when he offered it? Why did
you have to wait for him to run after the train with it, and give him one-and-six?
One and six!
She was pushing it at him, trying to force him to take the lion. He stood
astonished, his hands hanging at his sides.
But you wanted it! You liked it so much?
Its a beautiful piece of work, she said fiercely, as if to protect it from him.
You liked it so much! You said yourself it was too expensive
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Oh youshe said, hopeless and furious. YouShe threw the lion onto the
seat.
He stood looking at her.
She sat down again in the corner and, her face slumped in her hands, stared
out of her window. Everything was turning round inside her. One-and-six. Oneand-six. One-and-six for the wood and the carving and the sinews of the legs and
the switch of the tail. The mouth open like that and the teeth. The black tongue,
rolling, like a wave. The man round the neck. To give one-and-six for that. The
heat of shame mounted through her legs and body and sounded in her ears like
the sound of sand pouring. Pouring, pouring. She sat there, sick. A weariness, a
tastelessness, the discovery of a void made her hands slacken their grip, atrophy
emptily, as if the hour was not worth their grasp. She was feeling like this again.
She had thought it was something to do with singleness, with being alone and
belonging too much to oneself.
She sat there not wanting to move or speak, or to look at anything even; so
that the mood should be associated with nothing, no object, word, or sight that
might recur and so recall the feeling again.Smuts blew in grittily, settled on her
hands. Her back remained at exactly the same angle, turned against the young
man sitting with his hands drooping between his sprawled legs, and the lion, fallen
on its side in the corner.
The train had cast the station like a skin. It called out to the sky, Im coming, Im
coming; and again, there was no answer.

Language Page 8

Student Instructions: The Train From Rhodesia

Step One: Read the excerpt to yourself and annotate the text.
Read the excerpt to yourself. Make note of words, phrases, and punctuation that
intrigue you in some way.
Look for irregularities, similarities, and unknowns.
Irregularity: I find it peculiar the way the author used this word.
Similarity: I am seeing a pattern here: in words, phrasing, or ideas. (Diction and
Syntax)
Unknowns: I dont know what that means. Or I dont know what that means in
this context.

Step Two: In this step your teacher or a classmate will read aloud.
Listen carefully to the words being read. If you read a word incorrectly, you may
want to make note of that change.

Step Three: In this step, Expert Groups will reread the story looking for a
particular device.
Group 1: Punctuation (semicolons, colons, commas)
Group 2: Imagery (use of interesting adjectives to create a picture of this place and
people)

Group Three: Parallel structure (repetition of patterns of words, phrases or clauses)

Group Four: Syntax (sentence structurelooking for changes in sentence
length)
Each Expert Group should underline three examples of their language device on
the short story. It would work well if each Expert Group has a different color pen
to use (blue for punctuation, red for imagery, etc.) In the margins, write down
what the effect of that use of the device is on the story as a whole.
When the Expert Group is finished annotating, fill in the section of the chart for
your language technique.

Step Four: New groupsJigsaw. In this step, you will move to a Learning Group
to share your Expert Group's groups findings.
Each group should now split up and move to a Learning Group. Each Learning
Group will consist of one member from each Expert Group. This means that
Learning Group 1 will have 1 member from Punctuation, 1 from Imagery, 1 from
Parallel Structure, and 1 from Syntax. In the Learning Group, each person will give
a mini-lesson to the others on what their Expert Group figured out about the effect
of the device on the story as a whole. Each Learning Group member will fill out the
data chart for all 4 devices.

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Step Five: Answering questions to promote and assess understanding

These questions are designed to promote understanding of the excerpt.
These questions are not meant to be given to students simply as study guide
questions. Instead, teachers and small groups should use these as starting points
for discourse about authorial choices and their effects on the work as a whole.
Alternatively, students could be directed to create questions on their own to bring
to a seminar or other discourse setting. In this case, adapting a concept from
Beers and Probst, Notice and Note, students are asked, What do you notice? and
told to generate questions that point to a particular language choice by the author.
Each question includes a specific quotation involving punctuation, imagery,
parallelism, or syntax AND a prompt to connect to the effect on the work as a
whole (tone, theme, mood, purpose).

Prompts for Discourse about Authorial Language Choices and their Effects
1. What words are used in paragraph 2 The stationmaster came out to
describe the people and the setting?
2. What tone do these words create?
3. Examine the short sentence in paragraph four They waited. Why did the
author use a short sentence here?
4. Notice the punctuation in paragraph three: The train called out, along the
sky; but there was no answer; and the cry hung on: Im comingIm
coming What is the effect of the punctuation that the author has chosen
here?
5. Examine the use of parallel structure in paragraph seven: Creaking, jerking,
jostling, gasping, the train filled the station.
6. Reread the description of the lion in paragraph eight that begins It was a
lion, carved out of. Give one word that would describe how the author
wants us to see the lion.
7. Again, note the punctuation used in paragraph 8what is its effect on your
view of the carved lion?
8. Determine the meaning of vandyke as it is used in paragraph 8.
9. In paragraph 9, the merchants are described as artists. Examine the power
of this word choice.
Language Page 10

10.
In paragraph 12, an image is used of a garden. Look at the image and
explain what you think it says about this place as a whole.
11.
Look at the verbs used to describe the passengers in the train in
paragraph 13 that begins: Passengers drew themselves in. What do
these verbs imply about those on the trains?
12.
The color grey is mentioned often. Find some of the times it is
mentioned. Why is this color used in this story?
13.
The train is personified throughout the story. Find examples of how the
train is personified. Why would the author choose this literary device to
describe the train?
14.
There are no quotation marks used for any of the dialogue in this story.
Why do you think the author left them out?
15.
In paragraph 16 that begins Too expensive discuss why the woman
does not want the lion.
16.

What is the meaning of the word incredulous in paragraph 16?

17.
Now look at the sentences that begin with But the wooden buck. to
the end of paragraph 17. Discuss why now she did not buy the lion. Is the
reason different?
18.
Find the place where the young womans husband buys here the lion.
How did it happen? What did he pay? How does he feel about it?
19.
Look at the word helplessly as it is used to describe the train in
paragraph 24. Why is this word used? How could it connect to someone/
something else in the story?
20.
Examine the verbs, adjectives and adverbs used describe the young
woman in paragraph 28 that begins She was holding it away. How has
she changed?
21.
Paragraph 31 If you wanted the thing contains several rhetorical
questions. What is the purpose of the questions here? Why is she angry that
he bought the lion?
22.
Look now at the adjectives and adverbs used to describe the young
woman in paragraph 35: She sat down again in the corner Why is she so
upset?
23.
Why does the piece end with the repetition of the image of the train
calling out Im comingIm coming and the is no answer?

Step Five: Writing

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Option 1: Write an analytical essay that determines, using textual evidence, how
Nadine Gordimer uses punctuation, parallel structure, imagery and/ or syntax
(phrasing) in her short story The Train From Rhodesia to develop her overall point
of view on divides in social class or race.
Option 2: Write a comparison/contrast essay that examines the use of
punctuation, imagery, parallel structure and syntax (phrasing) in this short story
with that in the first chapter of novel Cry, the Beloved Country. Determine if the
two authors use similar techniques and if these language techniques mirror similar
themes in the two works.
Option 3: Write an argumentative essay from the young womans point of view in
the short story The Train from Rhodesia that argues the need for social change
that makes the rich/poor divide smaller.

The Train From Rhodesia Analysis Chart

Directions: In your small groups, annotate the short story for at least three
examples of your literary device. Remember, underline the section of text and
then write in the margin how that section you underlined adds to the meaning of
the story. Write in the box below what you notice about your literary device and
what your group thinks is the overall meaning of the story.

Group One: Punctuation:

Group Two: Imagery

The use of particular punctuation may have

an impact on the way the reader receives the
information and ideas. Find examples of
punctuation that has been purposefully
placed. Look for semicolons, colons and
commas.

Remember writers need to attend to precise

word choices, which mean as readers we must
pay close attention to connotation and shades
of meaning. The nuances of these words
impact the reader/listeners reaction and
experience and create imagery.
Overall meaning of story?

Overall meaning of story?

How does the authors use of punctuation

develop the meaning?

How does the authors use of imagery develop

the meaning?

Group Three: Parallel Structure

Group Four: Phrasing

A repetition of patterns of words, phrases or

The change in phrasing may be a key to

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clauses may be a key to unlocking intent and

meaning. Look for the authors use of parallel
structure to unlock the meaning of this story.

unlocking intent and meaning. Look for the

authors use of phrasing) of a sentence or
passage (particularly when the sentences
change length drastically to begin to
determine the overall meaning of this story.

Overall meaning of story?

Overall meaning of story?

How does the authors use of parallel

structure develop the meaning?

How does the authors use of phrasing

develop the meaning?

Extension Activity The Train From Rhodesia:

Analysis Chart for Cry, the Beloved Country
Directions: Use the chart below to now analyze the language in Chapter one of
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

Group One: Punctuation:

Group Two: Imagery

The use of particular punctuation may have

an impact on the way the reader receives the
information and ideas. Find examples of
punctuation that has been purposefully
placed. Look for semicolons, colons and
commas.

Remember writers need to attend to precise

word choices, which mean as readers we must
pay close attention to connotation and shades
of meaning. The nuances of these words
impact the reader/listeners reaction and
experience and create imagery.

How does the authors use of punctuation

develop the meaning?

How does the authors use of imagery develop

the meaning?

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Group Three: Parallel Structure

Group Four: Phrasing

A repetition of patterns of words, phrases or

clauses may be a key to unlocking intent and
meaning. Look for the authors use of parallel
structure to unlock the meaning of this story

The change in phrasing may be a key to

unlocking intent and meaning. Look for the
authors use of phrasing) of a sentence or
passage (particularly when the sentences
change length drastically to begin to
determine the overall meaning of this story?

How does the authors use of parallel

structure develop the meaning?

How does the authors use of phrasing

develop the meaning?

Language Page 14