This curriculum guide provides anthropological and historical research as well as literary criticism on five narratives from North and East Africa: A Sister to Scheherazade by Assia Djebar, Fountain and Tomb by Naguib Mahfouz, Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol by Okot p'Bitek, and A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The background and critical materials are integrated into well-developed lesson plans which include reproducible student handouts, teacher resources, and reading resources.

Voices from the Continent will be a useful tool for college professors and teachers of English and social studies on the high school level who seek to diversify the standard curriculum by introducing students to modern African literature written or translated into English.

The featured literary works are available in the United States and appropriate for use in a variety of courses with students at different reading levels. These literary works introduce a wide range of universal themes while simultaneously presenting the experiences of particular ethnic groups in different regions of North and East Africa.

The lessons contained in this guide may be used in whole or in part, and they may be integrated into larger units on world literature, cultural diversity, psychology, social studies, sociology, and women's studies.

“Voices from the Continent: A Curriculum Guide to Selected North and East African Literature is an important and welcome addition to the pedagogical scholarship on Africa. O’Brien and Schatteman focus on the significance of characters and major events and provide extensive resources that include step by step suggestions for developing students’ understanding of the literature…. Educators who wish to begin teaching major African authors, and also those who wish to expand their repertoire, should confidently enter the classroom once outfitted with the fine curriculum guide. This work will do much to encourage the teaching of East and North African literature.”

—Al Howard
Professor of History, Rutgers University, New Jersey

ABOUT THE EDITORS
SARA TALIS O’BRIEN trains teachers as an associate professor of education at Saint Peter’s College in New Jersey. She has taught English at the high school level and African literature, anthropology, sociology, and religion at the college and university levels in the United States. She has also trained teachers in East, West, and southern Africa and has published several works in African Studies including A Teacher’s Guide to African Narratives (Heinemann 1994).

RENÉE SCHATTEMAN is an assistant professor of English at Georgia State University where she teaches post-colonial literature and assists in the secondary English program. She specializes in African literature and has published a number of articles, reviews, and interviews about African women writers and writers of the African diaspora. In addition, she has taught secondary English in Zimbabwe and in the United States.

CATEGORY
Literature/AFRICA