Suddenly Anansi heard someone laughing below. He saw that it was his son who was pointing and laughing at him. Anansi hated to be ridiculed. “What are you laughing at, boy?” he asked. “You, Papa,” said the boy. “How silly you are. Aren’t you uncomfortable carrying the calabash in front of you? Why don’t you put it behind you?” Anansi tied the pot to his back and continued to climb the tree. It was much easier than before. He thought to himself, “How come that little boy is so smart? I thought I had collected all the wisdom in the world. It should have been in the calabash.” As he climbed, Anansi concluded that the wisdom in the calabash must be worthless. When he got to the top of the tree, he got into a rage and threw the calabash away. When it landed on the ground it broke into thousands of pieces and wisdom was scattered all over the world. People found the bits everywhere, and if they wanted to, they could take some home to their families. And that was exactly what they did. From ‘Getting Common Sense’ by Al Campbell
1 What did Nyame tell Anansi to do with the wisdom he gave him? 2 How did Anansi disobey Nyame? 3 Why did Anansi decide to hide the calabash? 4 Explain why Anansi found it difficult to climb up the tree. 5 Anansi hated to be ridiculed. What does this mean?
a) He did not think the situation was very funny. b) He did not have a good sense of humour. c) He did not like it when people laughed at him. d) He disliked people playing tricks on him.
6 Why did Anansi change his mind about the wisdom in the calabash? 7 Which of these adjectives could be used to describe Anansi as he is portrayed in this story?
smart
self-centred
sensible
foolish
generous
impatient
8 What happened at the end of the story? a) All the wisdom in the calabash was lost. b) Anansi was punished by the sky-god.
c) Anansi put the wisdom back in the calabash. d) Everyone shared the wisdom in the calabash. 9 What lesson can we learn from this story? 10 Name one other story you know about Anansi. What lesson did you learn from that story?
• Tell students to pause from time to time as they read stories and ask themselves what they have learnt about the characters from the previous section. • Remind students to use context clues to help them understand unfamiliar words such as ridiculed and concluded . They can work out the meaning of words like worthless by looking at the suffix.
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