Incorporating the Common Reading Book into Your FYF Class

1. Incorporating the Common Reading Book into Your FYF Class

2. This year’s novel ….. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Williams Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer

3. Summary • Growing up amid famine and poverty in rural Malawi, wind was one of the few abundant resources available, and the inventive fourteen-year-old saw its energy as a way to power his dreams. "With a windmill, we'd finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger," he realized. "A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom." Despite the biting jeers of village skeptics, young William devoted himself to borrowed textbooks and salvage yards in pursuit of a device that could produce an "electric wind." The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an inspiring story of an indomitable will that refused to bend to doubt or circumstance. When the world seemed to be against him, William Kamkwamba set out to change it.

4. How to incorporate the Common Reading Book… • Small Group “Book Club” • Ethics Debate • Guest Speakers

5. Small Group “Book Club” • At the beginning of each class, have the students sit in small groups and give them a quote from the book to discuss. • The quote can relate to an issue faced by first year college students or a theme for that day of class. You can even appoint a leader to guide the discussion for their small group that day. • Debrief as a large group afterward as a segway to your lesson plan.

6. Examples • Motivation, goals and action plans p. 212, “In Malawi, we say these people are “grooving” through life, just living off small ganyu and having no real plan.  I started worrying that I would become like them, that one day the windmill project would lose its excitement or become too difficult to maintain, and all my ambitions would fade into the maize rows.  Forgetting dreams is easy…”

7. Finding your niche, comfort zone, support group p. 254, “After all those years of trouble --- the famine and constant fear for my family, dropping out of school and my father’s grief, Khamba’s death, and the teasing I received trying to develop an idea---after all that, I was finally being recognized.  For the first time in my life, I felt I was surrounded by people who understood what I did.  A great weight seemed to leave my chest and fall to the assembly hall floor.  I could finally relax.  I was now among colleagues.”

8. Exploring/Finding your interests p. 63, “About this same time, Geoffrey and I started taking apart some old broken radios to see what was inside, and we began figuring out how they worked so we could fix them.” p.153, “One Saturday, Gilbert met me in the library and we flipped through books we thought might be fun. I couldn’t study all the time. One book that caught my attention was the Malawi Junior Integrated Science book…”

9. Overcoming obstacles p. 115, William finds out that he is going to have to attend a lesser secondary school than what he wanted. How does he approach this opportunity? • Seeing opportunities p. 175, “With the harvest finally over, I was able to return to the shipyard and continue searching for windmill pieces. I’d find one thing in the grass, pick it up, and think, Now what is this? Only to spot something else that interested me even more.”

10. Ethics Debate • Many chapters in the book shed light on ethical issues. For this activity, establish three zones in the room “Agree,” “Neutral,” and “Disagree” and have students stand where they feel regarding each statement. Then, ask for students to defend why they answered the way they did.

11. Examples In the story William is forced to withdraw from school when the grace period ends and his family is unable to pay. Please respond to the following statement: “I believe that secondary school fees in developing countries are ethical.” During the drought, William is unable to feed his dog, so he leaves his dog in the woods to die. Please respond to the following statement: “I believe that animal euthanization is ethical.”

12. William’s community experiences a horrible drought in which many people starve to death. Please respond to the following statement. “It is the responsibility of developing nations to maintain food reserves to protect their citizens during poor growing seasons.” • In the book, William describes the cyclical problem of deforestation, flooding, garbage build-up in the dams, electrical shortages, and more deforestation to supply energy. Please respond to the following statement “I believe that preserving natural resources is more important than meeting immediate energy needs.”

13. Guest Speakers Utilize your campus resources Speak with the African Studies or Political Science professors • Ask if they would mind speaking about the struggles of the African people of Malawi Invite someone from the DSO Common Reading Program Committee • to speak about the book and how first year students can relate to it.