comprehension

1. Reading: The Homecoming of Festus
Lesson Objective:
We are learning to analyse the text,
The Homecoming of Festus
Success Criteria:
WA- I can use my wider reading knowledge to
explore contextual influences and references,
making a range of insightful links .
WE – I can use most of reading knowledge and
explore how different aspects of context have
influenced the text and reactions to it .
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2. Starter
Section A Section B
Inference The phrase ‘why did the author-’, ‘the intention of the
writer’.
Authorial
The question words ‘what’, ‘when’ which asks for a direct answer
from the text.
Retrieval The questions that start with ‘why’, ‘how’ that asks for the
underlying meaning of the text.
Match the following words from Section A to the words in Section B .
Challenge: Construct examples of Inference, retrieval and author’s technique questions
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3. Retrieval Questions:
(extracting key information from the text read)​
When you really want cheese on toast, you have to go to the fridge and hunt for the
cheese. Well, these retrieval questions are similar.
• you get hungry (the question)
• you go to the fridge (get the information)
• you find the cheese (you get the answer)
Style of question:
Draw lines to match words with their meaning
Boxes and circle the answer
Straight forward questions
Recap

4. Inference questions:
drawing conclusion on the basis of text read
• Inference is about working things out.
• It takes imagination and detective work to work
out the answers. You need to work out what the
writer was thinking as they were writing, or
facts that must be true even if they weren’t
said.
• Style of question:
• How do you think…?
• Why do you think…?
Recap

5. Author’s purpose/Technique questions
These questions basically ask you to spot the exciting words and
phrases.
Style of question( Authorial)
• underline two verbs/adjectives/adverbs
• how does the author build up tension in the 2nd/3rd paragraph
• why did the author use a particular word
• find and copy the phrase that means…
• the words are in italics. Why has the writer done
this?
Recap

6. Let’s Collaborate! 12 minutes 1. In groups, prepare questions based on the
extract and discuss the questions with your
group.
1s- Retrieval questions
2s- Inferential questions
3s- Author’s purpose questions
Group work- Discussion- 10-15 minutes
2. How is the theme of the text and how is it
developed?
Pair work- write- 2 sentences max-3min
3. What is the most interesting information
presented in the text?
Write -Alone -2 minutes
4. Collaborate
Group work- Discuss- Getting ready for the
whole class discussion -5min
Lesson Objective:We are learning to analyse the text,
The Homecoming of Festus

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Task 1 -Read the passage
The Homecoming of Festus
10 minutes
In Groups Frame questions and
Discuss
It was a morning in early summer and the sun already shone on upland and meadow, woodland and stream. The slopes of
southern Britain seemed to bask contentedly in the new warmth, as though nothing could happen on such a bright morning
to disturb their peace, their sleep, their ancient dreams. Then suddenly a lark rose from the grass, startled and crying out in
alarm, and over the brow of the hill a boy came running. The sun caught his close-cropped dark hair, the flushed olive of his
skin, and glinted on the round topaz, set in a circle of silver, that acted as a shoulder brooch, fastening the short red cloak that
floated out behind him in the breeze.
On one side of the broad bronze-studded belt that held in his red woollen tunic swung a well-filled sheepskin pouch; on the
other a leather-hafted dagger in an enameled scabbard. His bare brown arms and sturdy legs cased in trousers of a red and
blue squared pattern gave promise of considerable strength and agility; which was as it should be in a boy whose great-
grandfather had marched half over the world as a centurion with the Eagles, and whose mother was still thought of by their
neighbours not as a Roman lady by marriage, but as the grand-daughter of Festydd, the chieftain; he who could bend a sword
over his neck and had once held a golden eagle by the legs until the creature had ceased struggling. It was of such stock that
the boy had come, and it was from that very chieftain that he had his name, though now it took the form of Festus, having
changed like many of the older British words.

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So Festus ran on down the hill, steadying the bouncing pouch at his side, thinking of the presents it contained -
a necklace of true Whitby jet for his mother, a narrow coral belt for his little sister, Julia, and a pair of ivory dice
for his father. He was impatient to be back home, to stride into the villa like a full-grown man and toss the gifts
on to the table as though they were just ordinary things. Above all, he was anxious to tell them all that he had
made a good bargain with the woollen cloth which he had been entrusted to take to the far-off dyeing sheds
outside the city - a bargain which not even his father himself could have bettered, for prices had suddenly risen
as though men were anxious to buy what they could without delay. But Festus knew that he had more than
half a mile to go, to the valley bottom, and that before he caught the first glimpse of their red-tiled villa and the
long weaving shed behind it he must pass through the wood and make his way along the ditch that separated
his father’s land from the municipal fields that adjoined it.
As he thrust his way through the furze and between the sharp prickles of the holly trees, avoiding overhanging
boughs above and adder-infested clumps below, Festus could not resist a glow of pleasure in his achievements.
He saw his mother’s grave smile, his sister’s wide-eyed admiration, his father’s approving nod! He ran on until
he had reached the further edge of the wood, and then, putting his fingers to his lips, blew a long piercing
whistle, repeated twice, so that they would know that he was coming, that their son was returning home after
an absence of almost a week.

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Now he could see the tall trees that surrounded the house, sheltering it from the winds that
blew down the valley, and even thought he caught a glimpse of a rising wisp of blue
woodsmoke. He would soon be there, accepting a cup of wine from his sister, who would be
so grateful for her belt, or nibbling one of his mother’s honey cakes, while she stood before
the silver mirror, admiring herself in her new necklace of jet and then he stopped suddenly.
At the foot of the slope, not much more than a hundred paces away from him, a man lay by
the ditch, his knees doubled up beneath him and his hands held round his head, as though
he was praying earnestly and had fallen asleep. Festus shielded his eyes with his hand and
stared. It was Arfon, surely, his father’s shepherd; no one else would wear that old sacking
tunic, pulled in at the waist with rope. Festus felt that something must be wrong with the old
man and ran on now, faster than ever, towards him, calling his name as he went.

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At the side of the ditch he stopped, wondering, for the man was so still. Then, mastering his
sudden fear, he bent and rolled Arfon over as gently as he could. Even as he touched him, he
knew that there was something different about him. His body was so stiff, and the legs
remained bent even when the man lay on his side.
Now Festus waited no longer, but ran along the side of the field as though his life depended
on his speed. With the blood thumping in his head, he rounded the clump of tall poplars and
cypresses that sheltered the villa, and there he saw what he had feared since he was a small
child and had dreamed about, despite all coaxing and comforting. The house was a tumbled
pile of ash and broken tiles. Charred beams stuck upwards like gaunt fingers, and the pieces
of mosaic that had once formed the floor of the dining room, and of which his mother had
been so proud, lay scattered here and there among the grass like pieces of coloured paper
that a destructive child has torn up and flung away.

11. (F)
Student does not contribute to the discussion and is not
attentive to the conversation.
(D)
Student does not contribute to the discussion, but is attentive
to the conversation.
- Did not speak or contribute to the discussion.
Did not make eye contact with the speaker
and/or engaged in other off-task behavior
(C)
Student contributes only minimally to the discussion.
- Spoke at least one time
- Made eye contact with speaker
- May have asked a question
- May have referred to text
- Spoke at least one time.
- Made eye contact with speaker
- Asked at least one question
- Referred to text at least once
- Spoke at least 2-3 times
- Made eye contact with speaker
-Asked at least one question or referred to text.
- Engaged in the discussion using
- connect- extend- challenge
Discussion Starters
Collaboration points for effective participation
and preparation.

12. Discussion Starters: On the one hand, __________. On the other hand, __________. Author X contradicts herself. At
the same time that she argues __________, she also implies __________. I agree that __________. She argues __________,
and I agree because __________. Her argument that __________ is supported by new research showing that
__________. In recent discussions of __________, a controversial issue has been whether __________. On the one hand,
some argue that __________. On the other hand, however, others argue that __________.
Introducing Standard Views: People today tend to believe that __________. Conventional wisdom has it that
__________. My whole life I have heard it said that __________.
Making those Views Something You Say: I have always believed that __________. When I was a child, I used to
think that __________.
Writing a Summary: She demonstrates that __________. In fact, they celebrate the fact that __________.
Introducing a Quote: X insists, “__________.” As the prominent philosopher X puts it, “__________.” According to X,
“__________.” In her book, Book Title, X maintains that __________. X complicates matters further when she writes
that __________.
Disagreeing: I think that X is mistaken because she overlooks __________. I disagree with X’s view that __________
because, as recent research has shown, __________. Introducing Your Point of View: X overlooks what I consider
an important point about __________. I wholeheartedly endorse what X calls __________. My discussion of X is in
fact addressing the larger matter of __________. These conclusions will have significant applications in __________
as well as in __________.

13. •Read the Passage and answer
the questions given on each
slide.
• Identify the type of question.
Task 2-Comprehension Passage-The Homecoming of Festus

14. 1. What made the lark ‘cry out in alarm ‘?
Ans) ________________________________________________________________
2. Which one of the following phrases shows that passage is set a long time ago?
a) to disturb their peace, their sleep, their ancient dream
b) great-grandfather had marched half over the word as a centurion
c) it was of such stock that the boy had come
d) a lark rose from the grass, startled and crying
3.Look at paragraph 3.
The writer wants the reader(you) to think Festus is athletic.
Find and write one phrase that makes the reader (you) think this.
Ans) _________________________________________________________________
4. Look back to paragraph four. Why does Festus leave his home?
a) to buy presents
b) to go on holiday
c) to sell cloth

15. 5. How does the writer make the reader understand that Festus comes from an important family? Choose two.
a) He is strong and agile.
b) He has valuable possessions.
c) He is well dressed.
d) He has travelled a long distance.
6. Why does Festus imagine herself arriving home and throwing ‘the gifts onto the table as though they were ordinary things’?
Choose one.
a) to show they were not valuable
b) because he’s in a hurry
c) to impress his family with success
7. Look back to paragraph four. What does the word ‘entrusted’ tell you about the task Festus had been given?
Ans) _________________________________________________________________
8. Find and write the words in paragraph six that show Festus thought he had done well.
Ans) __________________________________________________________________

16. 9. Why has the writer chosen to end paragraph seven with this short sentence, ‘And then he stopped suddenly.’?
To indicate the reader has reached: Choose one.
a) the climax of the story
b) the resolution of the story
c) the turning point in the story
10. Use information from paragraphs eight and nine to answer the following questions.
a) Who was the man who ‘lay by the ditch’?
Ans) ____________________________________________________________________
b) What had happened to the man?
Ans) ____________________________________________________________________
11. Look at the final paragraph.
What had Festus ‘feared since he was a small child’?
Ans) ___________________________________________________________________

17. 11. Look at the final paragraph.
What had Festus ‘feared since he was a small child’?
Ans) ______________________________
12. What 2 dangers does Festus have to face in the wood?
Ans) 1. _____________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________

18. Answers
Self Assessment/
Peer Assessment
1.Seeing Festus running over the hill
2. great-grandfather had marched half over the word as a centurion
3.sturdy legs
4.to sell cloth
5. He has valuable possessions.
He is well dressed.
6.to impress his family with success
7. It means that the task given is crucial
8. Glow of pleasure in his achievements
9. The turning point in the story
10.a) Arfon, his father’s shepherd.
b) Arfon laid unconscious by the ditch.
11.That his house would catch fire
12.a) The sharp prickles of the holly trees
b) Overhanging boughs above
c) Added- infested clumps below

19. Plenary
1. What is the significance of the text. Explain how the discussion
influenced your thinking about the topic or the text.
2.Give an overall grade to the class based on their
performance in today’s lesson.
Success Criteria:
WA- I can use my wider reading knowledge to
explore contextual influences and references,
making a range of insightful links .
WE – I can use most of reading knowledge and
explore how different aspects of context have
influenced the text and reactions to it .
Critical thinking,
Consciousness points
for effective
participation and
response
Lesson ObjectiveWe are learning to analyse the text,
The Homecoming of Festus

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