English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.

com)
Standard: RL-6
Name: _______________________________

English 10B Unit 6 Summative Assessment

Learning Targets:

I can compare and contrast a cultural experience or point of view from outside the United States with my
own life experiences. (RL-6)
First Read Dead Mens Path by Chinua Achebe (Nigerian author); then you will use a graphic organizer
to compare and contrast the reading with your own life experience; finally, you will write two paragraphs
comparing and contrasting your experiences with Obi (main character).

First address: What major conflict does Obi deal with in the story?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
In what ways can you relate to this type of conflict? In what ways does your experience with this
type of conflict differ from Obi? On the left column, write 3 experiences that Michael Obi has in
Dead Mens Path related to the story conflict that you do not share. On the right column, write 3
experiences that you have had related to the story conflict that Michael Obi does not. In the middle
column, write 3 experiences that both you and Michael Obi share. Then, in two paragraphs, describe in
detail how your experiences compare and contrast to those of Michael Obis.
Michael Obis Experiences

Shared Experiences

Your Experiences

1.

1.

1.

2.

2.

2.

3.

3.

3.

English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.com)

Standard: RL-6
In two paragraphs, describe in detail how your experiences compare and contrast to those of Michael
Obis (Relate your comparison and contrast to Obis main conflict in the story).

English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.com)

Standard: RL-6

GRADING/SCORING RUBRIC
Summative Assessment - RL-6
Name: ___________________________

CCSS
RL-6

Remediation

Near Mastery

Mastery

Exceeds Mastery

Minimally compares
and contrasts a cultural
experience or point of
view from outside the
United States with my
own life experiences.

Partially compares and

contrasts a cultural
experience or point of
view from outside the
United States with my
own life experiences.

Thoroughly compares
and contrasts a cultural
experience or point of
view from outside the
United States with my
own life experiences.

Expertly compares and

contrasts a cultural
experience or point of
view from outside the
United States with my
own life experiences.

English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.com)

Standard: RL-6
Dead Mens Path
by Chinua Achebe
Michael Obi's hopes were fulfilled much earlier than he had expected. He was appointed headmaster of
Ndume Central School in January 1949. It had always been an unprogressive school, so the Mission
authorities decided to send a young and energetic man to run it. Obi accepted this responsibility with
enthusiasm. He had many wonderful ideas and this was an opportunity to put them into practice. He had
had sound secondary school education which designated him a "pivotal teacher" in the official records
and set him apart from the other headmasters in the mission field. He was outspoken in his condemnation
of the narrow views of these older and often less educated ones.
"We shall make a good job of it, shan't we?" he asked his young wife when they first heard the joyful
news of his promotion.
"We shall do our best," she replied. "We shall have such beautiful gardens and everything will be just
modern and delightful . . . " In their two years of married life she had become completely infected by
his passion for "modern methods" and his denigration of "these old and superannuated people in the
teaching field who would be better employed as traders in the Onitsha market." She began to see herself
already as the admired wife of the young head master, the queen of the school.
The wives of the other teachers would envy her position. She would set the fashion in everything . . .
Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that there might not be other wives. Wavering between hope and fear,
she asked her husband, looking anxiously at him.
"All our colleagues are young and unmarried," he said with enthusiasm which for once she did not share.
"Which is a good thing," he continued.
"Why?"
"Why? They will give all their time and energy to the school."
Nancy was downcast. For a few minutes she became skeptical about the new school; but it was only for a
few minutes. Her little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband's happy prospects. She
looked at him as he sat folded up in a chair. He was stoop-shouldered and looked frail. But he sometimes
surprised people with sudden bursts of physical energy. In his present posture, however, all his bodily
strength seemed to have retired behind his deep-set eyes, giving them an extraordinary power of
penetration. He was only twenty-six, but looked thirty or more. On the whole, he was not unhandsome.
"A penny for your thoughts, Mike," said Nancy after a while, imitating the woman's magazine she read.
"I was thinking what a grand opportunity we've got at last to show these people how a school should be
run."
Ndume School was backward in every sense of the word. Mr. Obi put his whole life into the work, and his
wife hers too. He had two aims. A high standard of teaching was insisted upon, and the school compound
was to be turned into a place of beauty. Nancy's dream-gardens came to life with the coming of the rains,
and blossomed. Beautiful hibiscus and allamanda hedges in brilliant red and yellow marked out the
carefully tended school compound from the rank neighborhood bushes.

English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.com)

Standard: RL-6
One evening as Obi was admiring his work he was scandalized to see an old woman from the village
hobble right across the compound, through a marigold flowerbed and the hedges. Ongoing up there he
found faint signs of an almost disused path from the village across the school compound to the bush on
the other side.
"It amazes me," said Obi to one of his teachers who had been three years in the school, "that you people
allowed the villagers to make use of this foot path. It is simply incredible." He shook his head.
"The path," said the teacher apologetically, "appears to be very important to them. Although it is hardly
used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial."
"And what has that got to do with the school?" asked the headmaster.
"Well, I don't know," replied the other with a shrug of the shoulders. "But I remember there was a big row
some time ago when we attempted to close it."
"That was some time ago. But it will not be used now," said Obi as he walked away. "What will the
Government Education Officer think of this when he comes to inspect the school next week? The
villagers might, for all I know, decide to use the schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection."
Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at the two places where it entered and left the school
premises. These were further strengthened with barbed wire.
Three days later the village priest of Ani called on the headmaster. He was an old man and walked with a
slight stoop. He carried a stout walking-stick which he usually tapped on the floor, by way of emphasis,
each time he made a new point in his argument.
"I have heard," he said after the usual exchange of cordialities, "that our ancestral footpath has recently
been closed . . ."
"Yes," replied Mr. Obi. "We cannot allow people to make a highway of our school compound."
"Look here, my son," said the priest bringing down his walking-stick, "this path was here before you were
born and before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends on it. Our dead relatives
depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be
born . . ."
Mr. Obi listened with a satisfied smile on his face.
"The whole purpose of our school," he said finally, "is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do
not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such
ideas."
"What you say may be true," replied the priest, "but we follow the practices of our fathers. If you reopen
the path we shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle
perch." He rose to go.
"I am sorry," said the young headmaster. "But the school compound cannot be a thoroughfare. It is against
our regulations. I would suggest your constructing another path, skirting our premises. We can even get
our boys to help in building it. I don't suppose the ancestors will find the little detour too burdensome."
"I have no more words Co say," said the old priest, already outside.

English 10B Fall 2016 - Natasha Szala (Adapted from Schoology.com)

Standard: RL-6
Two days later a young woman in the village died in childbed. A diviner was immediately consulted and
he prescribed heavy sacrifices to propitiate ancestors insulted by the fence.
Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work. The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near
the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled
down . . . That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state
of the premises but more seriously about the "tribalwar situation developing between the school and the
village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new headmaster."