The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Discuss what you know or predict might be true about life in southeast Africa.

Teaching Suggestion: If your students are unlikely to know about life in southeast Africa, particularly Malawi, it might be helpful to first locate Malawi on this interactive map. You may want to split students up into groups to briefly research different components of Malawi—economy, religions, politics, and history. After students have gathered information about their topics, each group might present their findings.

• “History of Malawi” provides a 10-minute history of Malawi, touching on the country’s geography, colonial history, languages, and religion.
• “Living on a Dollar a Day in Malawi” from National Public Radio chronicles a typical day in the life of a Malawian family in the early 2000s.

2. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a memoir, which is a narrative written from the perspective of the narrator about an important event or time in their life. What stylistic choices would you expect to see in a memoir?

Teaching Suggestion: If students are unsure what “stylistic choices” are, it might be helpful to direct their focus on these elements: point of view, word choice, tone, and selection of details. Students might find it helpful to discuss these focus areas in small groups to create a rationale for their response for each focus area. For example, one would expect a memoir to be written in first-person point of view because the subject of a memoir is generally a personal account of an event.

• “How to Write a Memoir,” a 2-minute video, points out key features of memoir writing.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

When was the first time that you learned the science behind something that you previously did not understand? How was the “magic” dispelled? How did this new understanding change how you viewed the world?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt is a catalyst for students to discuss the theme Magic Versus Science. If students have difficulty thinking of examples to discuss, you might list some popular science experiments from elementary school.

• “Science Is Magic” explains the science behind seven different “magical” science experiments.

Differentiation Suggestion: For kinesthetic learners, consider having students replicate a “magical” science experiment in class. For suggestions of easily replicable science experiments, visit “70 Easy Science Experiments Using Materials You Already Have.”