Using Nairobi Nightmare in Elementary Enrichment
W.A. Sorrells Book Holds Deep Questions for Gifted Readers
Feb 10, 2009
Nairobi Nightmare is one of the Karito Kids Adventure series books, which are written for upper elementary students. The target audience for the series seems to be girls, but boys would also like the story of a young soccer player who wants to heroically rescue a friend by solving a mystery.
A Teacher's Summary of Nairobi Nightmare
Lulu Kibwana is an 11 year old star of a children's TV show. She gets lost in her imaginative, Walter Middy daydreams, which her friends call Lulu Land. Her mother has an important Kenyan statue featured on the show. When the statue is suddenly missing, someone working at the studio is accused of stealing it. A police investigation leads to an arrest, and during the course of her personal investigation, Lulu discovers:
- people in her family and social circle discriminate against certain tribes in Kenya
- an artist does not own the art he creates
- poor people do not get adequate medical care and are often taken advantage of by others
Each of these issues offer "teachable moments" that offer opportunities for gifted thinker to have some deep discussions.
Using Higher Level Questions with Nairobi Nightmare
In the regular classrooms, teachers can need to focus on knowledge and comprehension questions; the types of questions asked on an AR test. In the gifted classroom, questions can move to a deeper level. Although upper elementary is not generally an age of abstract reasoning, it is an age when students have an increasing awareness of social rights and responsibilities. These sensibilities can be developed through questions that focus on analyzing and evaluating ideas that teachers extract from the book.
Student Group Discussions of Nairobi Nightmare
Students who have read the book completely can sit in small groups to discuss questions. The teacher will be moving from group to group, so it is good for students to have something to hold when they are speaking. A child's magic wand is a good visual for who is allowed to be the speaker. The magic wand is then passed to the next person who wants to speak.
On a slip of paper, the teacher should write out the following questions for discussion:
How Should People Handle Discriminatory Statements in Conversation?
On page 16, Lulu's brother says that Mukanda is guilty, his evidence is, "Mukanda's a Kalenjin. Everybody knows they're a bunch of thieves." Readers see two different types of responses.
Lulu says her friend is Kalenjin and not a thief.
Their mother says, "Charles, those are just old stories."
Ideas to Consider
- Offering specific evidence is a good way to proof a point, but if she didn't have any evidence, would she still be able to argue against her brother's prejudicial belief?
- Dismissing an idea is a good way to show that discriminatory statements aren't worthy of conversation, but does it help her brother understand why his statement was logically wrong.
Question:
- Which person had the better response: the person who offered specific evidence or the person who dismissed the idea entirely?
Who Owns Art?
On page 104, Mr. Garamara becomes frustrated when Lulu asks him who owns the statue. He says, "Of course, it is mine!" His reasoning is that he made it for a competition, and he was never paid for it. The government reasons that they own the statue, because they held the competition. The museum thinks the art belongs in their collection, because Mr. Garamara signed a paper.
Ideas to Consider:
- Sculptures are made from molds, so it is possible for there to be multiple copies of the same statue.
- Artists receive credit for art, no matter who "owns" it. Queen Elizabeth of England is the "owner" of the Royal Art Collection, but Da Vinci's drawings are known as "Da Vinci's Sketches", not "Queen Elizabeth's sketches".
- Even if a person does not understand what he or she is signing, they are still responsible for what they have signed.
Questions:
- Based on what the evidence you read in Nairobi Nightmare, who owns the sculpture legally?
- Who do you think should own the mold from which the sculpture (and copies of the sculpture) were made?
Who Should Pay for Medical Care?
One of the saddest parts of Nairobi Nightmare is in chapter ten, when Lulu visits the poor village and sees that some people have very hard lives and that they can not afford medicine. She asks her father to treat Mukanda's mother, and her father explains the difficulties of getting medicines to poor people.
Ideas to Consider:
Baba says that the unqualified doctors that the poor people can afford "do less harm than good."
When Lulu asks if companies can donate the medicines, he says, "Sure. And then they'd have no money and they couldn't make the medicines anymore."
When Lulu wants her parents to pay for the medicine, her father tells her, "If I paid for just half of their medicine, you and Charles and your mother would be living in the shack right next door to Mukanada."
Questions:
- Who should pay for medicine for poor people?
- Is medical treatment a right (something everyone deserves) or a privilege (something reserved for specific people)?
Gifted Curriculum Connections in Nairobi Nightmare
When one of the workers on the set of her show is accused of stealing art, Lulu uses inductive reasoning to reach the logical conclusion that that the show's clown is not guilty. She then uses deductive reasoning to narrow down her suspects as she looks for clues. When gifted teachers use logic worksheets, they can refer back to Lulu's steps of logical reasoning.
Being with peers who can work at a similar pace is a benefit of enrichment classes, and discussion is certainly more meaningful and enjoyable for students who are capable of looking at multiple sides of issues. Offering higher-level thinking questions to group discussions and connecting the story back to skills taught in the classroom makes reading Nairobi Nightmare an enriched learning experience.
Nairobi Nightmare (ISBN 0979291216) is written by W.A. Sorrells and illustrated by Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley. It was published by KidsGive in 2007.
 |
