CI 250 Sample Module - South Africa / A Dry White Season
This is a sample module from the Winter 2021 offering of CI 250. The course was taught in the University of Waterloo’s learning management system (LMS) called LEARN.
Most of the learning tasks are embedded in LEARN’s discussion forums; the forums aren’t replicated here. But you get an idea of what kinds of tasks students are asked to perform during or after reading André Brink’s A Dry White Season.
Below you’ll find two groups of tasks: CI 250 Activities and CI 250 ProfCasts. Students were expected to complete at least half of the tasks in each group.
How well did you understand A Dry White Season?
Do this quick non-graded quiz to test your knowledge of the novel.
[Quiz disabled.]
South Africa - Background
The following reference article provides some necessary historical and social context for A Dry White Season:
Turgeon, Carolyn. "A Dry White Season." World Literature and Its Times. Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historic Events that Influenced Them. From Encyclopedia.com. (January 12, 2021). https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/dry-white-season-1 (The article introduces the historical and social context of South Africa before giving a very good overview of the novel.)
Discussion forum activity: using this article, identify an idea or piece of information that helped you better understand the novel.
Afrikaner
The Afrikaner are the descendants of Dutch, German, and French migrants who settled in southern Africa in the 1700s. Their language is related to Dutch, yet distinct. Here is a brief encyclopedia article about them:
A term originally used to describe a person born in South Africa rather than Europe; in the twentieth century it was used to denote a White person whose first language was Afrikaans. Afrikaners descended largely from the Boers (‘farmers’), mostly Dutch, but also French and Germans who immigrated before the advent of British rule in the Cape, 1806. While a minority assimilated, many retained their distinct culture, their Calvinist (Dutch Reformed) faith, and their language, which became more and more distinct from written Dutch. Afrikaner identity was emphasized by the emergence of Afrikaner nationalism. This was partly a response to the development of Afrikaans into a written language towards the end of the nineteenth century, partly to the British occupation of the Transvaal in 1879–85, and partly to the South African War (1899–1902), when the Afrikaner states (the Transvaal and the Orange Free State) were annexed by the British.
Afrikaner political identity was formed and expressed by the National Party (NP) and the Afrikanerbond. It was further strengthened by general approval of apartheid, which was partly inspired by a sense of religious destiny. Although Afrikaners could muster only a little more than 50 per cent of the White population, they managed to dominate South African politics and society after 1948 through a much clearer sense of unity and cultural identity than non-Afrikaners. This unity came under strain as pressures to change the apartheid system grew during the 1980s, leading to the formation, for instance, of the Conservative Party. Afrikaner culture and values were challenged even further by the end of apartheid. Following the establishment of a multi-racial democracy in 1994, Afrikaans became only one of eleven officially recognized South African cultures. The Afrikaner community was weakened further by emigration of some of its wealthiest members, as around 20,000, mostly Whites, left the country in the year 2000 alone.
(Jan Palmowski, A Dictionary of Contemporary World History, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press: 2008.)
André Brink was an Afrikaner writer who wrote in Afrikaans, but he also translated his own novels into English in order to reach a wider audience.
Discussion forum activity: Can you identify any examples from A Dry White Season demonstrating that the novel is critical of Afrikaners and Afrikaner culture?
Apartheid made real
Discussion forum activity: Identify a passage or moment from A Dry White Season that you thought brought home the reality of apartheid. Explain how the novel made that passage/moment so vivid.
Chose a character
Discussion forum activity: Explain either (a) why and how you identify with a particular character or (b) why this character is one of your least favourite characters in the novel.
Ask the author
Discussion forum activity: You have a chance to ask the late André Brink one question: what would the question be? And what answer would you expect or are you hoping for?
Goodreads
The website Goodreads (goodreads.com) offers readers a space to share their impressions about novels they've read. Have a look at the reviews of A Dry White Season.
Discussion forum activity: Select a review of interest to you, and comment on a point raised in the review that resonates with you. Expand on that point. There are lots of ways of doing this: for example, if you agree with it, provide another example; if you disagree, explain why; if it reminds you of a related point, give details.
Ben
In this episode, Myrto the TA and I discuss the protagonist of A Dry White Season, teacher Ben Du Toit.
Our conversation is centred on this quotation:
If I act, I cannot but lose. But if I do not act, it is a different kind of defeat, equally decisive and maybe worse. Because then I will not even have a conscience left. (Section 4, chapter 4)
Discussion forum activity: So, what do you think - is Ben courageous, naive, or something else?
Plot
In this episode, Myrto the TA and I discuss the plot of A Dry White Season.
Our conversation is centred on this quotation:
Today I realise that this is the worst of all: that I can no longer single out my enemy and give him a name. I can’t challenge him to a duel. What is set up against me is not a man, not even a group of people, but a thing, a something, a vague amorphous something, an invisible ubiquitous power that inspects my mail and taps my telephone and indoctrinates my colleagues and incites the pupils against me and cuts up the tyres of my car and paints signs on my door and fires shots into my home and sends me bombs in the mail, a power that follows me wherever I go, day and night, day and night, frustrating me, intimidating me, playing with me according to rules devised and whimsically changed by itself. (Section 3, chapter 7)
Discussion forum activity: Thinking about the suppression, surveillance, and persecution that Ben is subjected to by his own government, does it remind you of anything similar you've read in a novel, seen in a movie or on tv, or watched on the news? Discuss and explain the similarities.
Form
In this episode Myrto and I discuss the narrative form of A Dry White Season.
Our conversation is centred on this quotation:
[Ben] did not know, and had no way of knowing, what was lying ahead; whereas I am held back by what I already know. What was unfinished to him is complete to me; what was life to him is a story to me; first-hand becomes second-hand. (Foreword)
Discussion forum activity: Does A Dry White Season end on a positive/optimistic note, or a negative/pessimistic one?
At the end of each module you write an interpretive essay that centres on a quotation or passage from the novel or film in that module. You could, for example, start out with the quotation and analyze it with a view to explaining why this quotation helps us understand the novel or film, or you might discuss a topic of interest in the novel / film for which you use the quotation to help explain your point.
Particulars:
- there is no minimum length for the essay, but it shouldn't be longer than 1,000 words.
- it should be double-spaced.
- it should be submitted as a PDF, not a Word or Google document.
- the Essay has a flexible deadline policy: when you submit your essay, I will read it and provide you with feedback and suggestions. You can then revise your essay and submit it as part of your Learning Portfolio.