A “New English” in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”: A Common Core Exemplar

To examine the “New English” Chinua Achebe uses in Things Fall Apart, readers complete a series of worksheets that ask them to examine similes, proverbs, and African folktales contained in the novel. Individuals explain the meaning behind the comparison in the similes, identify proverbs explaining what they say about the values of Igbo society, and analyze African folktales. Groups compare and consider their findings before the whole class discusses how Achebe uses “the English language to tell an African story.”