The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

1. L.O. To explore the social and historical context of the novel. The Kite RunnerBy KhaledHosseini

2. Task: Produce a short presentation for your peers on one of the following topics. The history of Afghanistan since 1950. What ethnic groups live in Afghanistan? What are the differences between them? What are afghan kite flying competitions? What is the geography of the region? Where are Kabul, Islamabad,Peshawar, the Khyber Pass and what are these places like? What civilisations were in the region in ancient times? What are the significant dates in the Muslim calendar?

3. Independent Chapter Study/ Notes This is what A level is all about! Use the grid provided to map each of the chapters in the novel. In the sectioning box make a note of the setting/ timescale and relevance to the novel as a whole. In the significant sections choose at least three significant sections to make detailed notes on. Remember to focus on language features! By next lesson read until the end of Chapter 6 and complete the relevant table. Get organised! Place all of these notes in a leaver arch folder that you bring to every lesson along with the text.

4. How do authors create characters? How do authors create characters? Think Pair Share

5. How do authors create characters? • Characters are described physically • A characters behaviour is emphasised • Characters are presented through dialogue • Characters connect to their settings.

6. What is characterisation? • When exploring a character within a novel, short story or play it is important to go beyond just describing what your character is like and instead move onto analysing how that person has been created – this is characterisation. Aspects to consider are: • How characters are described physically • How characters are made to behave. • How they are presented through dialogue • How characters connect to their settings.

7. Physical Appearance A writer will use a variety of language choices and grammatical features to give us an impression of the person being presented. Read the extract from “The Half- Skinned Steer”. The story is in the form of the third person narrative but is seen from the viewpoint of Mero, now an old man, who is remembering his father’s girlfriend.

8. The opening… L.O. To analyse and comment on characterisation with particular focus on linguistic devices. In pairs read the following extract from the novel and gather information about the narrator and his standpoint. Create a summary of your investigation in the form of a mind map. • You might want to consider: • His age • The year he is narrating his story from. • Where he is narrating his story from. • The year and place the significant event occurs. • Look carefully at the choice of lexis. What is implied about the character? KEY TERM What does it mean? Extension: How does the author reveal the central themes of the novel?

9. Individual Response What does the author reveal about the narrator at the opening of the novel The Kite Runner?

10. Chapter 1 One December 2001 I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years. One day last summer, my friend Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. He asked me to come see him. Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear, I knew it wasn’t just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins. After I hung up, I went for a walk along Spreckels Lake on the northern edge of Golden Gate Park. The early-afternoon sun sparkled on the water where dozens of miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp breeze. Then I glanced up and saw a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky. They danced high above the trees on the west end of the park, over the windmills, floating side by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call home. And suddenly Hassan’s voice whispered in my head: For you, a thousand times over. Hassan the harelipped kite runner. I sat on a park bench near a willow tree. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an afterthought. There is a way to be good again. I looked up at those twin kites. I thought about Hassan. Thought about Baba. Ali. Kabul. I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 1975 came along and changed everything. And made me what I am today.

11. Peer Assessment Criteria L.O. To analyse and comment on characterisation with particular focus on linguistic devices.

12. Chapters 1 - 3 Establishing characters The Kite Runner Ali Hassan BabaAmir Sanaubar Rahim Khan

13. Write the names of the characters mentioned so far in the novel. Use arrows to show the nature of their relationships. Add any additional knowledge around the edges. Starter: Who’s Who?

14. Chapter 2:Close reading in pairs How are Ali and Hassan’s quarters contrasted with them? How are the house and garden described? Pgs 3 - 5 Examine the soldier’s speech. How does Hosseini use language to convey the aggressiveness? Pgs 6/7 Read from , “Then he would remind us…” to the end of the chapter. What do we learn about the relationships between the main characters? pg10 What do we learn about the role of Hazaras in society pg8

15. Chapter 2 When we were children, Hassan and I used to climb the poplar trees in the driveway of my father’s house and annoy our neighbours by reflecting sunlight into their homes with a shard of mirror. We would sit across from each other on a pair of high branches, our naked feet dangling, our trouser pockets filled with dried mulberries and walnuts. We took turns with the mirror as we ate mulberries, pelted each other with them, giggling, laughing. I can still see Hassan up on that tree, sunlight flickering through the leaves on his almost perfectly round face, a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood: his flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire. I can still see his tiny low-set ears and that pointed stub of a chin, a meaty appendage that looked like it was added as a mere afterthought. And the cleft lip, just left of midline, where the Chinese doll maker’s instrument may have slipped, or perhaps he had simply grown tired and careless. Sometimes, up in those trees, I talked Hassan into firing walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbour’s one-eyed German shepherd. Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked, really asked, he wouldn’t deny me. Hassan never denied me anything. And he was deadly with his slingshot. Hassan’s father, Ali, used to catch us and get mad, or as mad as someone as gentle as Ali could ever get. He would wag his finger and wave us down from the tree. He would take the mirror and tell us what his mother had told him, that the devil shone mirrors too, shone them to distract Muslims during prayer. “And he laughs while he does it,” he always added, scowling at his son. “Yes, Father,” Hassan would mumble, looking down at his feet. But he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbour’s dog, was always my idea.

16. Chapter 2 The poplar trees lined the redbrick driveway, which led to a pair of wrought-iron gates. They in turn opened into an extension of the driveway into my father’s estate. The house sat on the left side of the brick path, the backyard at the end of it. Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighbourhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul. A broad entryway flanked by rosebushes led to the sprawling house of marble floors and wide windows. Intricate mosaic tiles, handpicked by Baba in Isfahan, covered the floors of the four bathrooms. Gold-stitched tapestries, which Baba had bought in Calcutta, lined the walls; a crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling. Upstairs was my bedroom, Baba’s room, and his study, also known as “the smoking room,” which perpetually smelled of tobacco and cinnamon. Baba and his friends reclined on black leather chairs there after Ali had served dinner. They stuffed their pipes— except Baba always called it “fattening the pipe”— and discussed their favorite three topics: politics, business, soccer. Sometimes I asked Baba if I could sit with them, but Baba would stand in the doorway. “Go on, now,” he’d say. “This is grown-ups’ time. Why don’t you go read one of those books of yours?” He’d close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups’ time with him. I’d sit by the door, knees drawn to my chest. Sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter. The living room downstairs had a curved wall with custom-built cabinets. Inside sat framed family pictures: an old, grainy photo of my grandfather and King Nadir Shah taken in 1931, two years before the king’s assassination; they are standing over a dead deer, dressed in knee-high boots, rifles slung over their shoulders. There was a picture of my parents’ wedding night, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling

17. Chapter 3: Elevator Speech Write an overview of the developments in plot and character within Chapter 3 of the novel. Good luck!

18. Linguistic Focus – pg 11 Analyse closely aspects of lexis, syntax, phonology and literary devices. What do these key terms mean again?

19. Linguistic Focus – pg 11 Analyse closely aspects of lexis, syntax, phonology and literary devices. What do these key terms mean again?

20. Linguistic Focus – pg 11 Analyse closely aspects of lexis, syntax, phonology and literary devices. Organisation/ length of sentences Imagery, metaphor, personification etc Sounds that words make English vocabulary/ Pashtu

21. Chapter 3: Linguistic Focus Lore has it my father once wrestled a black bear in Baluchistan with his bare hands. If the story had been about anyone else, it would have been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate— sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school. But no one ever doubted the veracity of any story about Baba. And if they did, well, Baba did have those three parallel scars coursing a jagged path down his back. I have imagined Baba’s wrestling match countless times, even dreamed about it. And in those dreams, I can never tell Baba from the bear. It was Rahim Khan who first referred to him as what eventually became Baba’s famous nickname, Toophan agha, or “Mr. Hurricane.” It was an apt enough nickname. My father was a force of nature, a towering Pashtun specimen with a thick beard, a wayward crop of curly brown hair as unruly as the man himself, hands that looked capable of uprooting a willow tree, and a black glare that would “drop the devil to his knees begging for mercy,” as Rahim Khan used to say. At parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

22. Ella 1 – Recreative Task • Look at the sheet provided. Discuss the following aspects required by the examination board. • Context • Content/Viewpoint • Style • Write Amir’s monologue of his thoughts and feelings on the evening of the Buzkashi tournament and overhearing the conversation between Baba and Rahim Khan (Chapter 3) • Use the grid provided to help structure your response.

23. Recreative Task Peer Assessment • Read the response of one student to Amir’s monologue. • Place the narrative details, thoughts and feelings presented into the planning grid. • Highlight where the student has used linguistic features particularly successfully. • Look at the mark scheme for Ella 1 – what marks would you award for AO4 and A01? Why? • What advice would you offer the student on how to improve?

24. Chapter 4/5 Homework Tasks PPT Presentation Chapter 4 Focus: Childhood and relationship of Amir and Hassan Select a description of a childhood activity the two boys took part in. For your presentation closely examine an extract in terms of lexis, syntax, phonology and literary devices. What effects are designed to create a sense of place and atmosphere. How does Hosseini use style to show the closeness of the characters? Chapter 5 Focus: Developing characters Look at any of the following sections and present HOW Hosseini presents each of the episodes. Pg32/33 Relationship between Amir and Hassan Pg 33/34 Presentation of Assef Pg36/38 Presentation of Hassan

25. Chapter 6 - L.O. Focus on language devices Pg 42: Stylistic Analysis Perform a close stylistic analysis of page 42 to show how Hosseini uses language to present his reminiscences of Kabul in Winter. Pg 43-46: Description

26. How do these images link to Chapter __?

27. Chapter 8 – your notes Answer in detail, using quotes from the text where appropriate

28. Chapter 8: Extension • Look carefully at the section which begins “I watched Hassan get raped” and ends with “That was the night that I became an insomniac”. • How does Hosseini convey the sense of Amir’s deepening emotional pain? • Analyse the way in which Hosseini uses linguistic techniques to convey meaning in the following line: • “… in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it”. • Comment on: • Abstract nouns • Connotations of lexical choices • Use of the colon

29. THINK PAIR SHARE The portrayal of Afghanistan: Before Russian invasion Examine these extracts. What kind of world is created? How does the writer do this? Pages 4- 5 From “The popular trees lined the redbrick driveway, which led to a pair of wrought iron gates” To “…Sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two” Pages 42-43 From “Winter” To “Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between the spheres” Pages 52-54 From “The streets glistened with fresh snow and the sky was a blameless blue” To “Baba waved. I couldn’t tell if he was waving at me or Hassan” Pages 74-75 From Kaka Homayoun’s white, two storey house in Jalabad had a balconey overlooking a large, walled garden with apple trees” To “…a wedge of moonlight streamed in through the window”

30. Chapters 1- 9 Relationship between Amir and Hassan • How does Hosseini present the relationship between Amir and Hassan in Chapters 1 – 9? • In your answer you should consider: • Hosseini’s language choices. • Narrative techniques • Use the grid provided to plan your answer.

31. Sample response Look at the mark scheme and annotate the extract. Why is it successful? By pg 3 of the novel – “When we were children…” Amir recounts the story as a first person narrator that recalls his memories. He talks about sun and trees to indicate how Afghanistan was blooming and full of life. He includes phrases such as “sunlight flickering through the leaves” and this romanticised description increases this feeling for the reader. At this point Hassan is described as having “a perfectly round face” and then adjectives like - gold, green and sapphire – a semantic field that gives a dreamlike or fairy story atmosphere. This emphasises that when Amir looks back everything prior to the rape scene is inferred as so much happier and positive. He remembers this part of his childhood, before he betrayed Hassan, as the good days. However what should be remembered is that this is a very limited view of their childhood as the narrator is somewhat unreliable.

34. How do these images link to Chapter ___ ?

35. Why do these events happen at this point in the novel? What is the intended effect on the reader?

36. Chapter 12 – Section A question • How does Hosseini tell the story in Chapter 12? • AO2: Demonstrate detailed critical understanding in analysing the ways in which structure, form and language shape meaning in literary texts.

37. Chapter 16 Create a framework grid and identify the features that make Rahim Khan’s voice different from Amir’s

38. Comment on… Comment on the narrative or symbolic effects of the following events… Narrative or symbolic • Rocket destroying the wall of “ailing corn” • Farzana’s still born baby • Sanubar’s experience • Hassan returning to the hill he used to play on. • Hassan’s son being called Sohrab • Sanubar’sburiel under the pomegranate tree. • Sohrab learning the sling shot • Hassan and Sohrab kite flying. • Massacre of the Hazaras in Mazar-I-Sharif

39. Chapter 18 Recreative response • This is a key reflective point for Amir: • Through a close line by line reading, identify and comment on the following: • Recollection of past events • Echoes of speech from other characters • Use of description to show surroundings • Rhetorical questions • Spoken mode features • Sentence varieties

40. Chapter 19 – The journey Homework • Comment on the following landmarks on Amir’s journey towards “being good…” • Conversation with Wahid • Giving the watch • The dream sequence • Amir’s appreciation of his homeland • The end of the chapter

41. Chapter 21 – The stadium Homework • Comment on the following landmarks on Amir’s journey towards “being good…” • Continued journey • Revisit to the mansion • The scene at the stadium

42. Chapter 22 Climatic chapter in which Amir meets Assef and Sohrab… Pg 241 Pick out the details which point towards a violent meeting with Assef later in the chapter. How does Hosseini build up atmosphere and menace Pg 249 What is the thematic significance of Amir’s bravery here? Pg 253 In what way can Amir be said to be healed?