Year 8 Week 6 - Asha and the Spirit Bird

🎓 Learning Objectives Covered

• English:

  • Analyse tone, atmosphere, and emotional language

  • Identify author’s stylistic choices and their effects

  • Write with emotional realism using sensory and figurative language

  • Expand vocabulary related to emotional and physical struggle

• Geography:

  • Understand the human impact of rural terrain and infrastructure

  • Explore risks related to limited access to food, water, and transport

• Citizenship / Personal Development:

  • Reflect on resilience and mental wellbeing

  • Explore how people support each other under stress

Introduction to the Week

By this point in the story, Asha and Jeevan are well into their journey, but the excitement of escape is gone. Hunger, uncertainty, and fear set in. This week, the focus turns inward. How do we keep going when our energy is gone? How do we carry someone else’s fear as well as our own?

These chapters explore emotional survival as much as physical, and what it means to hold onto hope when everything feels like too much.

Reading & Vocabulary: Chapters 15–17

Comprehension Focus:

• How does hunger and exhaustion affect Asha and Jeevan?

• What emotions rise to the surface during their lowest points?

• How do they try to support each other?

• What role does the memory of Asha’s family — and the spirit bird — play in keeping her going?

  
  

Key Vocabulary Words:

Choose 6–8 new words to define, explore, and use in your own writing:

• Weariness

• Fractured

• Diminish

• Solace

• Burden

• Frailty

• Stagger

• Haunt

Task

"The Whispering Shadow" — A Monologue from Fear

Asha is exhausted, hungry, and unsure if they’ll make it. In a quiet moment, she imagines her fear taking on a physical shape, a shadow that follows her and whispers doubts into her ear.

Write a short dramatic monologue from the point of view of this fear-shadow. You are not Asha, you are the voice inside her head that feeds on her weakness. You taunt, tempt, and try to break her.

🔧 Structure to Follow:

1. Opening (1–2 sentences): Introduce yourself as the shadow. Who are you? Why do you follow her?

2. Middle (4–6 sentences): Describe what Asha is feeling; her tired body, empty stomach, hopeless thoughts, but from your twisted point of view. Use vivid language and at least 4 vocabulary words (see this week’s list).

3. Final lines (2–3 sentences): End with a chilling prediction or question:

   • Will she give in to you?

   • Will she collapse?

   • Can she prove you wrong?

     
     

🧠 Tips for Voice and Style:

• Use second person ("You") to speak directly to Asha.

• Be poetic, eerie, and persuasive, like a villain in a story.

• Make the emotion real, but the voice unreal, like fear itself has taken form.

Example Opening:

“I was born the moment your knees began to shake. I ride behind your eyes now, whispering truth while your hope sleeps. You don’t remember inviting me in, but I’ve been here a long time, waiting.”

Geography Spotlight: Human Impact of Terrain

As Asha and Jeevan move through the countryside, they face rural terrain with few resources; long stretches with little food, shelter, or help.

Key ideas to explore:

• Why are some areas of India less developed or harder to travel through?

• What challenges do people face when infrastructure is limited?

• How does terrain affect survival, especially for children travelling alone?

Watch Simple Geography - Natural Hazards.

Task

Continue your journey map, adding in hazards that they face, clearly marking them as man-made or natural. Add a key for risks and maybe a risk rating system.

🎨 Other Spotlight: Mood and Atmosphere in Storytelling

Jasbinder Bilan creates a heavy, emotional atmosphere in these chapters. But how? Through word choice, sentence rhythm, and imagery.

Let’s break it down:

• Repetition slows the pace → mimics exhaustion

• Words like “grey,” “thin,” “frayed,” and “hollow” build a bleak tone

• Internal thoughts and memories create contrast with the harshness of the journey

  
  

Mini Task

Choose a paragraph from these chapters that you think creates the strongest mood. Highlight 5 words or phrases that shape the atmosphere. Then write a short paragraph copying the technique but set in your own imagined scene (e.g. lost in a city, trapped in a storm, etc.).

🎯 Challenge of the Week

Choose one response task:

Option 1: “Letter in the Dirt” — Emotional Writing

Imagine Asha finds a quiet moment and writes an unsent letter to her mother.

• What would she say, knowing her mother may never read it?

• What would she hide or reveal?

• What fears or hopes would she dare to write down?

• Use at least 5 vocabulary words, and try to reflect the emotional tone of the chapters.

  
  

Option 2: Survival Analysis Chart — “What Keeps Them Going?”

Create a chart with 4 columns:

• Obstacle (e.g. hunger, doubt, fear)

• Strategy (how they respond or adapt)

• Internal strength shown (e.g. resilience, compassion, focus)

• Supporting quotes

Fill out 4–6 examples from Chapters 15–17, with supporting quotes or brief explanations.