English · Class 9

Active learning ideas

The Little Girl: Fear and Affection

Active learning helps students step into Kezia’s shoes and feel her emotions directly, making the abstract ideas of fear and affection concrete. When students act out scenes or map changes in her feelings, the story’s themes stay with them longer than passive reading alone.

• CBSE Learning Outcomes
• CBSE: The Little Girl - Class 9

• 25–40 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Role Play
• 35 min · Pairs

Role-Play: Key Scenes from the Story

Divide students into pairs to enact scenes like the bedtime routine and illness episode, alternating roles between Kezia and father. After each performance, pairs note emotional changes observed. Debrief as a class on perception shifts.

Analyze how the protagonist's perception of her father evolves throughout the story.

Facilitation Tip

For the role-play, give students the exact lines from the text but ask them to add internal thoughts in brackets to show Kezia’s hidden emotions.

What to look for

On a slip of paper, ask students to write: 1. One word describing Kezia's initial feeling towards her father. 2. One event that caused her feeling to change. 3. One word describing her final feeling.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Activity 02

• Role Play
• 40 min · Small Groups

Emotion Timeline: Kezia's Journey

In small groups, students create a visual timeline charting Kezia's feelings with story quotes and drawings. Groups present timelines, explaining turning points. Connect to personal family memories.

Evaluate the impact of the father's actions on the little girl's emotional development.

Facilitation Tip

On the emotion timeline, ask students to draw small clocks or arrows between each event to show how long it took for Kezia’s feelings to change.

What to look for

Facilitate a class discussion with the prompt: 'How might Kezia's father have acted differently to avoid causing his daughter fear? What does this tell us about effective parenting?' Encourage students to support their answers with examples from the text.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Activity 03

• Think-Pair-Share
• 25 min · Pairs

Think-Pair-Share: Fear to Affection

Pose the question: How does fear turn to love? Students think individually for 2 minutes, pair to discuss for 5 minutes, then share with class. Record key insights on board.

Explain how the story uses internal monologue to reveal the child's fears and desires.

Facilitation Tip

In the think-pair-share, provide sentence starters like ‘I used to think… but now I see…’ to guide their discussion about fear turning to affection.

What to look for

Present students with two short passages from the story: one showing Kezia's fear and one showing her growing affection. Ask them to identify the literary device (e.g., description, dialogue, internal thought) used in each passage to convey her feelings.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 04

• Role Play
• 30 min · Individual

Empathy Journals: Father's View

Individually, students write a diary entry from the father's perspective during Kezia's illness. Share select entries in small groups, discussing hidden affections. Link to story evidence.

Analyze how the protagonist's perception of her father evolves throughout the story.

Facilitation Tip

For empathy journals, ask students to write three short paragraphs: one from Kezia’s view, one from the father’s, and one from the mother’s perspective during the same moment.

What to look for

On a slip of paper, ask students to write: 1. One word describing Kezia's initial feeling towards her father. 2. One event that caused her feeling to change. 3. One word describing her final feeling.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

A few notes on teaching this unit

Start with a quick free-write where students finish the sentence ‘My father is…’ before reading the story. This builds anticipation and helps you see their own experiences shaping their understanding. Avoid telling students the father is ‘secretly kind’ too soon; let the story’s events reveal it. Research shows that when students debate conflicting evidence, like a stern father who later comforts his child, their empathy and critical thinking both strengthen.

By the end, students should move beyond calling the father ‘strict’ or ‘loving’ and instead explain how his behaviour shifts Kezia’s view over time. They will use evidence from the text and their own reflections to show this change clearly.

---

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Role-Play: Key Scenes from the Story, some students may treat the father as simply a harsh character without showing his hidden care.

  During Role-Play, remind students to use tone, pauses, and body language to show both the father’s strictness and his softness during the night watch scene. Ask observers to note moments when his actions reveal affection.

• During Emotion Timeline: Kezia's Journey, students might place a sudden jump from fear to affection after one event.

  During Emotion Timeline, ask students to measure the distance between events in weeks or months using the text. Require them to add small labels like ‘slow realisation’ or ‘small trust’ between points to show gradual change.

• During Think-Pair-Share: Fear to Affection, students may argue that Kezia’s fear disappears instantly after her nightmare.

  During Think-Pair-Share, provide the prompt ‘Which exact words in the text show that Kezia’s fear fades slowly?’ and ask pairs to find two pieces of evidence from different moments in the story.

---

Methods used in this brief

• Role Play
• Think-Pair-Share