An Outpost Of Progress

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY 1: “The Setting as a Character”

In this activity, students consider the impact of the jungle in “An Outpost of Progress” and write their own short narrative that features a setting that functions as a character.

The jungle in “An Outpost of Progress” acts both as a symbol and a character that slowly erodes Kayerts and Carlier’s civility.

• Share this passage with a classmate. Discuss how the jungle is described or how it impacts the characters. Be ready to share what you discussed with the whole class.
• Think about other settings that could act as a symbol and character in a story. For example, a school, a hospital, a haunted house, or the wilderness on a camping trip. Write a brief narrative that features characters in a setting that seems to interact with and affect them. Consider how you can write about the setting in a way that makes it seem more significant than just where the story takes place. In your narrative, setting should function as a character or symbol that influences plot developments and characters.

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to identify elements of their setting before they write so that they can use sensory details and specific language to develop the setting in their narrative. Post-activity discussion could focus on the jungle as a symbol in “An Outpost of Progress” and how students imbued their own setting with symbolic significance.

Differentiation Suggestion: Some students, including those seeking an option for a visual project or a graphic story challenge, may prefer to create their narrative as a comic strip, or simply as a drawing that shows the setting.

ACTIVITY 2: “Makola’s Diary”

In this activity, students write from Makola’s perspective to explore the theme of The Moral Degeneracy of Human Nature or The Hypocrisy of Western Colonialism.

Makola, who insists his name is Henry Price, seems to act as a contrast, or foil, to Kayerts and Carlier. He lives in the jungle, trading in slaves and ivory, yet seems to be mentally unaffected while Kayerts and Carlier descend into malaise and madness. Exploring the passages with Makola allows us to better understand his perspective and therefore the perspectives of Kayerts and Carlier.

• Identify at least one passage that features Makola but which is not narrated from Makola’s perspective.
• Share your passage with a classmate to compare. Discuss what you learn about Makola from the passages. Share your passages with the class.
• Choose one of the passages and write a diary entry about that part of the plot from Makola’s perspective. Consider how Makola might feel about the events of the passage and about Kayerts and Carlier. How might Makola think about Kayerts and Carlier’s hypocrisy, or about the degeneration of their human nature?
• After writing the diary entry, reflect on what you’ve written. Add a paragraph that analyzes the entry in terms of how it connects to the theme of The Moral Degeneracy of Human Nature or The Hypocrisy of Western Colonialism.

Teaching Suggestion: Students might benefit from a model of a diary entry. Additionally, identifying 2-3 passages featuring Makola for students to choose from might provide beneficial scaffolding of the work.