Chapter 1: A Letter to God

Before You Read

• Theme: Faith and belief, questioning what one should put faith in.
• Main Character: Lencho, a farmer who writes to God.
• Activity: Discussion about sending money via post office and understanding related vocabulary: counter, counter clerk, appropriate, acknowledgement, counterfoil, record.

Plot Summary

• Setting: Only house in a valley on a low hill.
• Background: Lencho hopes for rain for his crops.
• Inciting Incident: A hailstorm destroys the crops.
• Lencho's Reaction: Believes only God can help, writes a letter asking for 100 pesos.

Key Plot Points

• Rain: Seen as coins, first a blessing, then a disaster with hail.
• Lencho's Faith: Writes to God; believes God will help him.
• Post Office's Role: Postmaster collects money from colleagues, sends some to Lencho with a letter signed 'God'.

Characters

• Lencho: Devout, believes strongly in divine intervention.
• Postmaster: Initially amused but then inspired by Lencho’s faith, decides to help.

Important Themes

• Faith: Lencho's unwavering belief in God.
• Irony: Lencho believes postal employees are thieves, unaware they helped.
• Human Nature: Conflict between human faith and skepticism.

Questions for Comprehension

1. What did Lencho hope for?
2. Why were raindrops compared to coins?
3. Outcome of the rain on Lencho's fields?
4. Lencho's feelings post-storm?
5. Who does Lencho think took the rest of the money?
6. Are there real-world people like Lencho? Characteristics?
7. Conflicts illustrated: human vs nature & human vs human.

Language and Grammar

• Metaphors: Used to compare qualities (e.g., "clouds like mountains").
• Relative Clauses: Used for additional information (non-defining clauses).
• Negatives for Emphasis: To stress absence or contradiction.

Activities and Exercises

• Vocabulary: Understanding and using story-specific words.
• Grammar: Practice with relative clauses.
• Writing: Encourage creating sentences using new structures.
• Speaking: Discuss personal experiences of divine intervention or miracles.
• Listening Activity: Understanding context and content from a given passage.

Reflections and Questions

• Personal Reflection: Have you relied on a miracle in difficult times?
• Environmental Awareness: Design a poster for water conservation as inspired by the story's themes.

Poems by Robert Frost

• "Dust of Snow": Simple moments and their larger significance.
• "Fire and Ice": Different destructive forces, reflected in human emotions.

Extended Discussion

• Hope and Faith: Exploration of these themes through storytelling.
• Character Analysis: Lencho's characteristics—naive or unquestioning faith?
• Cultural Elements: Understanding currency and role of postal service in story context.

Note: This chapter integrates reading comprehension, grammar, and thematic exploration to engage students in critical thinking and language proficiency.