Use text structure to understand and read text independently

Hello Dear,

How are you today?

You are welcome to another wonderful lesson.

In this lesson, we are going to use text structure to understand and read text independently.

• Interact with a variety of texts.
• Examine the topic sentences that give clues to a specific passage.
• Examine how the information is organized. ( description, sequence, problem solution, cause and effect.

Before we move to todays lesson let’s read the story below.

One day, Molly the milkmaid had filled her pails with milk. Her job was to milk the cows, and then bring the milk to the market to sell. Molly loved to think about what to spend her money on.

As she filled the pails with milk and went to market, she again thought of all the things she wanted to buy. As she walked along the road, she thought of buying a cake and a basket full of fresh strawberries.

A little further down the road, she spotted a chicken. She thought, “With the money I get from today, I’m going to buy a chicken of my own. That chicken will lay eggs, then I will be able to sell milk and eggs and get more money!”

She continued, “With more money, I will be able to buy a fancy dress and make all the other milkmaids jealous.” Out of excitement, Molly started skipping, forgetting about the milk in her pails. Soon, the milk started spilling over the edges, covering Molly.

Drenched, Molly said to herself, “Oh no! I will never have enough money to buy a chicken now.” She went home with her empty pails.

“Oh, my goodness! What happened to you?” Molly’s mother asked.

“I was too busy dreaming about all the things I wanted to buy that I forgot about the pails,” she answered.

“Oh, Molly, my dear. How many times do I need to say, ‘Don’t count your chickens until they hatch?’”

Once upon a time, a farmer had a goose that laid one golden egg every day. The egg provided enough money for the farmer and his wife to support their daily needs. The farmer and his wife continued to be happy for a long time.

But, one day, the farmer thought to himself, “Why should we take just one egg a day? Why can’t we take them all at once and make a lot of money?” The farmer told his wife his idea, and she foolishly agreed.

Then, the next day, as the goose laid its golden egg, the farmer was quick with a sharp knife. He killed the goose and cut its stomach open, in the hopes of finding all its golden eggs. But, as he opened the stomach, the only thing he found was guts and blood.

The farmer quickly realized his foolish mistake and proceeded to cry over his lost resource. As the days went on, the farmer and his wife became poorer and poorer. How jinxed and how foolish they were.

Galamsey in Ghana

Galamsey, derived from the phrase “gather them and sell”, is a local Ghanaian parlance which means illegal small-scale, gold mining in Ghana. Such workers are known as galamseyers or orpailleurs in neighboring Francophone nations. Galamseyers are people who perform illegal gold mining independent of mining companies, digging small working pits, tunnels, and sluices by hand. Galamsey is also referred to as Illegal Artisanal Small Scale mining

Generally the galamseyers can dig only to a limited depth, far shallower and smaller than commercial mining companies. Under current Ghanaian law, it is illegal for galamseyers to dig on land granted to mining companies as concessions or licenses. Most galamseyers find gold in free metallic dust form or they process oxide or sulphide gold ore using liquid mercury.

The number of galamseyers in Ghana is unknown, but believed to be from 20,000 to 50,000, including thousands from China.^[5] The Information Minister recently claimed there are now 200,000 people engaged in galamsey, and according to other sources, there are nearly 3 million who rely on it for their livelihoods. They mostly operate in the southern part of Ghana where there are substantial reserves of gold deposits, usually within the environs of the larger mining companies. As a group, they are economically disadvantaged. Galamsey settlements are usually poorer than neighboring agricultural villages. They have high rates of accidents and are exposed to mercury poisoning from their crude processing methods. Many women are among the workers, acting mostly as porters for the miners.

In some cases, galamseyers are the first to discover and work extensive gold deposits before mining companies find out and take over. Galamsey workings are an indicator of the presence of gold.

The major cause of galamsey is unemployment among the youth in Ghana. Young university graduates rarely find work, and when they do it hardly sustains them. The result is that these youth go the extra mile to earn a living for themselves and their family. Another factor is that lack of job security.

On November 13, 2009 a collapse occurred in an illegal, privately owned mine in Dompoase, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. At least 18 workers were killed, including 13 women, who worked as porters for the miners. Officials described the disaster as the worst mine collapse in Ghanaian history  while the Appeatse Explosion is the worst mine related disaster in Ghanaian history.

Illegal mining damages the land and water supply. In March 2017, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr. John Peter Amewu, gave the galamsey operators/illegal miners a three-week ultimatum to stop their activities or be prepared to face the law. The activities by galamseyers have depleted Ghana’s forest cover and they have caused water pollution, due to the crude and unregulated nature of the mining process.

Now lets read independently and identify how text structure helps with understanding texts /passages.