Daily Lessons for Teaching When We Were Orphans

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Lesson 1 (from Chapter 1)


Kazuo Ishiguro is very specific about the years and dates of the seven parts of WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS. The novel is conveyed to the reader, however, through highly subjective, and often imprecise, memories of the narrator's past. This lesson will explore the influence of time and place in the novel.


1) Divide the class into groups: Have the groups comb through the novel to answer the following. How many specific dates and years are given in the novel? What are they? How many significant events have no particular date or year attached? What is the difference between events the reader is given dates for and the ones the reader is not?

2) In-class discussion: Discuss the contrast between the fuzziness of memory and the precision of dates and years in the novel? Is it effective? Why? What does this contrast reveal about Christopher Banks?

3) In-class writing...

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