San Francisco Story

c Pearson Education Limited 2011

San Francisco Story - Teacher’s notes 1 of 1

Teacher’s notes

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Summary

Ben Farrow has just arrived in San Francisco and he needs
a job. He goes to Charles Tyson’s store and Charles offers
him a job, working with another employee, Jed. He also
offers him a room in the apartment above the shop, which
he shares with his daughter, Lucy. Jed isn’t happy about
Ben working there and he is jealous when Ben and Lucy
start being friendly to each other. Jed steals some money
and hides it in Ben’s room. Later that day, Mr. Tyson
discovers that the money is missing and he finds it in Ben’s
room. He thinks Ben is the thief and tells him to leave his
store. Ben can’t find another job and he has no money,
so he sleeps in Golden Gate Park. One morning there is
an earthquake and there are fires in the city and many
people are dead. Both Ben and Jed run to Mr. Tyson’s
store. People ask Jed for help but he ignores them. When
he finds Lucy, she is trapped but he doesn’t help her either.
He takes the money from Mr. Tyson’s safe and runs away.
Suddenly he falls into a hole. Ben arrives and sees Jed but
goes to the store first to rescue Lucy and Mr. Tyson. Lucy
tells her father about Jed stealing the money and they now
realise that Ben was not the thief. Ben goes back to where
Jed is and makes him hand over the money. Jed runs away
and Ben decides to stay with Lucy and Mr. Tyson and
build a future together with them.

Background and themes

Earthquakes: In 1906, an earthquake hit San Francisco
destroying buildings and, along with the resulting fire,
killing more than 3,000 people. It is often considered
to be one of the worst natural disasters in United States
history. San Francisco suffered another important
earthquake in 1989.

Honesty: Ben is honest and good and Jed is the opposite.
Although it appears that Ben loses out halfway through
the story, in the end his honesty pays off and Jed has to
run away with nothing.

Discussion activities

Before reading

1 Research and write: Ask the students to do some

research about San Francisco using the Internet. Get
feedback from the whole class and then ask students
to write a short piece about the city.

2 Predict: Explain to the students that there is a good

person and a bad person in the story. Put them in
small groups to predict what they do that makes them
good and bad. Get feedback from the different groups
and make a note to see who was right when they have
finished reading.

While reading

(p. 1, after “But I need a job.”)

3 Pair work: Put students in pairs and give them two

minutes to make a list of jobs in English. Ask which
pair has the most words and write them on the board.
Get any further contributions from other groups.
Then ask the pairs to discuss the following questions:
Which jobs do you like and why?

4 Pair work: (p. 10, after “I can buy a small store in a

country town”) Tell students to imagine they have a
lot of money and that they can buy any five things
they want. In pairs have them discuss what to buy
and then get feedback from the whole class.

After reading

5 Write and guess: Get students to choose one of

the pictures in the book and to write two or three
sentences about it. Then put them in pairs and
students exchange papers and see who guesses first
which picture is being described.

6 Write and ask: On the board, write Who does Ben

work with? Elicit the answer (Jed). Ask students to
write another question about something from the
story. Check their work as they do this. Now have
students stand up and walk around the class, asking
and answering each other’s questions.

7 Game: Write the names of the main characters on the

board. Now put the students in small groups to talk
about what they can remember about each one
without looking back at the book. Now play the
game. Each team must take turns to say a true
sentence about one of the characters. They can’t
repeat a sentence. If the sentence is repeated or
wrong, the team is eliminated. The team left at the
end wins.

John Escott