The Sticks

 

Vocabulary

barn	bundle	once (2)
grove	alright	milk (2)
pull	push	possible
give	let go	knife/knives
half	each	cut/cut/cut
piece	supper	hard (2)
stick	follow	your turn/my turn
bull	gather	following day
plate	difficult	impossible
take	pass (2)	bedtime
point	either	understand/understood
lute	pass on	break/broke/broken

 
 
 
 

The Barn

There once lived a farmer, his wife and their seven sons.

One morning the farmer went into the barn to see his cows.

He saw his first and second sons inside.

“I’m going to milk the cow. You clean the barn,” said the first son.
“No, I am milking the cow; you clean the barn,” said the second son.
“Alright, you milk the cow today and clean the barn tomorrow,” the farmer said to his first son.

The Apple Grove

In the afternoon, the farmer walked by the apple grove. His third and fourth sons were there. They were pulling a big, red apple.

“Let go; that’s my apple,” said the thrid son.
“No, it’s not, that’s my apple, I saw it first,” said the fourth son.
“Give me that apple,” said the farmer.

He took out his knife, cut the apple in half, and gave each piece to each son.

Supper

That evening, they had dinner.

After the meal, the fifth son picked up a lute and began playing it while the sixth son began singing.

Then the seventh son said, “Hey, I’m going to sleep now; I’ve got to get up early to get to work. Could you stop that?”
But they continued singing and playing music.
The seventh son began shouting at the others.
“Alright, stop playing the lute and singing; you can do that, but before bedtime,” said the mother.

The Bundle of Sticks

The following day, the farmer gathered his sons outside. He held a bundle of seven sticks. Each stick was about one-and-a-half centimeters in diameter.

He then gave the bundle to his seventh son.

“Okay, break this bundle of sticks,” said the farmer.

The seventh son tried … and tried … and tried.

“I can’t — it’s impossible,” he said.

The seventh son passed the bundle to the sixth son. He tried to break it, but couldn’t. So he passed it to the fifth son, but he couldn’t either . . .

The Sticks

After the first son tried, and also failed to break the bundle, the farmer took it from him.

He then gave each son one stick from the bundle.

“Okay now break your sticks,” he told his sons. The sons broke their sticks.

“That was really easy,” said the fourth son.

“Was it?” asked the farmer. “Now, do you understand my point?”
“Uh . . . oh yeah,” replied the sons.

 

  Questions

1. How many characters are in the story? Who are the characters?

2. The first and second sons were arguing. Is this true or false? Why were they arguing?

3. Did the farmer say anything? If yes, what did he say?

4. What happened in the apple grove?

5. What did the farmer do?

6. Were the sons arguing after dinner? Why were they arguing?

7. What did the farmer do the next day? The next day,

8. Is there a moral or lesson to the story? What is the moral or lesson of the story? Why did the farmer do this? He did this because . . . .
 
 
A. Give examples of this story from real life (home, school, work, neighborhood, city, country).

B. Can you give examples from history?

C. In your company or organization, do people work in teams, individually or both?

D. In your culture, which is more important the individual, the group, both or in between?

E. What will happen in the future?