Taipei American School • English Literature
Metacognitive Reading Worksheets & Chapter Lessons
Monitor • Question • Clarify • ConnectEach chapter below has two resources: a worksheet with before, during, and after reading activities — comprehension tracking, double-entry journals, and metacognitive reflection — and a lesson presentation to guide you through the chapter's key ideas.
Before You Begin
An Introduction to Tsotsi
Start here. Build the context you need to read Athol Fugard's novel with confidence — key vocabulary from the text and a background reader's guide covering the historical setting, South African township life under apartheid, and the novel's place in world literature.
Select a chapter
Chapter 1
Into the Night
Tsotsi and the gang. The train. Who is this person — and what has he buried in himself?
Chapter 2
What Is Decency?
Boston asks a question that gets him beaten half to death. What does it mean to be decent — and why is Tsotsi so threatened by the word?
Chapter 3
The Three Rules
Alone for the first time, a baby forces Tsotsi to confront the past he has sealed away. The three rules that keep memory locked out.
Chapter 4
Cassim's World
Fugard shifts to Cassim's perspective. A new lens on helplessness, dependence, and how relationships transform us.
Chapter 5
Broken Mechanisms
Gumboot's burial. Boston awakens. The gang fractures. Three perspectives — one question: can people fundamentally change?
Chapter 6
Light and Dark
Terminal Place. Morris Tshabalala crawls through the dark. Tsotsi hunts him — but something in the man's movement stirs a memory.
Chapter 7
The Confrontation
Morris has no way out. Tsotsi has every reason to kill. But something about "He was also a man" cracks the surface.
Chapter 8
Three Journeys, One Night
Boston. Reverend Ransome. Tsotsi. Three crises, the same night — and the introduction of Miriam, at knifepoint.
Chapter 9
The Name Buried Alive
Tsotsi recovers what he spent years destroying: the memory of a mother, a dog, a name. David Madondo surfaces for the first time.
Chapter 10
What Was Hidden
Three rules broken. The gang disbanded. A baby named David. Memory reclaimed — and given away. What does it cost to recover yourself?
Chapter 11
Who Has Changed
The man who beat Boston now carries him. The man who caused pain now feels it. A complete inversion of power, role, and feeling.
Chapter 12
"My Name is David Madondo"
Isaiah. Miss Marriot. Miriam's "Come back." The ending. A full circle through the novel — triumph, tragedy, or both at once?