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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Crocodiles · a valued home and a departure under pressure

Explain home as a lived place rather than a deficit · Keep the father’s reported story distinct from witnessed events · Read changing scale and sensory comparison through a child’s knowledge

Section 2025-P3-CROCODILES · 2025–2027 · Crocodiles · whole-book pathway

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · 2025-P3-CROCODILES / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B / SET-2025-3 / SET-2026-3 / SET-2027-3
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2025, 2026, 2027. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching for the 2025–2027 Paper 3 option In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, by Fabio Geda, translated by Howard Curtis. Twenty-eight lessons teach the Author’s Note and all six country chapters, with passage, whole-book essay, voice and retrieval workshops. All three complete 2025–2027 selected-work entries link this whole-book teaching pathway. Reading completion, qualified teacher assessment and calibrated full papers are not certified by these self-review exercises. Read the entire unabridged centre-selected book; lessons and models do not replace it. The public reader is a reflowed 133-page version; its page numbers are locators, not certified centre-edition pagination. Use your copy for exact wording, typography and paragraph breaks. The protected book is linked, not reproduced here. Questions and models are original self-review and do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Other well-supported readings can be valid. Qualified literature-teacher review and calibrated full papers remain unfinished. In 2025–2027, Paper 3 is closed book: 90 minutes, one extract response and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each. This book is not a 2028–2030 Paper 3 option. It is excluded from 2025–2027 coursework because it is on those years’ Paper 3 lists; private candidates cannot enter 0408. The lessons analyse a narrative of past experience, not present-day travel, legal or personal-safety advice.

Before you begin

  • Read the Author’s Note and the named chapter scenes in the centre’s complete Howard Curtis translation. Use the linked reader’s text version if needed; its page numbering differs from print editions.
  • Distinguish the experiencing child, the later narrating Enaiat, Fabio’s conversational questions and the authorial/translation process. Reconstructed dialogue is not a certified recording.
  • Read all six country chapters before the whole-book workshops. Teaching availability does not certify individual reading, mastery or an official assessment result.

Work on paper. Try each question before revealing help, and explain why your method works.

Quick readiness check

What should support a claim about a literary text?

What you will learn

  • Explain home as a lived place rather than a deficit
  • Keep the father’s reported story distinct from witnessed events
  • Read changing scale and sensory comparison through a child’s knowledge

Crocodiles · home, scale and coercion

  • Read the named scenes in the complete centre-selected book or the linked public reading before answering. The protected book is not reproduced here.
  • Reader page numbers identify this web version only. Use chapter and scene locators when working with another edition.
  • Write your own developed response before opening the model. Use brief accurate evidence from your copy; paraphrase plainly when exact wording is uncertain.

Original whole-book teaching and self-review, not official Cambridge questions, marks, coursework or a calibrated full paper. The lessons and models do not replace reading the complete centre-selected book or qualified assessment.

A place worth losing

Read the remembered village, family threat and journey out, reader pp.9–15.

  1. 1. How does Geda make the departure a loss as well as an escape?

    Compare after trying

    The fruit, food, courtyard and stars give Nava a dense remembered value. Its limited technology does not cancel those attachments, and the narrator’s reluctance prevents the departure from reading as a simple rejection of home.

    The father’s reported story and threats to the children explain why remaining is dangerous. I therefore find escape painful: it answers a pressure while taking away a familiar life. The account needs both parts, rather than a contrast between an entirely bad homeland and an already secure destination.

    Why this response fits

    • Use the concrete remembered place.
    • Retain the difference between an urgent escape and a guaranteed better future.

A growing world

Compare the child’s understanding of mountains, city sounds and travel with the later explanations, reader pp.6–13.

  1. 1. What do the child’s changing ideas about place contribute to the voice?

    Compare after trying

    The child first measures a country by the valley and mountains he knows. His explanation of city noise similarly uses a small range of experience to interpret a much larger place. The comparisons make limited knowledge intelligible from within.

    The later voice can qualify those ideas while preserving the remembered attention to sounds, food and stars. This gives the account both proximity and distance: I can follow the child’s expectations without pretending that he understood the whole journey or that every mistaken idea invalidates his experience.

    Why this response fits

    • Explain how a comparison reveals the scale of experience.
    • Keep later correction distinct from contempt for the child.

Home is valuable before it is left

Nava is described through fruit, stars, food, family space and familiar games. The absence of electricity does not make it an empty or worthless place. The narrator repeatedly refuses the idea that he would willingly have abandoned it. Such details make departure a loss of a meaningful life, rather than an inevitable improvement from a place with nothing to offer. Read specific attachments alongside danger. A response that describes the village only through deprivation risks repeating the limited view which the remembered pleasures complicate.

The family threat is not a directly witnessed death

The father’s account is explicitly given as a story received from others. Coerced transport, lost goods, demands for repayment and threats against the children connect one death with continuing pressure on the household. The mother’s attempts to conceal the boys are practical responses, though the child questions their logic. Do not claim that he personally sees his father killed or supply an exact age where the voice is uncertain. The limits of the account belong in an analysis of its telling rather than being silently replaced by certainty.

Scale changes as knowledge changes

The child initially imagines Afghanistan within the mountains he knows, and interprets the sound of a city as a difference between countries. These explanations reveal the small scale of an experienced world. The later voice can correct or qualify them without making the child merely foolish. Counts of stars, damaged infrastructure and city impressions place ordinary attention beside signs of violence. The initial excitement about a journey also belongs to limited knowledge, not proof that no coercive pressures exist. Explain the distance between wanting an adventure and choosing the conditions that force departure.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does the narrator claim to have watched his father’s death?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Why is “The boy leaves because he dislikes everything about home” unsupported?

Show the worked solution
  1. Use the sensory and domestic detail attached to Nava.
  2. Set his stated reluctance beside the continuing threats against the children.

Answer The narrative makes departure intelligible through pressure while preserving the value of what is lost.

Try a topic test

Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.

Test this topic →

From guided practice to a new situation

Write your answer and reasoning first. Use a hint only if you are stuck. The model solution is for self-checking; your written work is not automatically marked.

1 · Guided

How does the fruit-filled courtyard affect an account of forced departure?

Give me a hint

Ask what the detail gives the reader to value.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The description makes a familiar home concrete.
  2. The threats show why remaining there becomes dangerous.

The contrast gives loss a substance beyond a generic label of hardship.

Look for these in your work

  • Use a particular attachment
  • Connect it to pressure
2 · Independent

Why does the narrator qualify the father’s story before telling it?

Give me a hint

Consider the source of his knowledge.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The events precede what he can directly recount.
  2. He tells them through what others have passed on.

The qualification lets the family history matter without falsely certifying eyewitness access.

Look for these in your work

  • Identify the reporting chain
  • Retain its limit
3 · Transfer

Revise a claim that excitement proves free choice.

Give me a hint

Separate a child’s immediate anticipation from the surrounding circumstances.

Compare my reasoning
  1. He imagines an unfamiliar journey as exciting.
  2. He does not yet understand the threats and permanent loss involved.

Limited anticipation does not remove the constraints under which the departure is arranged.

Look for these in your work

  • Separate perspectives
  • Avoid a false inference of consent

Common mistakes

  • Do not treat descriptions of hostile groups as timeless facts about every member of a country or religion.
  • Do not replace uncertain ages or durations with exact figures the narrative does not establish.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does the narrator claim to have watched his father’s death?

Compare with the explanation

No; he explicitly recounts a story told to him and qualifies what he can guarantee.

Reported family history should not be converted into an eyewitness scene.

After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.

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Make it stick

Does the narrator claim to have watched his father’s death?

If you needed the solution, close it and solve the problem again from a blank page. A correct answer is stronger when you can explain the reason for each step.

Keep learning World Literature

Course scope and assessment

238 original lessons provide 714 guided, independent and transfer tasks, plus 431 reading-tracker and long-response prompts. Twenty skill and route entries, three year-specific Cherry Orchard entries, two Anowa entries, three Crocodiles entries, one 2027 Little Foxes entry, two year-specific Volume 1 poetry entries, one historical 2025 Volume 2 poetry entry and three year-specific Volume 2 story entries link teaching. Anowa has ten lessons through the Prologue and all three phases, with thirty staged tasks and ten original developed responses. Complete primary reading locators support analysis of the contested community frame, partnership, enslavement, the children, remembered dream, separation and ending. The protected play is linked rather than reproduced; editorial BECE material is not reused. Both eligible 2025–2026 Anowa rows link the whole-play pathway. Twenty-eight lessons teach the Author’s Note and all six country chapters of In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, with eighty-four staged tasks and sixty original developed responses. Four workshops teach passage analysis, whole-book argument, layered voice and retrieval/revision. All three complete 2025–2027 book entries link the whole-book pathway; the existing supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. The public reflowed reading is linked rather than reproduced, with edition limits explicit. Twenty-two Little Foxes lessons teach all three acts for 2027, with sixty-six staged tasks and forty-eight original developed responses. Hospitality, silenced voices, the mill, financial negotiation, the proposed marriage, Horace’s return and refusal, the bonds, Birdie’s disclosure, withheld help, the final bargain and Alexandra’s decision are taught through actual stage directions and dialogue locators. Four workshops develop passage analysis, whole-play argument, stagecraft and corrective retrieval. SET-2027-2 links the full sequence; the existing supplemental route remains available without inflating counted requirements. The protected acting script is linked rather than reproduced; exact centre-edition wording and revisions must be checked. The Cherry Orchard has an 18-lesson whole-text sequence with five actual Julius West excerpts and three argument models. The 2026–2027 poetry option has teaching for all fourteen members, three complete public-domain poems and close-reading, comparison and retrieval workshops. Twenty-four lessons teach all ten 2026–2028 Stories of Ourselves Volume 2 members, with named reading and writing sequences and evidence, passage-context, essay and ten-member retrieval workshops. Two complete public-domain narratives, nineteen actual prose extracts and Katie’s complete twenty-line poem within Besant’s prose story support close reading and whole-story writing. The Shrinking Shoe follows the original 1895 prose and its five sections; the embedded poem is not a Paper 2 set poem. All three eligible ten-story selection rows link the complete pathway. Wodehouse and Woolf use brief quotations and original commentary with complete reading sources; their full texts are not reproduced here. Twelve lessons teach twelve compulsory 2028–2030 Volume 3 poems, with thirty-six staged tasks and twenty-four developed-response prompts. The Dutt and Kingsley excerpts and Cissoko’s exact translation still need verified reading and teaching; full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so all three complete poetry rows remain unlinked. Fourteen lessons teach seven 2029–2030 Volume 3 stories with thirty-five developed-response prompts. Twelve actual older primary excerpts support four stories; Achebe, Desai and Danticat use original commentary with complete primary reading links rather than reproducing their protected texts. A separate partial-member pathway supports The Necklace, The Model Millionaire, Sultana’s Dream, The Interlopers, The Sacrificial Egg, Sale and New York Day Women without linking either complete ten-story row. The three other members and full-selection workshops remain unfinished. Read the full centre-selected works and protected anthology; check edition differences, including Weissenhorn’s older Necklace translation. The historical 2025 poetry pathway teaches all fourteen members through eighteen lessons, fifty-four staged tasks and fifty-one developed-response models. Three complete public-domain poems remain printed with line breaks; eleven protected poems use complete primary reading links and original commentary. Four workshops teach close analysis, whole-poem argument, preparation comparisons and specific retrieval of all fourteen members. The complete SET-2025-5 option links this sequence; the historical supplemental route remains without increasing counted requirements. Archival Cambridge and WJEC papers supply primary poems, not reused questions or later-year assessment rules. Centre-edition differences remain explicit. Forty-six lessons provide original teaching and practice for nine historical 2025 story members: The Doll’s House, The Gold Watch, A Visit, A Walk to the Jetty, In the Mountains, Mrs. Sen’s, Promenade, The Plantation and The Paper Menagerie. Together they provide one hundred and thirty-eight staged tasks and one hundred and one developed-response models. A Visit uses complete primary reading visually checked across printed pages 306–310. Promenade follows the complete seven-page narrative on printed pages 416–422; its four lessons trace bodily control, wordless meetings, the interrupted circuit and changed final walk. Mrs. Sen’s has six lessons through the complete story, with eighteen staged tasks and thirteen developed-response models. Teaching follows the collection scan from its unnumbered opening through printed p.135, with food, letters, recordings, separate journeys and the changed final care arrangement. The Plantation has five lessons, fifteen staged tasks and eleven developed-response models through all four numbered sections, visually checked against printed pages 423–429 through the final dawn bird-call. In the Mountains has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the final invitation to eat. The complete publisher transcription supports scene-based reading; automated-text errors and subscription access remain explicit, and original printed pages were not visually verified. A Walk to the Jetty has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the complete six-page retype’s final berth. Reader annotations and the appended question are separate; the complete publisher version has wording differences, so exact quotations require the approved edition. The centre edition remains required for exact quotations. The protected stories are linked, not reproduced. The partial member pathway is supplemental; Words and full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so SET-2025-6 stays unlinked. Fifteen year-specific prescribed-work entries remain unfinished; complete centre-selected coursework reading also needs substantive text-specific teaching. The 51-entry map is a StudyForA preparation map, not official numbered syllabus sections or a percentage of student mastery. Written practice is self-checked and is not officially marked. Full timed papers and qualified literature-teacher assessment remain unfinished. Fictional exercises are labelled separately from actual excerpts; alternative well-supported readings can be valid. Centre-authenticated coursework and Cambridge moderation are separate from self-check practice.

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