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