A Proverb, a Road Block, and a Grading Decision
In a Khmer literature class in Kandal province, students debate the proverb “When elephants fight, the rice plants are crushed” (ដំរីជល់គ្នា ស្រូវរងរា), in the version used in this class. Student A says it teaches ordinary people to stay out of disputes between the powerful. Student B says it warns that the weak pay for the powerful’s conflicts, so the strong have a duty to restrain themselves. Student C says it is only about elephants and rice and has no modern meaning. The teacher must grade a 150–200 word response that uses the proverb to comment on a local dispute: two construction companies have blocked a village road for three weeks, and neither will move its equipment. The rubric rewards accurate paraphrase, identification of figurative language, a defensible claim, and evidence from the proverb rather than from opinion.
1. Explain which student’s reading is best supported by the proverb and why C is inadequate.
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B is best supported. The proverb has a comparison structure: two large animals fight, and the rice - the thing people depend on - is destroyed. The literal image is not really about elephants; it is about scale and collateral damage. B captures the causal claim (the weak suffer from the strong’s conflict) and adds a moral inference (the strong have a duty to restrain themselves).
A turns the description into advice to the weak - “stay out” - which the proverb does not state. It is an inference, and a debatable one.
C is inadequate because it mistakes literal reference for meaning. Proverbs are figurative by convention, and the class is using this one analogically: the companies are the elephants, the road is the rice. C’s objection would make almost every proverb meaningless.
2. Draft a model paragraph for the response, showing paraphrase, figurative reading, claim, and application.
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The proverb “When elephants fight, the rice plants are crushed” compares the powerful to elephants and ordinary villagers to rice. The image is not about animals; it is about what happens to the thing people eat when those with strength collide. In the dispute between the two construction companies, the elephants are the companies and the rice is the village road: for three weeks neither has given way, and the people who cannot pass are the ones who lose. The proverb therefore does more than describe; it assigns responsibility. If the strong know that their fight will crush the weak, they have a reason to settle or to limit the fight. That is the claim I would defend: the proverb is a warning to the powerful, not an instruction to the weak to be quiet.
3. The teacher wants to test whether students can separate the proverb’s descriptive claim from a moral prescription. Explain the difference and give an example from the paragraph.
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Descriptive claim: “when the powerful fight, the weak suffer.” Prescriptive claim: “the powerful ought to restrain themselves,” or “the weak ought to stay out.” The proverb states the first; the second is an inference.
In the paragraph, “the people who cannot pass are the ones who lose” is descriptive - it reports a consequence. “They have a reason to settle” is prescriptive - it recommends an action. Keeping the two apart is what allows the teacher to mark A and B differently: A moves from description to a prescription for the weak; B moves from description to a prescription for the strong. Both are inferences, but B’s is better supported by the image, because the proverb focuses on the damage done, not on any duty of the rice to keep quiet.