It looks as if I would never be 5 страница

2. It was so dark that we could hardly see the forest path.

3. If you are tired of basketball, why not try some other sport?

4. Make-up and fancy clothes couldn't save her from looking unattractive.

5. Why are you smiling that foxy smile of yours? What's on your mind, huh?

6. You are directing your steps to the museum, aren't you? But it's closed.

7. Sharks are always hungry and on the lookout for something to kill.

8. You're always interfering when I do the rooms. Find something else to do!

Choose from the following: plain, to take up to, to get in one's way, to head for, to make out, to be up to something, prey, to and fro.

2.7. Grammar.

Darkish woods (see p. 12) and sharkish thoughts in the above story appeared due to the suffix -ish. It looks like one can make good use of the suffix. Before doing that, make sure you understand the following sentences.

When expected at 5-ish, you don't have to come at five sharp.

If you meet a darkish creature in the wood, you'll know what to do, right?

If your sweater is greenish, it is not bright green.

If someone is fortyish, well, it means this person is still young!

Obviously, he had a sort of snobbish streak in his character.

Produce examples of your own, both longish and shortish. e.g. When I was a smallish schoolchild, I used to...

III. POST-READING

3.1. Humour in focus.

Hold a discussion on the role of humor in everyday life as well as in education. English instruction can hardly do without humor, right? Try to give as many reasons for (or against) this as you can. And remember, humor is to be taken very seriously!

3.2. Do you have ANY FUN to say?

As a teacher of English, you'll hear a lot of phonological errors in the speech of your students. It is not always worthwhile to just correct those, is it? Now think of the ways to react creatively — that is, with a touch of humor — to the following statements made by the students of elfish age (10 — 13 years).

1. Says a 10-year-old girl: "Well, my bathday is in April..."

Answers Teacher:

2. Says an 11-year-old boy: "Travelling is a good way to taste yourself..."

Replies Teacher:

3. Says a 12-year-old boy: "Now I am twelf years old..."

Inquires Teacher:

4. Says a 12-year-old girl: "There is a blackbird in the classroom..."

Exclaims Teacher:

3.3. Tricks and inventions.

Find some facts proving that tricks are not just tricks but something else. It may well happen that a child trickster will become an inventor some day. One such story is given below. The first test-scoring machines were developed in the 1930s. The earliest prototype was created by Ronald B. Johnson, a high school teacher from Michigan. His invention was based on the fact that graphite conducts electricity. His inspiration to use graphite came to him when he was recalling one of the boyhood tricks that he played on his sisters' boyfriends. He would scratch pencil marks on the spark plugs of their parked cars. When the boyfriends would try to start their cars, the graphite in the pencil marks would draw the sparks away from the spark plugs and the engines wouldn't start. Thinking about this, Johnson realized that a machine could electrically sense pencil marks made on a sheet of paper and then indicate if these marks were in the right places. By 1933, Johnson had made a working model of a test-scoring machine. It was improved over the following years, and ever since, American students have used No.2 pencils to answer standardized exams.

3.4. Project work.

Find more stories similar to the one above. Share your findings with the group.

DISCUSSION PROJECTS (STORIES 6-10)

MEET THE AUTHOR.

In the group, arrange a readers' conference. Invite the authors to participate: Katherine Cushman, Linde Pilcher, Kathleen Stevens, Teresa Bateman, and Margaret Mahy. Ask them as many profound questions as you can about the stories they wrote for Cricket.

MEET THE ADULT PROTOTYPE.

The characters of the four stories — two mothers and two teachers - are very good educators, aren't they? Ask them about how they became so perceptive. California's and Joe's mothers, along with Mr Barker the Teacher and Lindquest the Tutor, will answer all your questions.

MMB = MOST MEMORABLE BOOK.

In the group, discuss the books you read in childhood and say if they still make good reading today for the 'now' generation.

LAUGH-AT-YOURSELF SESSION.

One can easily find fault with others. With oneself, it's much more challenging. But the ability to see something funny about your own ways is invaluable, especially for teachers. Display this quality in front of the group. Can you?

BOOK PRESENTATIONS.

Bring your favourite book in English to class and read a passage or two aloud, giving your friends an understanding of the author's design or style. Let your group mates listen and ask you about your choice.

VISIT THE ISLAND OF LIMERICKS.

Visit the Island of Limericks. Do one — or all — of the three R's required by local rites of passage: 'Rite, Read, or Recite a limerick.

CALLING NAMES - NEW AND INSPIRING!

Individually, design a new name for yourself. English, Russian, or Belarusian names are welcome. The name should be one-of-the-kind, and it should give your personality a totally new dimension.

THE PRIVATE SMILE

by Betty Bates

I. PRE-READING

1.1. SHARE some recollections of the most beautiful friendship you had when a young person. Has the friendship survived to this very day?

1.2. DISCUSS the problem of making friends in your late teens Are student years rich in new friendships?

1.3. FIND OUT, theoretically, who makes a perfect friend. Or a friend for a lifetime.

II. READING

2.1. Understanding the title.

The title of the story implies something bigger than just a story about a beautiful friendship. How can the word 'private' be interpreted?

2.2. Reading for pleasure and enrichment.

Read the story and answer the question: How did Lymus change and why?

The following words will be helpful to understand the events better.

Inlet — a narrow area of water reaching from the sea into the land

Trim — to make something look neat by cutting small pieces

Surrender — to officially announce the end of the fighting

Hang around — to spend time somewhere without any purpose

Swap — to exchange

Run something — to be in charge of, to manage

Reel in — to make something move on/off a reel by winding

Puny — unimpressive, smallish

Rickety — ready to break

Lymus and I were fishing together for the last time. The tide from the ocean rippled into the inlet. The marsh grasses glowed warm in the May sunshine. A blue heron stood nearby, tall and skinny and still, listening for rustlings in the wet ground.

I couldn't leave all this. I just couldn't. I had grown up on this land. It was almost a part of me.

"You going to come and visit me, Lymus?"

"No way I can do that, Master Whit. Wish I could, though." He brushed a tick off his trousers. "Wish you weren't leavin'."

Did he mean that? During the past two or three years, during the latter part of the war, most of our servants had left us, but Lymus and his parents had stayed. Lymus's mother, Mattie, had been my nurse when I was young, but I was ten now, so she mostly helped Mother with the sewing; our field hands always needed clothes. Lymus's father, Sam, was Mother's gardener; he trimmed the holly hedge and grew our tomatoes, beans, corn, and squash. Lymus helped him.

I edged out of the sun and nestled against the trunk of a tippy old cedar tree. "You think I want to leave? It is the best place in the world."

Lymus grinned. "They say every frog must praise its own pond, even if it dry."

If he chose to put it that way, my pond was surely dry.

Last December, four months before General Lee surrendered, the Yankees came to our Georgia rice and cotton plantation and stole as much of our food as they could find, along with our horses and all the mules except Molasses — who's older than the moon, as Grandfather used to say. The soldiers burned the barn, the storehouse, and the stable. They even burned our hospital. And when they left, the rest of our field hands and house servants went with them, maybe on account of rumors of riches to be had. Those Yankees took all but the three who were left.

They also took our family silver and jewelry. And I was even anxious for my books, especially The Three Musketeers, which Grandmother had sent from New Orleans for my birthday. They left them alone, praise be.

Since Father was away fighting for our new country in the Confederate army, there was nothing he could do. But Mother tried. When the Yankees came, she hid Lymus and his folks in the attic. Then she took her stand in the front doorway, her tiny hands on her hips and fire in her green eyes. But those soldiers in their worn blue uniforms pushed her aside. As they left with their loot, she threw her head back and demanded of the sergeant, "How can you leave a woman and her young son without a crumb to eat?"

He just shrugged.

Luckily Mother had hidden a bag of corn with Sam, Mattie, and Lymus. And Sam could hunt wild turkeys and ducks, while Lymus and I were good at fishing. And now the spring crop of vegetables was ripening.

After the Yankees went away, Lymus found a couple of old wheels in the carriage house. With some lumber piled in the barn, and with his quick, sure hands, he built a cart we could use for hauling and getting around.

Being born about a month apart, Lymus and I had grown up together. Since Sam and Mattie were house servants, they lived in a cabin close to our big house rather than in the field hands' village. We often hung around his older brothers, who were boatmen, and we'd listen to them sing as they loaded Papa's cypress boats with rice for market:

Once I went out huntin'. I heard the possum sneeze. I holler back to Susan, "Put on the pot o' peas."

Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons, the two of us lay in the shade 0f the live oak by the barn swapping stories. Sometimes we played marbles or horseshoes with the other children in the field hands' village And sometimes we went fishing.

Now I asked Lymus, "What are you going to do when I'm gone?"

"Oh, I be fine, Master Whit. I be just fine."

I gave him a quick look. He was smiling to himself. A private

smile-He wasn't our property anymore. He was free. I remembered when Father had come home on leave the first fall of the war, when I was six. Just before suppertime, I found him standing at the edge of the veranda. He was looking out over the flower and vegetable gardens to the workers' village, and beyond that to the fields, where sheaves of rice had been loaded onto carts. When I came up next to him, he dropped his big hand on my shoulder. "This is all going to be yours someday, Whit. We're going to see to that."

It would all be mine. The land, the harvest, and the people. Mine. I was excited, and a little scared.

Then a peculiar thing happened. The Yankees won the war.

There was nothing left here for Father, Mother, and me. We were going to Philadelphia, where Father had a distant cousin and would seek employment as a bookkeeper. Lymus and his folks would run this place as best they could without helpers.

My fish pole bobbled and bent. "Whoo-ee! I got a bite." I stood up, planted my bare feet in the mud, and reeled in the line. Sure enough. Flopping on the hook was a speckled trout, all sea-green and silvery and almost as long as my arm.

"You got a beauty, Master Whit."

"Ought to make us a fine supper." I took the fish off my hook and rebaited it with another baby crab.

Before the bell rang for supper, we each had a string of trout. "They bitin' all right," said Lymus. "If my daddy don't need me, guess I come back here tomorrow."

Tomorrow.

After tomorrow I might never see him again. I might never know what became of him. He couldn't write to me. He didn't know how. It would not be easy in Philadelphia, there I knew no one. It would be a trial for me, a Southerner, to get used to Yankees, and for them to get used to me, a Rebel. Would Lymus truly miss me?

I wanted to leave something for him. But what? I didn't have much now. He already had some of my clothes, and the Yankees had taken Grandfather's watch and chain, which Father had been saving for me.

There was nothing. Unless...

We had trout for supper, and again for breakfast. Now it was time to go. Mother and Father were already out in the courtyard, where Sam had Molasses hitched to the cart, ready to take us and our puny belongings to the steamboat landing. Without that cart we would have had to walk. I held The Three Musketeers out to Lymus. "This is so you won't forget me. Maybe you'll learn to read it someday."

His eyes sparkled. "Oh, I do thank you, Master Whit. I'll learn. 1 surely will." He hugged the book to his chest.

He would learn somehow.

"Bye, Lymus."

"Bye, Master Whit." He still called me. master out of habit, but I guess we were equals now. The private smile lighted his face. "Hope my cart hold together for you." My cart.

It may have been the first time in his life he had used the word "my." It was only a rickety homemade cart, but it made the difference. He owned things now. His clothes. His book. The cart that he had made.

I reached out to shake his hand. I had begun to understand that smile

2.3. True or false?

The narrator of the story, a boy from the South...

was looking forward to his departure.

thought highly of the Yankees.

would prefer to stay in Georgia.

was proud of his most prized possession, an expensive ring.

couldn't figure out what his friend's smile meant.

was ready for his new life in the North.

2.4. Understanding points of view.

Scan the story and try to explain what the characters meant by saying the following.

They left them [ books ] alone, praise be.

He was smiling to himself. A private smile. 3.1 had begun to understand that smile.

They say every frog must praise its own pond, even if it is dry.

It may have been the first time in his life he had used the word "my.

He still called me master out of habit, but I guess we were equals now.

It would be a trial for me, a Southerner, to get used to Yankees, and for them to get used to me, a Rebel

2.5. Storing vocabulary.

Paraphrase or translate the following using the verbs you came - across in the story.

1. What happened to him later?

2. I'll try to attend to this business.

3. Устраивайся вот тут, возле стенки, и слушай внимательно.

4. Костер горел так сильно, что пришлось отодвинуться от огня.

5. The little boy slowly removed himself from his mother's reach.

6. He беспокойся, я точно присмотрю, чтобы все было в по­рядке.

7. She made herself comfortable pressing her body against the tree trunk.

Verbs to be used: to edge out of, to nestle against, to become of, to see to.

2.6. Colloquial English.

There are several phrases spoken in colloquial English. Could you possibly "translate" them into literary English?

1. No way I can do that, Master Whit.

2. Wish I could, though.

3. If my daddy don't need me, guess I come back here tomorrow.

4. Hope my cart hold together for you.

5. They left them alone, praise be.

6. You going to come to visit me, Lymus?

7. Oh, I be fine, I be just fine.

2.7. Better expression.

Sure enough, you understood the story well. Speak for its characters now.

Whit's father

Lymus

all the Black people

III. POST-READING

3.1. Storytelling.

Tell the story as if you were:

Whit, white, 10 years old;

Lymus, black, 10 years old;

Mattie, black, 28 years old;

Whit's father, white, 34 years old.

3.2. Historical words.

Explain the exact meaning of the following:

Master =

a Rebel =

the Yankees =

a Southerner =

the Confederate army=

3.3. Historical names.

Find the name of one important historical figure in the text. Who was that man? What other people gained fame during the Civil War in the United States?

3.4. Historical songs.

The lyrics of two songs are here for you. One is the famous Dixie, originally written for a minstrel show by'Daniel D. Emmett in 1859. It became popular with the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

I wish I was in the land of cotton,

Old times there are not forgotten.

Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

In Dixie Land where I was born in,

Early on a frosty morning.

Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray!

In Dixie Land I'll take my stand

To live and die in Dixie.

Away, aioay, away down south in Dixie!

Away, away, away down south in Dixie!

The other' song is part of American history, too. During the Civil War, in 1861, Julia Ward Howe heard the Union soldiers singing "John Brown's Body." The melody stayed with her and during the night she arose from bed and wrote the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage

where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loos'd the fateful lightning

of His terrible swift sword,

His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, halleluja!

Glory, glory, halleluja!

Glory, glory, halleluja!

His truth is marching on!

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,

His truth is marching on.

Chorus

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.

O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on!

Chorus

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;

As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Chorus

3.5. Project work: historical songs.

You know a lot of songs that are part of our national history. Could you introduce at least one of them to a native speaker of English? Sing the song and explain its message.

GRACE'S WHISKERS

by K.C. Tessendorf

I. PRE-READING

1.1. SHARE your childhood memories with a friend. Say if you ever wanted to write (or actually wrote) a letter to a celebrity. Why did you want to do that? How did it feel? Did you receive an answer?

1.2. CHOOSE the Right Person to write a letter to. Discuss your choice with a partner saying whom you would like to write a letter to, and with what purpose.

1.3. FIND OUT who the most popular celebrities are. Think of why anyone might like to write a letter to them.

II. READING

2.1. IS THE TITLE A MISTAKE?

The title of the story sounds ambiguous. Grace is the name of some girl, so how could it be about whiskers? Read the beginning of the story, and prove that you see a big difference between Old Abe and Old Ape.

By the fall of 1860, it looked as though Abraham Lincoln might win the presidential election. However, the slaveholding South threatened to break away from the Union if that happened. Anti-Lincoln spokesmen sensed that they were losing and began to turn vicious — even in a rural New York classroom:

"Faugh! I say that Old Abe... no, I mean Old Ape is so ugly that even the devil is afraid of him," ranted eleven-year-old Willy Jessup with a wink to his allies. "Oh, what a terrible,, cruel lie to say about our next president!" Classmate Grace Bedell's cheeks flushed with anger. "Willy, your mouth ought to be scrubbed with lye soap. Apologize!"

2.2. Reading for pleasure and enrichment.

Now read the rest of the story and say how Grace Bedell made history.

The following words will be helpful to understand the events better.

Vicious — cruel, trying to make somebody look bad

Gaunt — very thin and pale

Homely — unattractive or ugly

Throng — a crowd

Bashfulness — shyness

Adornment — something used as a decoration

Fiery — fire-like

Crucible — something in which the components are heated to a high temperature

Valiant Grace was defending her hero blindly, for she had never seen a picture of Abraham Lincoln. Shortly afterward, her father brought home a colorful poster from a campaign rally. Grace was upset when she saw what Lincoln looked like.

The artist had drawn a split rail fence around the faces of Abraham Lincoln and his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Hannibal Hamlin. In the gaunt, clean-shaven face of Lincoln, high cheekbones only emphasized the deep eye sockets above and the shrunken cheeks below. Next to the smooth fullness of Hamlin's features, Lincoln looked downright homely.

Grace began to worry. If too many people saw the naked features of Lincoln, he might not be elected. If only his face could be remodeled or covered... That was it —whiskers! Surely they'd hide the hollow cheeks. The next day after school, Grace sat down and wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, telling him that he could improve his appearance by growing a beard. Realizing how bold she was, Grace nervously misspelled "Chautauqua," wrote "A B" because she had not seen "Abe" in print, and even left out a few words.

Westfield Chatauque Co NY Oct 15,1860 Hon A B Lincoln

Dear Sir

My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin's. I am a little girl only eleven, years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer his letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband's to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is a going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try and get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westf ield Chatauque County New York I must not write any more answer this letter right off Goodbye

Grace Bedell

She addressed the envelope to Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield, Illinois. Then she stuck on a penny stamp and hurried to the post office, handing her letter to the clerk just as he was closing

the wicket for the day.

Abraham Lincoln's campaign office occupied a large room staffed only by Lincoln and two secretaries. The candidate was available to any visitors who came to wish him well, offer advice, or ask for a government job. The postman delivered a great pile of mail each day, including letters from people who did not wish him well.

The secretaries answered the important letters in longhand, ignoring those that were filled with hate. Lincoln had little time to write letters himself, but he read as many as he could, and his staff informed him of the contents of the rest.

Grace's letter probably came into Lincoln's possession right away. A ray of sunshine would be welcome, especially after a letter demanding a job or a grim note warning that a rifle bullet would stop him before he ever reached the White House. Grace's appeal touched Lincoln so much hat he immediately wrote a reply in his own hand.

Meanwhile, although she didn't really expect an answer, hope directed Grace's footsteps to the post office each day after school. One afternoon the postmaster himself approached her with an envelope marked Private. The return address was that of A. Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois!

The postmaster was brimming with curiosity, but Grace did not stay to satisfy it. She darted outside and ran home to tell her family the incredible news. Eagerly she read:

Springfield, 111. Oct 19. 1860 Miss. Grace Bedell

My dear little Miss,

Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received — I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters — I have three sons — one seventeen, one nine, and one seven, years of age — They, with their mother, constitute ray whole family — As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now? Your very sincere well-wisher A. Lincoln.

Grace read her precious letter each night in bed until Lincoln won the election. Believing he would not grow a beard, she didn't respond to Lincoln's question, as she might have done. Yet in Springfield in early December, Lincoln told his barber, "Billy, let's give them a chance to grow." And when the rail journey east to his inauguration was scheduled, the little town of Westf ield was surprised to learn that the president-elect's train would halt

there briefly.

"I'll bet Old Abe's making a special stop here just to see you,

Grace," people teased.

Whenever Grace heard that, she blushed and denied it. But her older sisters were going to see the president, and they promised to take her with them. A neighbor made a bouquet of yellow paper roses for Grace to carry just in case...

When the train arrived, Grace stood on the platform, her heart thumping. Though the throng of adults blocked her view, she heard Lincoln remark that it was a special treat to see so many attractive ladies. Then he said crisply, "I have a little correspondent in this place, and if she is present, will she please come forward?"

The Bedells were stricken by surprise and bashf ulness. People near Lincoln raised their voices. "Who is it? What is her name?"

"Grace Bedell."

A sister's boyfriend first led, then carried Grace through the crowd. Smiling, Abraham Lincoln stepped down onto the station platform. He shook hands with Grace and bent to kiss her. Tongue-tied, she raised a hand to touch the scratchy beard brushing against

her face.

Lincoln pointed at his full-grown adornment and said, "You see

I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace."

The crowd began cheering. Face flaming with embarrassment, Grace ran away, scraping beneath close-parked buggies and dodging between horses' legs. She was home before she noticed that she still grasped the battered rose bouquet, most of its petals now missing.

President Lincoln continued on to Washington, D.C., where he began the grave task of preserving the Union in the fiery crucible of civil war. During those difficult years, his whiskers made him seem more fatherly, presidential. And that is how we best remember him.

When she grew up, Grace married a Civil War veteran and moved out to frontier Kansas. Sixty years later, as an eighty-year-old grandmother, Grace heard from a collector who had bought her Lincoln letter. Amid all the accumulation of wartime papers, he told her, the president had kept her letter in a special place.

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