Writing Activity.

Some time ago. I can barely remember the year, but I guess it was a year ago – I’m not sure about that –, I asked my advanced students to complete a story using their imagination. I went online I found just the first lines of a story about a woman called Naomi Jensen (Fictitious name, I reckon) and asked them to finish it. The objective of this writing activity was to provide those students with the opportunity to practice the historical present in English.

Here there is one of the stories written by one of my students. It is a very nice activity to do, but the teacher should talk and present the historical present before asking them to do the task.

If you ever find any kind of mistake, please do not worry. It was a student taking the risk in order to try to improve his writing skill.

Prelude

When Naomi Jensen is kidnapped, it takes her parents two days to realize she is missing. Escape is not high on her list of priorities when all she has to return to is an abusive boyfriend and parents who never paid much attention to her. For the first time in her life she is part of a family- even if it is a family of criminals. But she is still a captive. In a desperate attempt to regain some control in her life, Naomi embarks on a dangerous plan to make one of her kidnappers think she is falling in love with him. The plan works too well, and when faced with the chance to escape, Naomi is not sure she wants to take it.

Michael Scofield is her handsome kidnapper, and he is an engineer. The reason for the crime was only to get some money to escape from United States to live in Mexico. Naomi, who has a very boring life, really falls in love with Scofield. Nevertheless, the problem is that he is wanted by the police, so she cannot have an easy life since the moment she decided to go with him to Mexico.

In the same day, when she did not want to escape, she tells Scofield everything about her escape plan, and he cries for such love that he found. The new plan is to set up; now, they have to get money for both of them to move to Mexico.

They start robbing banks, supermarkets, and drugstores. They steal $10 million. It is enough money to spend in their whole life, but, not everything is easy. They are arrested at the last attempt to get money at Big City Mall. Scofield says that Naomi did not participate in the crimes, and only he is arrested.

Scofield chooses to go to the prison at Tennessee, called Fox Rivers, where Lincoln Burrows, his lovely brother is arrested. Naomi, who is a very good nurse, changes his identification to Sara Tancredi and applies her CV to work at the same prison. Scofield always has everything arranged, and this situation was planned before. He has all the structure of the prison on his tattoos (he did all his tattoos a week before), so, the way for the freedom is breaking out the prison.

PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Is something important missing? Report an error or suggest an improvement.

In some instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here; therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so. Thank you very much.

English Literature III: Dubliners (James Joyce)

For my next class about English Literature III at university, I will present ‘James Joyce’s life and work’. I simply love this Irish writer, poet… well; he was a lot of things.

We’ll basically talk about his style and I am going to ask my students to read four short stories from DUBLINERS – the sisters, Eveline, after the race, and counterparts.

Some people might not know it, but Joyce wrote this book using a very particular structure – he wrote this one dividing the tales into four sections. I have to say that I haven’t noticed it until I read it for the third time.

• Section I, Childhood, contains “The Sisters,” “An Encounter,” and “Araby” (the most anthologized of the stories).

• Section II, Adolescence, is made up of “Eveline,” “After the Race,” “Two Gallants,” and “The Boarding House.”

• Section III, Maturity, also is made up of four stories, “A Little Cloud,” “Counterparts,” “Clay,” and “A Painful Case.”

• Section IV, Public Life, is made up of “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” “A Mother,” “Grace,” and the structurally different “The Dead.”

“Dubliners is not merely a group of short stories structured according to stages of human development. Joyce meant Dubliners to be read as a novel of a city’s development, with its inhabitants growing from innocence to experience. In a letter to a prospective editor, Joyce wrote:”

My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country, and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness and with the conviction that he is a very bold man who dares to alter in the presentment, still more to deform, whatever he has seen and heard.

(from Herbert Gorman, James Joyce, New York, 1940, V-iv.)

If you have read those short stories, consider this:

“The Sisters”

A young boy must deal with the death of Father Flynn, his mentor, exposing him to others’ opinions of the priest. These force him to examine their relationship and cause him to see himself as an individual for the first time.

“Eveline”

Eveline chooses the familiarity of a life in which she is mistreated by her abusive father and takes the place of her dead mother in raising her younger siblings over the fear of change represented by starting a new life in a new country with the man who loves her.

“After the Race”  

A young gentleman (Jimmy) learns that he doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in his circle of sophisticated and glamorous international friends.

“Counterparts”    

Farrington is a lazy, incompetent copier and an abusive husband and father. He tries to escape the depression, rage, and hopelessness caused by the mess he has made of his job and homelife through liquid lunches and drunken evenings out with the boys.

 

Me and "James Joyce" in Dublin. Photo taken by some guy in Dublin.  

Because of the unfamiliar language and complex writing style used by Joyce, students might need some help in order to fully understand the tales. Here there are some questions:

“THE SISTERS”

1. What is old Cotter’s opinion of Father Flynn?

2. What was the boy’s relationship to Father Flynn?

3. What is the boy’s reaction to the news of the priest’s death and old Cotter’s scrutiny?)

4. What are old Cotter’s and the uncle’s views on the benefits of the boys relationship with the priest?

5. What did the priest die from? Describe the physical aspects of his illness.

6. When he realizes that Father Flynn is dead, what is the boy’s reaction?  

7. What lessons did the priest teach the boy?  

8. Who took care of the details of Father Flynn’s lying in state?  

“EVELINE”

1. What was the children’s biggest worry while playing in the field?

2. Now that Eveline has decided to leave, what sort of things has she begun to notice? Why?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of her going away?

4. What does her father mean by, “I know these sailor chaps”?

5. How does the memory of her mother both hold her and drive her to escape?

6. Why does she not go with Frank? What holds her back?

“AFTER THE RACE”

1. Describe Jimmy’s education. Why is his father secretly proud of his excesses?

2. Why is Jimmy taken with Segouin?

3. Why has Jimmy kept his excesses within limits? What does this say about him?

4. In what is Jimmy about to invest? Does this seem to be a good investment? Why or why not?

5. How does Segouin diffuse the heated discussion of politics? What does this say about him?

6. What meaning do you take from the following line, “he would lose, of course”?

“COUNTERPARTS”

1. What do Mr. Alleyne’s complaints about Farrington tell us about Farrington? What is his private reaction to these

complaints, and how does this reaction support or weaken Mr. Alleyne’s accusations?

2. Why is Farrington unable to concentrate on his work?

3. What is Farrington’s reaction when Mr. Alleyne publicly reprimands him? Is his reaction justified?

4. What got Farrington off to a bad start with Mr. Alleyne? What does this say about Farrington?

5. How does Farrington get enough money to go drinking? What is his reaction to getting money in this way? What does this say about him?

6. What is the basis for conversation between Farrington and his friends? What do these stories say about them and about their lives?

7. How does Weathers anger Farrington? What breach of etiquette has he made?

8. Compare Farrington’s treatment by his bosses to his treatment of his son? What is the irony in this comparison?

Most part of the things used here are based on A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSICEDITION OF JAMES JOYCE’S DUBLINERS

By JAMES R. COPE and WENDY PATRICK COPE

I hope you guys enjoyed the post. I am really enjoying every single moment of it.

PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Is something important missing? Report an error or suggest an improvement.

In some instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here; therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so. Thank you very much.

ENGLISH LITERATURE: VIRGINIA WOOLF.

This year I am going to have this awesome experience in teaching. I used ‘teaching’ because this is not going to be about EFL only.  Absolutely, it is going to be about LITERARY THEORY, ENGLISH LITERATURE #3, and ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES (for Music and for Tourism).

Well, back in college, I used to love literature, but this new experience is going to be very challenging. I have been teaching English as a foreign language (only) since 2002. Needless to say that I will have to deal with the unknown again. I love challenges. I have always loved. I still have no idea of what to do about Woolf, but the first thing I’ll have to do is to introduce VIRGINIA WOOLF (Modern Fiction).

So, I’ll start by restudying Her life and the like:

PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Is something important missing? Report an error or suggest an improvement.

In some instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here; therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so. Thank you very much.

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is.

It's hard to describe it in words.

So, I use pictures.

Read below for the illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:

A master's degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don't forget the bigger picture:

Keep pushing.

From /link/

We're still on vacation, but almost back to work.

A primeira postagem do ano será em português e será bem curta. Gostaria apenas de agradecer pelas visitas no ano que passou. Tivemos um alto número de acessos dos nossos leitores. Entre muitas coisas, relatamos diversas novas experiências. O ano de 2014 promete ser um ano de muitas outras novidades. Gostaria também de dizer que teremos novidades aqui no blog, mas o melhor dos anos anteriores, como as dicas e as entrevistas, continuarão pintando por aqui. Então, aproveitem para clicar nos links abaixo e aprender um pouco mais sobre a Língua Inglesa e suas culturas e literaturas, tema que estará muito presente nos próximos meses.

Estou quase voltando das férias e aí teremos muito trabalho pela frente. Como dizem por aí, “See you around”.

Bruno Coriolano [ LINK ]