III. Post-reading
3.1. Feelings.
Describe the way the characters might feel about the life on the reservation:
Eugenia, when she first arrived at the Hogan;
Eugenia's mother when she began to work in Flagstaff;
Eugenia's Grandmother when she talked to the girl about Indian life;
Eugenia when she had lived there for three years.
3.2. Roleplay: mothers and daughters.
In groups of three, discuss the problem of staying in the hogan. One of you is Eugenia who does not like the idea of staying there.
3.3. Studying native American wisdom.
In small groups, discuss the message of the following proverbs and words of wisdom that Native American people created.
A good chief gives, he does not take.
A man must make his own arrows.
Not every sweet root gives birth to sweet grass.
It is easy to be brave from a distance. Beware of the man who doesn't talk, and of the dog that doesn't bark.
Don't judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.
Speak wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.
3.4. Project work: my family Saga.
Research your own family background: Draw up your family tree, and say what wonderful people your ancestors were. We hope you can go back as far as at least three generations. Here are some branches of a famous family tree. Is this family — well, familiar? Whose names are supposed to be there in empty spaces?
LAST WORDS
by David Hill
I. Pre-reading
1.1. SHARE some of the bitter recollections of your young years (if it's not too painful, of course). We all grieve at one time in our lives. Why did you?
1.2. DISCUSS a newspaper article or a story you heard about an accident. Share your feelings about the event.
1.3 FIND a so-called sob story in a popular magazine. Do you read them? Do you not? Please, share your views in small groups. I
II. Reading
2.1. Understanding the main idea.
The title of the story suggests the idea of some unhappy accident, doesn't it? Read the first two paragraphs of the story and say what 'awful thing' may have happened in Lara's family.
Lara turned the corner onto her street. Phew! Another Wednesday nearly over! Wednesday always started mad and scrambly for Lara, with a dancing lesson before school. This morning, she'd gone rushing off late, without even saying good-bye to her dad.
Hey, neat! she thought as she recognized the car in the driveway. Nana and Granddad are here. She felt a bit surprised. Her grandparents lived out of town, near the beach. They usually visited only on weekends. Lara went inside to say hi. But Nana was crying when she met Lara in the back porch. And the moment she saw her mother, sitting so white-faced at the dining room table with Granddad holding her, Lara somehow knew the awful thing that had happened.
2.2. Reading for understandung and compassion.
Now read the story to the end. Think about the most frustrating thought Lara had for weeks and weeks after the accident, and try to find an explanation to it.
The following words will be helpful to understand the events better.
Scrambly — with a lot of rushing around
Dazzle — stop somebody from seeing properly
Pound — beat quickly (about one's heart)
Muck (about) — mess around
Drag — go slowly, move with difficulty
Slash — cut violently with a knife
Bump — knock against something
Insulating tape — material to cover electric wires
Waterproof — not allowing water to go through
While Nana tried to tell her about the truck driver dazzled by the winter sun, and the slippery road, and how her father wouldn't have felt a thing, one thought pounded through Lara's head. I never said good-bye to him this morning. I never said good-bye.
Her father's funeral went past in a blur. For the next month, Lara and her mother mostly stayed with Nana and Granddad in their house by the sea. Each day they were there, Lara went for long walks on the beach. Sometimes she walked with her mum, holding her hand hard. Other times she went by herself. Every time she walked the beach alone, Lara expected her dad to appear. He'd come strolling over the sand toward her and give her a hug. Then they could say good-bye properly. But her father didn't come. When her mum finally returned to her job in town, it was the school holidays. So Lara stayed on at her grandparents'. She helped Nana in the garden. She mucked about with Granddad in his workshop. And she walked on the beach. Usually, she was the only one there. By now, Lara knew the beach as well as she knew her own bedroom at home. She knew the sand hills with their spiky grass. The stretch near the creek mouth, where waves rose up like walls and slammed onto the shore.
And she knew the weird things waves left behind. Bottles.
Yellow string. Pieces of wood shaped like animals or birds. Old shoes -
Always single sandals, never a pair. Lora imagined people all over the world hopping around on one foot, looking for their missing shoes.
Two bottles had messages inside. She supposed one of them had been a message, anyway, but the paper was so faded from the sun, and from water leaking under the screw-top, that Lara couldn't read a word. The other bottle's message was quite clear — a girl's name and an address about a hundred miles up the coast. So Lara wrote a letter saying who she was, and where she'd found the bottle, and inviting the other girl to write back. For the first time since her father was killed, she felt interested in something. But the rest of the holidays dragged by, and no reply came.
At the start of the new semester, Lara went home with her mother. It was hard being there, with so many of her dad's things still around them. Lara thought of him all the time. She wished she could somehow say a proper good-bye.
The midsemester break came. She and her mum stayed at Nana and Granddad's. It was a wild, stormy weekend, with the sea booming on the shore. When her mother went back to work on Monday, Lara had already spent two days inside, watching rain slash at the windows.
After lunch on Monday, the rain thinned. Lara strode down to the beach, wind slapping her jacket and blowing hair across her face. The sand was scattered with driftwood, string, and more old shoes.
And a bottle. A green bottle, lying on its side with seaweed draped around it. Lara pushed it with her foot as she walked past. Then she stopped. Inside the bottle was a piece of paper rolled into a little cylinder. Hey, maybe that girl's written me a letter after all! Lara thought. A letter by sea mail! The top of the bottle was screwed tight. A coat of glue covered it, keeping water out. The paper inside the green glass looked perfectly dry.
Back at her grandparents' house, Lara noticed a strange umbrella on the porch. She could hear talking and laughing from the living room. She didn't want to face visitors, so she slipped into her granddad's workshop, found a knife on his bench, and started chipping at the glue that sealed the top of the bottle. The glue peeled away. Lark pulled off the last piece and began unscrewing the top. It turned, grittily at first, then smoothly. Lara put it down on Granddad's workbench, beside the knife. As she tilted the bottle and shook out the little cylinder of paper, Lara realized her heart was bumping. Was it a letter from the girl she'd written to? From someone else? Someone she knew, maybe? She unrolled the paper.
It took her just half a second to read the message. There was no name, no address, just three carefully printed words. Three words in black letters, faded slightly after weeks or months of floating under the wide skies, through the seas. As Lara read, a gasp came from her throat. A gasp that turned into a sob. She pushed the paper into the pocket of her jeans. Then she sat beside her granddad's workbench, laid her head on her arms, and cried as if she'd never stop.
Finally, she wiped her face on the sleeve of her jacket, took the message from her pocket, and read the three words again. She sat looking straight ahead for a while, then began searching through the drawers of the workbench.
In the second drawer, she found a scribble pad and a ballpoint. On the pad, she wrote her own message. It was just one word longer than the message in the bottle. Lara sat with the two messages in front of her, looking at them both. Finally she slipped the first one back into her pocket. She rolled her message up, dropped it into the green bottle, and screwed on the top. She took a roll of Granddad's red plastic insulating tape — she knew he wouldn't mind — and wound it around the top till she felt sure it was waterproof. Red tape and a green bottle: it should be easy to spot.
Back on the beach, the tide was turning. The waves broke farther down the sand, drawing themselves back into the sea. Gulls hovered and bent in the wind. Lara walked to the edge of the waves. She drew back her arm and threw the bottle as hard as she could. It whuff-whuff-whuffed through the air, splashed under the water, then bobbed bright and red-topped to the surface. For a moment, it seemed that a wave would carry it back to shore. Then the tide seized it, and it began drifting out toward deeper water. For half an hour, Lara stood watching the red top dip and rise among the waves, till she couldn't see it anymore. Then she turned and started back to her grandparents' house.
Good-bye, she thought. Good-bye, bottle, and whoever sent it to me. I'll probably never meet you or know you. But thanks for what you said. And thank you for letting me say something. Letting me say good-bye to my dad. I'll miss him for as long as I live, but I've said good-bye now and I feel heaps better. Lara touched the paper in her jeans pocket. She didn't need to read it anymore. It was just three words, after all: I LOVE YOU.
Her own message was only a few letters longer. Over the sea to some other beach, maybe to some other person who had been sad and lonely, it was floating. I LOVE YOU, TOO.
2.3. True or false?
That Wednesday was an ordinary day for Lara.
Lara was virtually shaken by the tragic news.
Mucking about in the workshop was just out of habit.
Finding messages in bottles was not quite amusing.
The message in the green bottle was addressed to Lara.
The write-back did not come easy for the girl.
2.4. Storing vocabulary.
Translate the following using the expressions from the story.
Мы решили, что лучше будет отправить письмо обычной почтой
Учась в школе она интересовалась только модными журналами
Он был настолько зол, что находился прямо в каком-то ослеплении.
Рыдать нечего, надо снова браться за дело. У нас всё получится.
Мы обыскали всю квартиру, но так и не нашли нужной книги.
Я скажу, что прическа у нее сегодня самая что ни на есть странная.
Все события предыдущих дней слились в неясную картину.
Этот механизм надежно защищен от попадания пыли и воды.
Она в совершенном восхищении от красоты этой старинной вещи.
Choose from the following: to dazzle by, in a blur, weird, to be interested in, by mail, to search through, to sob, (water) proof
2.5. Colloquial English in focus.
In the story, we come across some interjections commonly used in colloquial English. Do you feel you can handle the most widely-used ones with a measure of competence? Try to interpret the meaning of the following interjections.
Hey! — asking for someone's attention.
Gee!
Ouch!
Oops.'
Hush!
Wow!
Gosh!
Phew!
Oh, boy!
2.6. Grammar.
Lara wished she could have met her father to say good-bye. What do you think she wished she had been able to do? Say about it using the following beginning:
Lara wished she had been able to
After the accident, Lara wished she could have
2.7. Complex object in focus.
Imagine we are watching a movie showing all the events described in the story. The story does read like a movie, doesn't it? Make some commentary on what you are watching on the screen:
We can see Lara do / doing ________
play / playing________
walk /walking________
2.8. More grammar.
Lara needed help and emotional support that her family might have failed to provide. What did Lara expect others to do? Speak about it using the infinitive construction.
|
Lara expected |
her mother her grandparents her friends the unknown girl someone else
|
to understand to say |