[00:-2.00]Throughout the ages,the best of our stories have been recoreded,
[00:-3.00]and stand now as literature.
[00:-4.00]A great novel,play,poem or epic saga is a mirror onto ourselves,
[00:-5.00]a reflection of our humanity.
[00:-6.00]He that walks with wise men shall be wise,
[00:-7.00]but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
[00:-8.00]-Chinese Proverb
[00:-9.00]SECTION 1 NEW WORDS AND IDEAS
[00:10.00]EXPERIENCING LITERATURE:
[00:11.00]An Interview with a Poet
[00:12.00]What an exciting day!
[00:13.00]A famous poet from North America was visiting Li Ming's school.
[00:14.00]Li Ming was chosen to interview the poet because his English was so good.
[00:15.00]Here is the interview he had with the poet,Amy Nelson.
[00:16.00]Li Ming:Hello,Ms.Nelson.Welcome to our school.
[00:17.00]We are very honoured to have you visit us.
[00:18.00]Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
[00:19.00]Ms.Nelson:Not at all.What would you like to know?
[00:20.00]LiMing:You produced your first book of poems when you were only seven years old.
[00:21.00]Why did you start writhing poetry?
[00:22.00]Ms.Nelson:Because I was writing everything at that time.
[00:23.00]I started my first novel about then,too.The central character was an ant.
[00:24.00]Don't ask me why.I never finished that book,but I started writing comic books.
[00:25.00]LiMing:When did you start to read poetry seriously?
[00:26.00]Ms.Nelson:I really didn't read seriously except for the poems we had to do in school.
[00:27.00]I didn't really enjoy reading poetry until I was in university.
[00:28.00]LiMing:Is that when you really started to write poetry?
[00:29.00]Ms.Nelson:No,I started when I was sixteen,in high school.
[00:30.00]It was all pretty bad though.It all rhymed,but it didn't say anything deep.
[00:31.00]LiMing:Is it full od sadness?
[00:32.00]Ms.Nelson:Oh,yes...lots of sadness.
[00:33.00]Teenagers often write things that are quite dark.
[00:34.00]Poetry seems to be a good outlet for that sort of thing.
[00:35.00]LiMing:Yes,I know what you mean,especially the nineteenth century poetry.
[00:36.00]Ms.Nelson:Yes,I read a lot of the older works
[00:37.00]but I got really excited when I discovered modern poetry.
[00:38.00]I loved it!I loved it because you could put garbage in your poetry.
[00:39.00]LiMing:Garbage?What kind of garbage?
[00:40.00]Ms.Nelson:Garbage,you know,garbage blowing around in the streets,
[00:41.00]the kind you have in garbage cans.
[00:42.00]So I put some of that in my early poems,
[00:43.00]and leaves,decaying leaves,not spring leaves.
[00:44.00]LiMing:So you like your poetty to be realistic,
[00:45.00]and yet you are very distant in your poetry.
[00:46.00]Some people describe your poetry as being quite impersonal.
[00:47.00]Ms.Nelson:I'm not sure about that,my poems are also very personal.
[00:48.00]I suppose when people write poetry they often write roles for themselves,
[00:49.00]which they then play in the poems.
[00:50.00]But what people recognize in the poems is not me,but themselves!
[00:51.00]When they write letters they never say,
[00:52.00]"Gosh,that was an interesting description of your childhood."
[00:53.00]Instead,they say,"Gosh,that was my childhood."
[00:54.00]That's what we do when we read literature-poetry or stories.
[00:55.00]We enter in.And in some way the story is always about us.
[00:56.00]LiMing:Ms.Nelson,I want to thank you so much for speaking with me today.
[00:57.00]I have certainly learned a lot about what it's like to be a poet.
[00:58.00]Ms.Nelson:You're welcome.Thank you for inviting me to your lovely school.
[00:59.00]I hope we will have the chance to meet again one day.
[-1:00.00]Humour
[-1:-1.00]A lady once wreote a long story.
[-1:-2.00]She sent it to a famous editor.
[-1:-3.00]After a few weeks the story was returned to her.
[-1:-4.00]The lady was angry.She wrote to the editor:
[-1:-5.00]"Dear Sir:Yesterday you sent back story of mine.
[-1:-6.00]How do you know the story is not good? [-1:-7.00]You did not read it.
[-1:-8.00]Before i sent you the story,I pasted together pages 18,19,and 20.
[-1:-9.00]This was a test to see whether you would read the story.
[-1:10.00]When the story came back yesterday,the pages were still pasted together.
[-1:11.00]Is this the way you read all the stories that are sent to you?"
[-1:12.00]The editor wrote back,"Dear Madam:At breakfast when I open kan egg,
[-1:13.00]I don't have to eat all the egg in order to discover that it is bad."
[-1:14.00]SECTION 2 MEANING THROUGH PRACTICE
[-1:15.00]C.Build your listening skills
[-1:16.00]Part 1:
[-1:17.00]Listen to Jenny describing one of her favourite pieces of literature to Li Ming.
[-1:18.00]In brachets[-1:19.00]put a"T"for statements that are true and an"F"for those that are false.
[-1:20.00]Part 2:
[-1:21.00]Listen to LiMing's conversation with the librarian and answer the questions.
[-1:22.00]SECTION 4 READING FOR LOVE
[-1:23.00]To a Daughter Leaving Home
[-1:24.00]By Linda pastan
[-1:25.00]When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle,
[-1:26.00]runing along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels,
[-1:27.00]my own mouth rounding in surprise
[-1:28.00]when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park,
[-1:29.00]I kept waiting for the sound of your crash as I ran to catch up,
[-1:30.00]while you grew smaller,more breakable with distance,
[-1:31.00]pumping,pumping for your life,
[-1:32.00]screaming with laughter,
[-1:33.00]the hair flowing behind you like a handkerchief waving goodbye.
[-1:34.00]Teen Ink:Trying your hand at creative writhing
[-1:35.00]Here is a poem composed by a teenager like you.Can you try to do the same?
[-1:36.00]My father...
[-1:37.00]From your patience,I learned to accept.
[-1:38.00]From your encouragement,I learned to try.
[-1:39.00]From your support,I learned to succeed.
[-1:40.00]From your confidence,I learned to trust.
[-1:41.00]From your caring...I learned to love.
[-1:42.00]Thank you for giving my life its beginning-and so much of its meaning.
[-1:43.00]-P.Finn
[-1:44.00]QUOTABLE QUOTES
[-1:45.00]A poem...begins as a lump in the throat,a sense of wrong,
[-1:46.00]a homesickness,a lovesickness...
[-1:47.00]It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.-Robert Frost
[-1:48.00]READING FOR MORAL LESSONS
[-1:49.00]Fables of Aesop
[-1:50.00]1.Honesty Is the Best Policy
[-1:51.00]A man who was cutting wood on a riverside lost his axe in the water.
[-1:52.00]There was no help for it,so he sat down on the bank and began to cry.
[-1:53.00]Hermes appeared and asked what was the matter.
[-1:54.00]Feeling sorry for the man,he dived into the river,
[-1:55.00]brought up a gold axe,asked if that was the one he had lost.
[-1:56.00]When the woodcutter said it was not,
[-1:57.00]Hermes dived again and fetched up a silver one.
[-1:58.00]The man said that was not his either.
[-1:59.00]So he went down a third time and came up with the woodcutter's own axe.
[-2:00.00]"That's the right one,"he said.
[-2:-1.00]And Hermes was so delighted with his honesty
[-2:-2.00]that he made him a present of the other two axes as well.
[-2:-3.00]When the woodcutter re-joined his mates and told them his experience,
[-2:-4.00]one of them thought he would tring off a similar coup.
[-2:-5.00]He went to the river,seliberately threw his axe into it,
[-2:-6.00]and then sat down and wept.Hermes appeared again.
[-2:-7.00]And on hearing the cause of his tears,he dived in,
[-2:-8.00]produced a gold axe as before,and asked if it was the one that had been lost.
[-2:-9.00]"Yes,it is indeed,"the man joyfully exclaimed.
[-2:10.00]The god was so shocked at what he did,that,far from giving him the gold axe,
[-2:11.00]he did not even return his own to him.
[-2:12.00]2.One-Way-Traffic
[-2:13.00]An old lion,who was too weak to hunt or fight for his food,
[-2:14.00]decided that he must get it by his wits.
[-2:15.00]He lay down in a cave,pretending to be ill,
[-2:16.00]and whenever any animals came to visit him,he seized them and ate them.
[-2:17.00]When many had disappeared in this way,
[-2:18.00]a fox who had seen through the trick came and stood at a distance from the cave, [-2:19.00]and asked how he was."Bad,"the lion answered,and asked why he did not come in.
[-2:20.00]"I would have come in,"said the fox,"
[-2:21.00]but I saw a lot of trachs going in and none coming out."
[-2:22.00]READING FOR THE HEART
[-2:23.00]The Many Hungers
[-2:24.00]There are any forms of hunger.
[-2:25.00]There is the hunger for food,
[-2:26.00]and there is the hunger for love,for purpose,for truth.
[-2:27.00]There is the hunger for health,happiness,friendship,inner peace,
[-2:28.00]and for the sense that we belong.
[-2:29.00]The hunger that lives in the heart is part of the humanity that threads us all together.
[-2:30.00]We are interdependent beings with a need both to give
[-2:31.00]and to receive from each other.
[-2:32.00]For what one of us is lacking,
[-2:33.00]another has in abundance,whether that be a bowl of rice,a skill,a wisdom,
[-2:34.00]a capacity for joy,a knowledge,or a courageous heart.
[-2:35.00]Our urges and our gifts,our belongings and our offerings,are all needed.
[-2:36.00]We cannot live without them.
[-2:37.00]When we share the gifts that we have been given,
[-2:38.00]we free our life force from its cage of separation.
[-2:39.00]If we were born with a song in our heart,then we must sing it[-2:40.00]if there is a vision in our soul,then we become a part of the flow of life.
[-2:41.00]When we express fully all that we have,
[-2:42.00]we happy when we are participating deeply in life.
[-2:43.00]We can only be truly happy when we are participating deeply in life.
[-2:44.00]We are not meant to sit on the sideline,passively watching others live.
[-2:45.00]We are meant to be vehicleds through which our spirits can flow outward to life.
[-2:46.00]If we are haunted by the images of men,
[-2:47.00]women and children that we have seen starving for food,
[-2:48.00]it is because they are a reflection of our own need.
[-2:49.00]They are a reminder not only of that part of us that is hungry,
[-2:50.00]but also of that part of us that needs to give in order to be whole
