Lesson 9

Aim – to get some information about American writers and poets.

 

Exercise 1

AMERICAN AUTHORS

Eleven names of famous American authors are hidden in the square. These names can go in all directions – forward, backward, up, down, and diagonally. Circle them in the letter square as you find them and cross them off the list. Words overlap and letters are often used more than once.

London Dreiser O. Henry Steinbeck

Hemingway Bradbury Рое Cooper

Twain Saroyan Longfellow

 

Exercise 2

PEN NAMES

What is a pen name?
People of what professions usually have pen names?
Why do they use pen names, not real names?
If you were a writer would you like to have a pen name? What? Why?

The passages below are taken from the works of two famous American writers. These writers used pen names instead of their real names. Read the passages and guess the writers’ pen names.

1. “Saturday morning came, the summer world was bright and fresh, and full of life. Tom appeared with a bucket of whitewash and a brush. He looked at the fence and his face became sad. All the boys were playing, only he had to work. It was Aunt Polly’s punishment for his dirty and torn clothes. The fence was long and high. Tom Sawyer whitewashed it for some time, then sat down on a box, in despair. He was afraid that if the boys saw him with a brush they could laugh at him . . .”

2. “Gentlemen,

Today I got your letter about the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you want too much money for him. I have another plan, and I hope you will like it, too. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him back. It will be better for you to come at night because the neighbors believe he is lost, and I don’t know what they can do to anybody they see bringing him back.

Very respectfully,
Ebenezer Dorset”

 

Exercise 3

CALLING ALL MEN

Look at the names of the American authors given in Exercise 1. Match their first and last names.

William Ernest Mark John

Ray William (Porter) Edgar Jack

Theodore Henry James

These are men names.

There is a fill-in puzzle below. Find the right place in the diagram to put each name. Begin with the starter word.

3-Letter Names

ASA
IKE
IRA
NED

4-Letter Names

ALAN
ALDO
DANA
DEAN
DINO
EARL
ELMO
ERIC
EVAN
FORD
FRED
HANK
HERB
HUGH
KIRK
LEON
MACK
RYAN

5-Letter Names

ALVIN
DAMON
DAVID
FRANK
LEWIS
OLLIE
OSCAR
REGIS

6-Letter Names

ALFRED
ARNOLD
DANIEL
DARRYL
DENNIS
EDWARD
NATHAN
NORRIS
THOMAS
VINNIE

7-Letter Names

CHARLES
LEONARD
SHERMAN

Additional tasks.

You may want to ask the students to prepare a report on an American writer/poet or a book by an American writer they have read and consider interesting.

You may also ask your students to learn a poem by an American poet and be ready to recite it at the lesson.

 

Lesson 10

Aim – to sum up your students’ knowledge of the USA.

The class is divided into 2 teams, and the students play the game “WHAT? WHERE? WHEN?”. The answers to the questions below can be found in Lessons 1 – 9 published in “English” № 8, 9, 12, 15 . The team which is the first to answer gets the points. The top-scorer wins the game.

WHAT? WHERE? WHEN?

1. Who and when discovered America? (2 points)

2. What countries does the USA boarder on? (2 points)

3. How many stripes and stars are there on the USA flag? Why? (2 points)

4. Try to recollect the names of 10 American states. (10 points)

5. What is the US national motto? Where is it written? (2 points)

6. Who were the native Americans and what was their way of life? (5 points)

7. Give American equivalents to the English words: sweets, flat, university, petrol, autumn, toilet. (5 points)

8. Draw the US map. Find Washington, D.C. on it. Describe its location. Recollect everything you know about that city. (10 points)

9. Name five American writers/poets. (5 points)

10. Recite a poem. (5 points)

11. Solve the charades. (5 points)

 

Team 1

My first is what we do after we get up,
My second is the suffix of the gerund ‘going’,
My third is the letter which comes after “s”,
My forth is a preposition,
My whole is the capital of a state.

(Washington)

Team 2

My first is what boys and most girls wear on their heads in warm weather,
My second is the third person singular personal pronoun,
My third is an adjective-forming suffix in the word ‘musical’,
My whole is the main city of a state.

(Capital)

As this is the last lesson of the optional course on the USA, you can ask the students to answer the questions enumerated below not writing their names on the sheets of paper:

1. Did you like this course?

2. Did it meet all your expectations?

3. What did you like most of all in the course?

4. What didn’t you like in the course?

5. Would you like to have a similar course on another English-speaking country? What country?

 

By Nadejda Beregovaia