Unit 13 Christmas I. General Understanding of the Text This story is about how a little boy, who at first had no idea what poverty meant, gradually begins to realize that his family is very poor, how he comes to understand the social and psychological consequences of such a state, and how he grows mature in the mind, as it were. The scene of the story is set in the boy’s home at Christmas during the hard times. 1. the story is told in the first person by the child himself. It is informal in style and reflects a child’s thinking and manner of expression. (1) the write ruses plain words, simple, unadorned sentences, short paragraphs, simple grammatical structures and clear and straightforward statements. He concentrates on narrating events with a minimum amount of comment and description. (2) the style is distinctly conversational in tone. Examples: My father was at home all day long and every day now; and I liked that. I could write my own name, she said. So I did. Why didn’t they say anything about it? Was what I had said I wanted too expensive? (3) a considerable number of sentences begin with And or But to show the boy’s attempts at narrative. Examples: But there as something queer! And once, when I spoke of it, there was a strange, embarrassed silence. But she didn’t explain why… And as the pain in my body ebbed, the pain in my mind began. 2. The writer skillfully selects a chain of events for the story to let the reader himself gradually draw the conclusion as to the underlying reason for the selection. Each event seems insignificant by itself, but taken together the events produce a strong effect on the mind of the reader. (1) The soles of both the boy’s shoes were worn clear through (2) The family had potato soup every day (3) The boy’s gift to the poor children consisted of only a small bag of potatoes and some pennies. (4) His mother was anxious that the source of the gift should not be identified. (5) His father was unemployed (6) The boy was kept off school for a whole term because his shoes were completely worn out and had to be repaired with cardboard (7) he saw Santa Claus and holly wreaths in the advertisements but his parents didn’t say a word about Christmas (8) When he spoke of it at home, there was a strange and embarrassed silence. (9) On Christmas Eve, there was no Christmas dinner. (10) When he finally asked his parents whether they knew it was Christmas, his father tried to pass off the question as a joke and his mother was expressionless. (11) He went to bed early on Christmas Eve, unable to bear any longer the false jocularity of his father and the agony of his mother. (12) He lay there, feeling numb and stunned, understanding his plight at last. 3. The writer produces a certain tension in the narrative by keeping the boy in the dark about his own plight while the reader is all the time being told the truth about it. The child moves from one incident to another without realizing that he himself is one of the poor. As the reader is given a detailed description of the pain and suffering that poverty causes him, he keeps wondering how long it will take before the child realizes his true plight and speculating how he will react to this stark reality. The reader’s sympathy is completely with the boy and he is relieved to see the boy’s new-formed maturity when he says: “They had done the best they could, now they realized I knew about Christmas. But they needn’t have thought they had to. I didn’t need anything.” 4. An apparent stylistic device the writer employs to make his writing forceful is parallelism. The following sentences, by means of which the boy enumerates all the unhappy events that lead him to the realization of the fact “We’re poor”, are very effective. “But I knew why I had taken only a little bag of potatoes to Sunday school that fall. I knew why there had been only pennies in my little yellow envelope. I knew why I hadn’t gone to school that fall—why I hadn’t any new shoes—why we had been living on potato soup all winter.” II. Duration of Time: Six periods III. Objectives On completion of the unit, students are expected to understand the techniques of informal style to reflect child’s thinking and manner of expression and the apparent stylistic device the writer employs to make his writing forceful. IV. Difficult Points The most significant points are devices employed to achieve informal style and the stylistic device. 1. devices to achieve the style: the first person singular by the child himself A. plain words and simple sentences B. conversational tone C. sentences beginning with And or But 2. devices to achieve the tone: parallelism 3. the process of the child’s becoming mature V. Teaching Procedures A. Ask students to talk about how Christmas is celebrated in Western countries and then naturally bring out the topic of the text—Christmas which deals a solemn problem of poverty at Christmas. B. Ask students to guess the main idea of the text, then tell them to go over the text rapidly once without worrying about the new words and phrases. The suggested time limit is 5 minutes. C. Ask students to sum up the main idea of the text and do comprehension exercise on pages 162-164 Keys: B. D. C. A. D. C. B. A. B. A. D. Do the vocabulary exercise on page 160. Key: Section A: e. f. a. g. j. i. h. d. c. b. Section B: 1. admit; 2. an arrangement of flower or leaves in a circle; 3. upset; 4. puzzlement, confusion; 5. showing no feeling, cold; 6. unable to feel anything; 7. shocked; 8. the act of giving up everything; 9. a thin leafless curling stem by which a climbing plant fastens itself to a support; 10. move away or back E. Details of the text. (1) sole: bottom of the shoe (2) my shoes were worn clear through: my shoes were completely worn out. clear: adv. Completely through: adj. allowing a free continuous passage i.e. a through road, a through train (3) Sunday school: a place where Christian children receive religious teaching on a Sunday (4) superintendent: school master ( of a religious school) (5) were distributed to all classes: were given to all classes (6) nourish: give somebody what is needed to live; grow and stay healthy nourishment, nutrition: n. nutrient: n. & adj. something providing what is needed for life and growth nutritious: adj. valuable to the body as food, nourishing (7) My father was at home all day long: implies my father was unemployed for a long time (8) I had my parents all to myself: my parents totally belong to me. (9) memory does not reveal: I did not remember (10) put my contribution with the others: here contribution means the potatoes given to poor children (11) sealed it up: fastened or covered with a seal (12) confess: admit doing something wrong confession: n. (13) gutter: a small ditch (14) coop up: confine, shut into a small place (15) we didn’t take a Sunday paper more: we didn’t subscribe a paper, which implies that we were poor (16) wreath: flowers made in the shape of a ring (17) calendar: printed table of days, weeks and months of the year (18) print: newspaper (19) spoke of it: mentioned it, talked about it (20) embarrassed: upset, awkward (21) arrogant: too proud arrogance: n. (22) talkative: talking too much (23) sit up: stay up very late and do not go to bed (24) insole: a piece of material inside a shoe (25) stony: cold, expressionless or emotionless (26) took on a joking look: began to have, assume (27) keep on being funny about it: continue to make jokes on it (continue not to be serious about it) (28) numb: unable to feel anything, unconscious (29) ebb: disappear, fall (30) renunciation: giving up a claim, saying formally that one does not own or have something (31) tendril of desire unfold their clasp on the outer world of objects, withdraw, shrivel up: (metaphor) “tendril of desire unfold their clasp” means giving up the desire to obtain anything. the outer world of objects: material things withdraw: move back shrivel up: dry out and become smaller, wither VI. Oral Work A. Role-play: Pre-party nerves Situation: George and Mary are brother and sister; they do not have much experience in giving parties. They have invited thirty friends to their party and are very nervous. B. Interaction activities: A chain story Tell part of a story in groups of four. First decide individually which of the following topics you will choose as the topic of your story. Then think out the plot. A Birthday Party A Picnic A Dance Party An Outing Have in opening sentence to begin your story. And then students are expected to tell the story in a group. One of the four will begin the story he/she has prepared and he/she will leave it unfinished. The next person will continue the story from where the first person has left off and still leave the story unfinished. The third member will continue the story…and so on round the group. The last person will try to bring the story to an end. As the four members may or may not have chosen the same topic, adjustments will have to be made to make the story consistent and reasonable. VI. Exercises in Workbook.