1.1 Read: About Overcoming Fears
| Site: | Cowichan Valley School District - Moodle |
| Course: | ELA8, CSS, Sferrazza |
| Book: | 1.1 Read: About Overcoming Fears |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Friday, 29 November 2024, 10:40 AM |
Introduction
Since the beginning of time, why have we told stories?
Stories help us understand ourselves, define ourselves. Perhaps more importantly, stories that are shared with others bring us all closer together as we realize two important facts:
- we all have common experiences that make us the same
- we tell stories from different viewpoints and experiences, and until we all have the whole picture, we will never understand each other
Click on the video below to watch and read a famous story that originated in India. This version was made into a narrative poem by John Godfrey Saxe. The story focuses on seeing a situation from differing perspectives.
Preview
Get ready to learn by thinking about this:
One shared experience that we all have is having to overcome our fears, finding courage when it is most needed. Some people do this in different ways and to varying degrees of success.
So how does one overcome one's fears?
Overview of Lessons:
1. Read a variety of stories that are personal narratives that touch on the theme of overcoming fear.
2. Complete the activities in the learning guide and submit.
3. Complete a reading project.
4. In the writer's workshop, you will go through the writing project to create your own personal narrative.
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Learning Targets By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
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1.1 Tedtalk: What Fear Can Teach Us
Fiction writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the connection between fear and the imagination.
Listen to her speech in this TED Talk.
While you are listening, complete 1.1 in your learning guide : What Fear Can Teach Us.
1.2 Poem - When We Come To It
Maya Angelou writes eloquently about a "startling truth" . She reads it to you in the video at the bottom of the page.
Before you read this poem, go to your learning guide and complete the vocabulary exercise 1.2 : When We Come to It.
A Brave And Startling Truth - Poem by Maya Angelou
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
1.3 YouTube Clip-Girl's First Ski Jump
Sometimes a story can be told with hardly any words. Watch this YouTube video of a young girl about to take her first ski jump. Pay attention to how she talks herself into it and to her reaction at the end.
Open your learning guide and complete 1.3: Ski Jumper
1.4 Short Story: Suzy and Leah
To better understand the perspectives and experiences of the characters found in the stories you read, you will need to read closely and critically. In the following lesson, you are going to read diary accounts of two girls with very different experiences in World War II. These diaries are called primary resources.
Primary sources are immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic, from people who had a direct connection to it. They are also called original sources.
This story is about two girls (Leah and Suzy) who meet after WW2. One girl is a refugee from the Holocaust who has survived horrific conditions while the other is an American girl who really doesn't understand what the Jewish girl has been through. This assignment asks you to find evidence of how Leah's experience in the war has affected her.
To become a critical reader, you need to become an evidence hunter.
| Using Evidence from Text |
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To use evidence from text, 1. Examine the task and consider, in this case, a) What was Leah's experience in the war? b) How did it affect her? 2. Form a conclusion or make an inference about how that experience affected Leah. 3. Locate evidence in the diary that supports your conclusion. 4. Explain in your own words how that evidence supports the conclusion you made. a) How do you know that? b) What led you to this conclusion? |
Go to Assignment 1.4 in the learning guide to see an example.
Click here to read the story and complete 1.4: Suzy and Leah in your learning guide.
1.5 Excerpt: The True Story of a Part-Time Indian
One fear that many people have is of not fitting in, of not being accepted. The following excerpt is from the novel: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, based on the true experiences of the author Sherman Alexie. In the novel he leaves the reservation school to attend public school where he is the only non-white student other than the school mascot.
Before a reader can empathize or believe in or want to know more about a character there has to be a reason. They have to be believable and have personality. Watch the video on characterization below and then read the summary handout about characterization and look at the example from Cat in the Hat (can find it on-line).
Then you can read the excerpt to see how the author shows us about the main character.
While reading the excerpt complete the chart in 1.5: Characterization in your learning guide.
1.6 Performed Poem: To This Day
Watch the video of "To This Day," a spoken-word poem about bullying by Shane Koyczan, a Canadian artist. This poem has captivated millions as a viral video (created, crowd-source style, by 80 animators). Here, he gives a glorious, live reprise with backstory and violin accompaniment by Hannah Epperson.
Notice his use of humour, tone, and pacing to emphasize his message, the theme.
Theme is NOT a summary of the plot. Theme is:
- the underlying message that the author is trying to convey
- the central thought or purpose of the story
- reflection of some important or significant aspect of life
- usually universal
Here is a video to review theme.
Open your learning guide and complete 1.6: Theme.
1.7 Deeper Thinking: Sharing Stories
Most of the selections you have just read or viewed all look at different ways that people have faced fears, or how fear can affect our lives negatively or positively.
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Complete the last activity in the learning guide, 1.7, by thinking about how the authors or main characters in the selections you read dealt with facing their fears and how you can connect to it. |
Submit your Unit 1 Learning Guide in the dropbox: Unit One Learning Guide
Then carry on to the book module " Unit 1 Reading Projects".