English for Life Reader Grade 8 Home Language. Elaine Ridge
inventions aside, what evidence is there that Uncle Dan is a little mad?
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | What is meant by leisure? How do you like to spend your leisure time? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | Why are the words “no time” repeated so often? |
Leisure
W.H. Davies
What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet how they can dance
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich the smile her eyes began.
A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
| Post-reading | |
| 3. a) | How does the poet answer the question he poses in the beginning? |
| b) | Do you agree with his point of view? Explain. |
| 4. | Explain how streams can be full of stars in the daytime. Name the figure of speech used here. |
| 5. | Beauty (line 9) could be a person or it could stand for anything beautiful. What do you think stanza 6 means? |
| 6. | If you had more time, what would you spend time just looking at? |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | In the poem, the reference to ‘wild coast’ refers to the rural areas along South Africa’s eastern coast along what used to be the Transkei. Scan the poem to find the word ‘wild’. Look at and describe what you see in the picture. Is there anything you would add to illustrate ‘the wild coast’? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | This poem has a specific and realistic setting. As you read, use the descriptions of some of the features of the countryside to picture the scene. ‘See if there are other items left out of the picture.’ |
On the wild coast
Patrick Cullinan
On the wild coast the cattle
come down to the sea after grazing.
They lie in the sand together, staring
the sea comes in and goes out
They walk away at the cool
of evening, slow to the top
of the dunes then bellow and kick
down the other side homewards
for milking: and darker
they move through the smoke and they stop
at the houses. The voices
are loud and then soft:
women talking to children,
the murmur of men at the fires
Wild – in a natural state; not changed by humans
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | What is the atmosphere of the scene the poem describes? Give one of the ways in which the poet helps us feel this atmosphere. |
| 4. | Why do the cattle go down to the beach? |
| 5. | Account for the difference between the way the cows move on the seaward side of the dunes and their behaviour on the other side. |
| 6. | The poem is full of sensory imagery. |
| a) | Find images that appeal to the sense of hearing and one that appeals to another sense. |
| b) | Now choose one of the images and say what it contributes to the poem. |
| 7. | What differences can you find between the roles of the men and women depicted here? |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Why do people talk to animals? What do they usually talk about? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | Why do you think the speaker tells us when and where this conversation takes place? |
Conversation with a giraffe at dusk in the zoo
Douglas Livingstone
Hail, lofty,
necking, quizzically
through the topgallant leaves
with your lady.
No good making eyelashes at
the distance from me to you
though I confess I should like
to caress your tender horns
and toboggan down your neck,
perhaps swing on your tail
Your dignity fools no one;
you get engagingly awkward
when you separate and collapse
yourself to drink; and
have you seen yourself cantering?
Alright, alright I know
I’m ugly standing still,
squat-necked, so-high.
Just remember there’s one or two
things about you too, hey,
like, like, birds now;
they fly much higher.
quizzical – not quite understanding something and perhaps finding it amusing
topgallant – the highest point on the main mast of a sailing ship – here the highest leaves
cantering – running quite fast but not as fast as galloping
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | This is not a conversation in the usual sense of the word. Why not? Explain the title. |
| 4. | What is amusing about the word “necking”, and the phrase “making eyelashes”? |
| 5. | What does the term “engagingly awkward” imply about the speaker’s attitude towards the giraffe and how he moves? |
| 6. | How does the speaker imagine that the giraffe sees him? |
| 7. | In the last stanza, the speaker is suddenly jokingly on the defensive. What makes us aware of this? |
| 8. | How many sentences are there in |