English for Life Reader Grade 8 Home Language. Elaine Ridge
lines in the way that he does? Refer to the first stanza to illustrate your answer.
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Have you heard the expression “no time to talk”? When do people use it? What does it suggest about “talk”? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | Look at the illustration. Why does he have to “plod” (walk slowly and heavily)? |
A time to talk
Robert Frost
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, “What is it?”
No, not as there is time to talk.
I thrust my hoe up in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
visit – chat (American)
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | The friend slows his horse to a “meaning walk”. What does this action signal? |
| 4. | Look at the illustration. |
| a) | How far has the speaker got in his task? |
| b) | What makes his task so challenging? |
| 5. a) | What choice does the speaker make? |
| b) | Why does he choose this option? |
| 6. | Suggest a reason why he plants the hoe with its handle in the ground so that it is “blade end up”. |
| 7. | What does the word “mellow” tell us about the soil? |
| 8. | What does the way the speaker uses language tell us about the kind of man he is and what he thinks is important? |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Look at the title and the first line of the poem. What kind of poem do you think this is going to be? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | How do you know quite early on that this poem is based on a cultural myth? Write down two phrases that suggest this. |
Blue mist like smoke
Stephen Watson
The hare
is like a mist,
like !kho,
a blue mist
resembling smoke,
our mothers used to say.
When a mirage
appears at daybreak,
just before sunrise,
they say it is
the hare,
the mirage in it,
that keeps the sun in mist,
that cloaks the sun in smoke,
that weakens the sun’s eye,
that does not let it rise,
and brings much illness
to us.
It is, they say,
the hare that does it,
a hare like mist,
a hare like smoke,
the mirage in it,
the !kho of it.
It is, they say,
a smoke resembling mist
blue mist like smoke
that does it.
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | What about the hare would make it seem like “blue mist resembling smoke” in real life? |
| 4. | On a very hot day it sometimes looks as if there is water on the road ahead, but that is just a mirage. Here the mirage at daybreak is supposedly caused by the hare. What does it do to the sun? |
| 5. | What effect does !kho have on humans (according to the myth)? |
| 6. | Write down two examples of personification in the poem and say what they contribute to the poem. |
| 7. | The speaker says ‘our mothers used to say’, and then uses ‘they say’ three times more when describing the myth. What does it suggest about his attitude to the myth? |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Bats and birds both fly. How do they look different from one another? Is there anything in the illustration that you did not know before? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | When do you recognise that the poem is not mainly about birds and bats? |
In a small city at dusk
Martin Carter
In a small city at dusk
it is difficult to distinguish
bird from bat. Both fly fast:
one away from the dark
and one toward the dark.
The bird to a nest in the tree.
The bat to a feast in its branches.
Strangers to each other they seek
planted by beak or claw or hand
the same tree that grows out of the great soil.
And I know, even before I came to live here,
before the city had so many houses
dusk did the same to bird and bat and does
the same to man.
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | Look at the illustration. As you can see bats and birds are very different. Explain why it is difficult to distinguish between them at dusk. |
| 4. | Why does each of them seek out the same tree? |
| 5. | Explain how a tree can be planted by “beak or claw or hand”. |
| 6. | In what way are the bat and the bird strangers to each other? |
| 7. | Explain the parallel the speaker draws right at the end of the poem between what dusk does to these two creatures and what it does to humans. |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Look at the title of the poem. What do you expect the poem to be about? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | What is the actual story and who tells it? |
Bedtime Story
Chris Mann
The bath, the brushing of teeth,
the dragging on of pyjamas
worked through with threats and pleas,
the sprinting, wrestling and bouncing
at last diminishing.
I light a candle on the toy-chest,
step across a carpet mined with Lego
and bend towards the five-year-old
who