USA Education Reader. High School and college culture. Книга для чтения

3 … my old car used by someone else in the family and then given to me and not working well enough at that.

4.What made us different was the personality wearing the uni-

form.

5.Most of them avoided fines for breaking speed limits and just got a warning.

6.When I was called to court…

Match the columns to define the cultural lacunas on the left after you have done some search in the Internet.

ENHANCING COMPREHENNSION

Look through the story and find and translate the paragraphs which describe

–Amy’s expectations and fears about private school;

–the atmosphere at Incarnate Word;

–change ofAmy’s attitude to the school;

–the influence Incarnate Word had onAmy’s life.

Answer the following questions:

1.Why was Amy so scared and resentful about being enrolled in a private school?

2.How did reality differ from her expectations?

51

3.What made Incarnate Word different from a typical public school?

4.What kind of effect did Incarnate Word have on the students’ personalities?

5.How didAmy come to like her uniform?

6.Do you thinkAmy ever regretted going to a private school?

CULTURE PERSPECTIVE

1.Comment on the peculiarities of private schools in the USA. What are their pros and cons? What types of private school do you know? How are private schools different from their counterparts in Russia? Are there religious private schools in Russia? Look for additional information in the Internet.

2.What did Amy’s father mean when he said, “Put them (dimes) in your shoes. That’ll show those nuns”. Is there any cultural implication? Comment on it.

3.What are penny loafers? Can you comment on the origin of the name of this kind of shoes?

4.Give a cultural commentary to the culturally-marked word combination debutante ball. As you perhaps know, it’s an old tradition coming from the late 19th century. Why do you think this tradition is still alive? Is there anything like that in Russia today? Would you like to go to a debutante ball? Why?

5.Comment on the word preppy and preppy-looking people. The Glossarywillhelpbutyouareencouragedtolookformoreinformationin the Internet and share it with your classmates when discussing the story.

6.What is community service? Is there anything similar in Russian culture? What is common and what is different?

7.Share the information you have found about the italicized culturally marked words and names with your group mates: The Great Depression, “I’m Abraham Lincoln”, country club, Star Trek nerds.

SUMMARIZING

Give a short account of the story fromAmy’s parents/Amy’s public school friends’viewpoint.

52

LEADS TO DISCUSSION

1.What are the pros and cons of private schools? Are they good for students?Are they good for society? Would you like to go to a private school in your city or town, if there is one?

2.If you wereAmy, would you stay on in Incarnate Word or leave for public school?

3.Do you think IncarnateWord could prepare students for real life well enough?

4.The text says Incarnate Word was too small to uphold a social hierarchy. Does social hierarchy play an important role in the development of a personality?

CULTURALWEB

Having read and discussed the story, you can add some new culturally marked words to the Web regarding school organization and management, learning or social activities.

PROJECT WORK

1.Arrange in groups of 2–3, go to Google or Yandex for homepage of any private high school in the USAor Russia. Make a presentation of the school, its history and curriculum, social life and major extracurricular activities.

2.In groups of 2–3 make presentations about Abraham Lincoln, the 16th USAPresident (1861–1865) or the Great Depression of 19291933 in the USA.

STORY 6.

THE MOST MATURE THING I’VE EVER SEEN

PRE-READING TALK

Does the title of the story help anticipate its content? The key word in the title is mature. What comes to your mind when someone is considered a mature person? Can a high school student be characterized as mature? Doesn’t maturity come with life experience and age? Give reasons.

53

INTERACTIVE READING

Read the story and say why it became possible for the students to go across the quad the next day after the incident with Lisa. After reading the story, do a test and some other exercises to enhance your comprehension and build your vocabulary.

While reading, you will come across a number of culturally marked words. Most of them can be found in the Glossary at the end of the book.As for the culturally marked words in italics, they are not included into the Glossary, so be sure to consult Internet resources, dictionaries or encyclopedias to find out what they mean.

THE MOST MATURE THING I’VE EVER SEEN

Every student at Monroe High School knew about it. Nobody did it. Nobody.

Lunchtime at Monroe High School was consistent. As soon as the bell that ended the last morning class started ringing, the students swarmed toward their lockers. Then those who didn’t eat in the cafeteria headed with their sack lunches toward the quad. The quad was a large, treeless square of concrete in the center of campus. It was the meeting-and-eating place.

Around the quad the various school cliques assembled. The druggies lined up on the south side. The punkers were next to them. On the east side were the brothers. Next to them were the nerds and brains. The jocks stood on the north side next to the surfers. The rednecks were on the west side. The socialites were in the cafeteria. Everybody knew their place.

This arrangement did create some tension. But for all the tension generated on the perimeter of the quad at lunchtime, it was nothing compared with the inside of the quad.

The inside was no-man’s land.

Nobody at Monroe walked across the middle of the quad. To get from one side to the other, students walked around the quad. Around the people.Around the stares.

Everybody knew about it, so nobody did it.

54

Then one day at the beginning of spring, a new student arrived at Monroe. Her name was Lisa. She was unfamiliar to the area; in fact, she was new to the state.

And although Lisa was pleasant enough, she did not quickly attract friends. She was overweight and shy, and the style of her clothes was not... right.

She had enrolled at Monroe that morning. All morning she had struggled to find her classes, sometimes arriving late, which was especially embarrassing. The teachers had generally been tolerant, if not cordial. Some were irritated; their classes were already too large, and now this added paperwork before class.

But she had made it through the morning to the lunch bell. Hearing the bell, she sighed and entered the crush of students in the hall. She weaved her way to her locker and tried her combination three, four, five times before it banged open. Standing in front of her locker, she decided to carry along with her lunch all of her books for afternoon classes. She thought she could save herself another trip to her locker by eating lunch on the steps in front of her next class.

So Lisa began the longest walk of her life – the walk across campus toward her next class. Through the hall. Down the steps. Across the lawn.Across the sidewalk.Across the quad.

As Lisa walked she shifted the heavy books, alternately resting the arm that held her light lunch. She had grabbed too many books; the top book kept slipping off, and she was forced to keep her eye on it in a balancing act as she moved past the people, shifting the books from arm to arm, focusing on the balanced book, shuffling forward, oblivious to her surroundings.

All at once she sensed something. The air was eerily quiet. A nameless dread clutched her. She stopped. She lifted her head.

Hundredsofeyeswerestaring.Cruel,hatefulstares.Pitilessstares. Angry stares. Unfeeling, cold stares. They bore into her.

She froze, dazed, pinned down. Her mind screamed, No! This can’t be happening!

What happened next, people couldn’t say for sure. Some later said she dropped her book, reached down to pick it up, and lost

55

her balance. Some claimed she tripped. It didn’t matter how it happened.

She slipped to the pavement and lay there, legs splayed, in the center of the quad.

Then the laughter started, like an electric current jolting the perimeter, charged with a nightmarish quality, wrapping itself around and around its victim.

And she lay there.

From every side fingers pointed, and then the taunt began, building in raucous merriment, building in heartless insanity: “You! You! You! YOU!”

And she lay there.

From the edge of the perimeter a figure emerged slowly. He was a tall boy, and he walked rigidly, as though he were measuring each step. He headed straight toward the place where the fingers pointed. As more and more students noticed someone else in the middle, the calls softened, and then they ceased. A hush flickered over the crowd.

Theboywalkedintothesilence.Hewalkedsteadily,hiseyesfixed on the form lying on the concrete.

By the time he reached the girl, the silence was deafening. The boy simply knelt and picked up the lunch sack and the scattered books, and then he placed his hand under the girl’s arm and looked into her face.And she got up.

The boy steadied her once as they walked across the quad and through the quiet perimeter that parted before them.

The next day at Monroe High School at lunchtime a curious thing happened.As soon as the bell that ended the last morning class started ringing, the students swarmed toward their lockers. Then those who didn’t eat in the cafeteria headed with their sack lunches across the quad.

From all parts of the campus, different groups of students walked freely across the quad. No one could really explain why it was okay now. Everybody just knew.And if you ever visit Monroe High School, that’s how it is today.

56

It happened some time ago. I never even knew his name. But what he did, nobody who was there will ever forget.

Nobody.

Susan Doenim. Submitted by Leon Bunker

[From Chicken soup for the teenage soul: 101 stories of life, love, learning / Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Rimderly Kirberger (1997). – p. 266–269].

WHILE-READINGACTIVITIES

Decide if the statements are true (T) or false (F).

1.Everybody at Monroe would eat their lunch in the quad. ____

2.All the school cliques assembled around the quad at lunchtime.

______

3.Lisa was unpopular with the students. ______________

4.The boy that helped Lisa was the only person who liked her at Monroe High. ____________

5.Other students stopped laughing because they were afraid of the boy who had helped Lisa. ____________

Choose the correct variant:

1.The inside of the quad is called in the story “no-man’s land” because …

a.every clique claimed the territory.

b.it served to separate the cliques.

c.it belonged to the school, not a person.

d.it was just a nickname.

2.The teachers …

a.were tolerant, but not cordial to Lisa.

b.were mostly tolerant and some cordial toward Lisa.

c.were irritated and angry with Lisa because it added a lot of paperwork.

d.were all very cordial.

3.Lisa wasn’t welcome at Monroe High because …

a.she was just new to the school and the state.

57

b.the style of her clothes wasn’t right.

c.she was overweight.

d.all of the above.

4.Lisa lost her balance because …

a.she had too many books to carry.

b.she just tripped.

c.she was overweight and awkward as a result.

d.she felt the students’gazes and realized she had broken some unwritten law of the school.

5.The word combination “the most mature thing” is used to describe …

a.Lisa’s walk across the quad.

b.the boy who came to Lisa’s rescue.

c.the students’attitude toward Lisa.

d.Lisa’s reaction to what she heard and saw.

While discussing the story, you will want to use a number of words fromthestory. Canyou identifythembytheir Russian equivalents? Write them down in your vocabulary books.

Толпиться, проверка тестов, тетрадей, проектных заданий, радушный,

обходить впереди идущих, пробираться через толпу, сверхъестественно тихо, удивить, ошеломить, изумить,

чувствовать себя как прикованный.

Translate the following sentences from the story:

1.Anameless dread clutched her.

2.Then the laughter started, like an electric current jolting the perimeter, charged with a nightmarish quality, wrapping itself around and around its victim.

3.Fromeverysidefingers pointed,andthenthetauntbegan,building in raucous merriment, building in heartless insanity: “You! You! You!YOU!”

4.Ahush flickered over the crowd.

58

Lookthroughthestoryagainandwriteoutadjectivestodescribe the boy who helped Lisa.

Match the following culturally marked words and their definitions:

ENHANCING COMPREHENSION

Look through the story and find and translate the paragraphs describing

–school cliques that gathered around the quad. Be careful interpreting the culturally-marked words.

–Lisa’s first morning at Monroe High School

–the tension at the perimeter of the quad while Lisa was crossing the quad. Which stylistic device does the author use to show her state of mind and the students’attitude towards Lisa?

Answer the following questions:

1.Why was the inside of the quad ‘no-man’s land’?

2.Why wasn’t Lisa welcomed by the students?

3.Was there any tension at the perimeter of the quad? Why?

4.What was the students’ reaction when they saw Lisa crossing the quad?

59

5.Why do you think Lisa fell down?

6.What happened when the students saw a boy going in Lisa’s direction?

7.What do you think struck the crowd as strange – the fact that he had crossed the quad or that he had come to the poor thing’s rescue?

CULTURE PERSPECTIVE

1.How many morning and afternoon classes are there in USA high schools?

2.Comment on the cultural peculiarities of the school cafeteria in the USA. How is it different from the Russian “столовая”?

3.Explain why the quad is the heart of any USAschool or college campus? Is there anything similar on our campuses or in our school yards?

4.Drug addiction is a major social problem in any country of the world, isn’t it? Comment on the cultural aspects of the word the druggies. Who belongs to this group inAmerican high schools? Look for some additional information in the Internet or go to a chat and interview some high school student about the problem. Share your information with your group mates.

5.The cultural phenomena expressed by the words the brothers, the rednecks are purely American. That’s why they are considered cultural realia and cannot be translated into Russian. But they can be interpreted for non-speaking English in Russia. Try to do it using the Glossary and any other information you’ll find.

6.What about the culturally marked words the nerds and brains, and socialites? What are their Russian equivalents? Are there such groups or individuals in your schools?

7.Share the information you have found about the italicized culturally marked words with your group mates: the jocks, the punkers, the surfers, sack lunch.

8.There is a certain cultural implication in the sentence ‘All morning she had struggled to find her classes, sometimes arriving late, which was especially embarrassing’. Why was it especially embarrassing?

60