Читать книгу English for Life Reader Grade 7 Home Language - Elaine Ridge - Страница 13

Pre-reading
1.	How would a boy who is bullied feel about the bully?

My parents kept me from children who were rough

Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough

And who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.

Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind the hedges

Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud

And I looked another way, pretending to smile.

I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

stripped – took off their clothes

salt coarse – “salt” may refer to salty taste of tears or the expression to rub salt into an open wound; “coarse” to be rude

lithe – strong, able to move easily

Post-reading
2.	Explain what is meant by “children who are rough”.
3. a)	Write out the common rhyme that starts, ‘Sticks and stones …’ Does the rhyme express the same view as the poem? Consider the simile in the poem “throwing words like stones”. Refer to the poem to explain your answer.
b)	List in point form the other things the boy fears.
4.	Copy the table below into your books then fill in the columns, using information from the poem. The first row has been done for you. Add more boxes if you need them:

The speaker's clothes, strength, words he uses	The clothes, appearance, strength, words used by the boys who were rough
ClothesSmart clothes, clean and never torn	ClothesRagged clothes
Behaviour	Behaved rudely
Way he spoke	Way they spoke