Читать книгу English for Life Reader Grade 8 Home Language - Elaine Ridge - Страница 8

Pre-reading
1.	What is an inventor? In your view, what makes an invention good? Use an example to show what you mean.
During reading
2.	What do you expect the poem to be telling us about Uncle Dan? While you are reading the poem, decide what the speaker’s attitude to his uncle is.

Uncle Dan

Ted Hughes

My Uncle Dan’s an inventor, you may think that’s very fine,

You may wish he was your Uncle instead of being mine –

If he wanted to he could make a watch that bounces when it drops,

He could make a helicopter out of string and bottle tops

Or any really useful thing you can’t get in the shops.

But Uncle Dan has other ideas:

The bottomless glass for ginger beers,

The toothless saw that’s safe for the tree,

A special word for the spelling bee

(Like Lioncerangoutangadder),

Or the roll-uppable rubber ladder,

The mystery pie that bites when it’s bit –

My Uncle Dan invented it.

My Uncle Dan sits in his den inventing night and day.

His eyes peer from his hair and beard like mice from a load of hay.

And does he make the shoes that will go walks without your feet?

A shrinker to shrink instantly the elephants you meet?

A carver that just carves from the air steaks cooked and ready to eat?

No, no, he has other intentions –

Only perfectly useless inventions:

Glassless windows (they never break)

A medicine to cure the earthquake

The unspillable screwed-down cup,

The stairs that go neither down nor up,

The door you simply paint on a wall –

Unce Dan invented them all.

Post-reading
3.	His inventions aside, what evidence is there that Uncle Dan is a little mad?
4. a)	Quote some examples in the poem of the kind of things Uncle Dan’s nephew would like him to invent.
b)	What does the speaker think of Uncle Dan’s inventions? How do the speaker’s own ideas compare with his uncle’s? Explain.
5.	Choose two of Uncle Dan’s inventions and say why they are nonsensical.
6.	How do we know that Uncle Dan does not care about his personal appearance?
7.	Create an advert to sell an invention that would make your life far easier. You do not have to be serious. It must include: a logo, a slogan, and a short description of the invention.