That is the book you have to read and the handout you have to write
Hello my students!!!
Reading a book is something else than doing an English exercise for the English lesson or to have a mark, a good mark in the third term. Reading, as some famous people said, is :
Emily Dickinson (poet):
“ The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books”
Thomas Carlyle (writer and teacher):
“ What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books we will have read”
Joseph Addison (essayist and poet):
“Reading is to the man what exercise is to the body”
Maybe you think that is normal that those literate people had these opinions but next one is near you and he thinks the same:
Will Smith (actor):
“All l know is what l read in the books”
Now, are you enthusiastic to read the book and to be a bit more educated (educated is a false friend that means “ culte”) than you are now??
Let´s go. Let´s read the book and let´s work in group (maximum three)
Working in group means to work individually,to share the tasks you must do and later it means, you three must exchange the opinions and conclusions you have worked on because after it, you must write your work individually, with your own words , with your own mistakes.
This year you have to read the following book:
2001. Space Odyssey. Cambridge FCE. Penguin Readers. (ISBN 9781405879811)
WORKSHEET ON THE BOOK
You must read and analyse the book to know which is its style. You must decide after analysing 10 items if the style of the book is formal or informal
The 10 items to analyse are:
1. abbreviations: if you find a lot of them in the book, this text is informal
org ( organization ) , ´coz (because)
2. contractions: if the text has them, it is informal. REMEMBER when you write in English you don´t use them in affirmative sentences unless it is a dialogue or an informal letter
It´s, we´ll, he´d
3. punctuation: if in the text there is abuse of it; that´s to say, there are commas, exclamations, question marks, dots, hyphens etc, then the text is informal. Usually punctuation appears in dialogues and in informal letters but not in narrative and description where you use punctuation just to make it coherent.
Dialogue page 5 student´s book
4. adjectives: Remember that in English you can find 7 adjectives in front of the noun. If you find so, then the text is formal because usually they place maximum 3 adjectives , but not more.
An example of a normal use of adjectives is the text page 90. student´s book
“ Mr Jagger´s black-horse hair, brass-nails, high-backed chair” in the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is an example of double adjectives (6 adjectives. This is an example of a formal use of adj.)
Otherwise, the use of extreme adjectives instead of normal adjectives is another feature of formal style. Remember them on page 26 book. AMAZING instead of SURPRISE etc.
5. vocabulary: if the text is full of words from latin or greek origin, the text is formal. You recognize them because the words are similar to Catalan or Spanish. Remember, these are the words that you grandmother understands!!! (Well, except false friends!!!)
The first and the third paragraph of the copy I gave you is a very clear example
If you find words that are exactly as they were in Latin or Greek,
they are called LATINISMS
Post scriptum , versus, alea jacta est, per se
Otherwise if the words are from saxon origin, then the text is not so
formal
6. verbs: if the text is full of verbs from latin and greek origin, then the text is formal. On the other hand, if you find verbs that are from saxon origin, then the text is less formal. Usually in a dialogue you find saxon verbs and in a scientific or narrative text, you find latin verbs.
You recognize latin verbs because the spelling and meaning is similar to the verbs in Catalan or Spanish
(saxon) gaze , shill, dry, rinse, thank, wipe,
(latin) stupefy, conceive, remark, determine, stimulate
7. sentences: if they are short or unfinished, then the text is informal. But if they are long where you find more than three subordinates, then the text is formal or very formal
“ After l had made the monster and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravate, creamy breeches, and the boots already mentioned, l had to find him a little to do and a great deal to eat; and with both of those horrible requeriments he aunted my existence.”
Charles Dickens wrote it when he described his characters. He uses a lot of very long sentences. He uses a very formal style
8. writing: you know 3 popular ways of writing; narrative, description and dialogue. When you write a dialogue then you must use punctuation, short sentences, simple vocabulary, etc. That´s why the style of the text is informal. All the opposite when you write a narrative and a description where you don´t use contractions, abbreviations etc where your sentences must be long and use latin lexic etc.
The book is full of this difference. So it depends on the moment the author uses one style or the other. You have to evaluate it
9. narrator: when the story is written in first person singular or plural, the text normally is informal because it is like the transcript of what you are speaking. So, it is full of informal features.
Otherwise, if the text is written in third person, the text is formal because as you reproduces what another person said then it becomes written and you know that a written text in ENGLISH is very formal without contractions etc, etc, etc.
In the book you can find these two types of narrators. Mention it and where it happens, in which situations.
10. topic: that is the last item to analyse. Depending on the story, you know what the subject is about. If it is scientific or it talks about trials and laws, it will be more formal than if it is a family or love story. Maybe, it is a mix. Explain it
FINALLYYYYY, you have analysed the book. NOW it is time to develope your arguments, justify them and write it :
FIRST you write about the item to have analysed and explain what you have done
SECOND you justify what you have done giving three examples in the book that prove it (remember how a quotation is done)
THIRD Conclude if this item in the book follows a formal of an informal style or both
WHAT ABOUT THE HANDOUT
1.I want a cover with the title of the present work ( STYLE ON THE BOOK), your name and the title of the book
2. I want the work written by computer or by hand if it is very clean, gorgeous and tidy
3. Write an index
4. Write an introduction where you explain what the work is about and what you are going to do
5. l want each item on a new page.
6.When you write the quotations , write them on a different letter source. Then it is clear to differentiate them from your writing
7. At the end, write your conclusion on the style of the book, based on the deeply analysis you have done through the book. Think that maybe is not clear to say if it is formal or informal. If you justify your answer, it will be right.
8. Put a white sheet on the back ( or after the cover), to write any comment that l want to tell you
You must hand out this work , maximum,on 26th February 2010
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