Homework: Reading comprehension

Read this article, and answer the questions IN FULL SENTENCES. (Not all the answers are directly spoon-fed to you by the text, but there are clues in the text which will enable you to answer all the questions if you think carefully.) Remember to use quotations from the text to demonstrate how you know the answers: P.E.E.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/16/experience-shark-attack-paralympian?intcmp=239

1) What country was Achmat in when he lost his leg?

2) How old is Achmat now, and how old was he when he was attacked by the shark?

3) What was Achmat doing when he was attacked?

4) Describe the shark which attacked Achmat.

5) How did Achmat get free?

6) How did he feel after he had been rescued, and when he realised he had lost his leg?

7) What success has he achieved since his attack?

8) Who inspired him to set his sights high and not to lose hope?

9) Based on his name and that of his brother, what religion do you think Achmat is likely to belong to?

Homework for Monday 22nd November 2010

Please find out the following information for Wednesday:

'Animal Farm' is a fable consciously based on the Russian Revolution. Can you find out about the following list of people and institutions and identify which characters are supposed to represent them AND WHY:

Tsar Nicholas II (The Emperor of Russia)

Karl Marx

The Church

Trotsky

Stalin

The uneducated, unskilled working class (or "proletariat")

'Pravda', the offical Russian Propaganda newspaper after the revolution

The members of the Communist Party

The KGB and/or Stalin's personal bodyguards.

Homework Assignment (Monday 15th November)

For your Monday assignment, I'd like you to pretend to be Snowball, and write a version of the speech he gave to the animals to persuade them they should adopt his plan for the Windmill.

Learning Objective: To organise and present a whole text effectively, sequencing and structuring information, ideas and events.

(PLEASE WRITE THE LEARNING OBJECTIVE AT THE TOP OF YOUR PIECE OF WORK. It brings out my Inner Shrek every time I look in your books and find that somebody has failed to write the L.O. In fact, if you don't write it this time, I'll set a pack of wild dogs on you give you detention. There. That should be a decent motivator, surely?)

If you'd like to refer back to the text to refresh your memory, you can find a complete edition of 'Animal Farm' online here: http://www.george-orwell.org/Animal_Farm/index.html

(This should be about a page in length, ideally. It would be a good idea to do a bit of planning first of all - think about what difficulties will be involved in physically building a windmill, and what advantages electricity should be able to bring to the animals. Think about the kind of persuasive language and techniques Squealer uses too - that might give you some clues, if you're feeling uncertain.)

As usual, this needs to be completed by Wednesday.

Homework!

Please complete this questionnaire, along with explanations. (I've filled it in myself, so you can see the kind of thing I mean.) You need to GIVE REASONS for your answers!



1) Your all-time favourite book(s):

Aaargh! Aaargh! Okay, I can't pick JUST ONE, so I'll cheat a bit, and pick a story that's three books in one:

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Because the words of this are practically inscribed on my heart at this point. I love the epic aspects of the story, and the astonishingly detailed world-building, and the battles, and I love the simple, quirky, funny, happy-go-lucky hobbits who are at the centre of all the horrors of war. I cannot read 'The Choices of Master Samwise' in 'The Two Towers' without crying my eyes out.



2) Your all-time favourite character:

Sam Gamgee from 'The Lord of the Rings'. I had to think quite hard about this, but then I realised that it had to be Sam. Sam isn't the main character, but I think that he's actually the most heroic of all of them. He's kind, unassuming, down-to-earth and very unremarkable, but he has an unexpected streak of poetry in his soul and he is unflinchingly loyal and brave in the face of terrifying and hopeless odds.

3) The fictional character you'd like to have as a friend:

Luna Lovegood and/or Neville Longbottom, from the HarryPotter books. I love Luna to bits because she is so very much herself, and because she doesn't worry about other people's opinions. And I love Neville for many of the reasons that I love Sam Gamgee: he's a genuinely good person, and underappreciated.



4) The fictional character you'd like to have with you if you were stuck on a desert island:



5) The worst fictional character to be stuck in a lift with:



6) The book you'd most like to be able to live in:



7) The book you'd least like to be forced to live in:



8) The fictional character you'd most like to be like:



9) A fictional character you think you ARE like:



10) Your favourite genre, and why you like it:



11) Your favourite writer (or writers) and why they're brilliant:



12) A book you didn't expect to like, but did anyway:



13) A book you think is overrated:



14) A book you wish had a sequel:


15) A book you wish you'd never read: