Fiction, imagination and experience
En esta secuencia se propone analizar y sistematizar experiencias de escritura y de lectura para promover la producción de discurso en la lengua inglesa.
Creado: 20 diciembre, 2021 | Actualizado: 4 de septiembre, 2023
✍ ACTIVITY 1
A. Pre task, answer.
Antes de leer, respondé.
In your opinion, when writing… what do you think a writer needs? How frequently does he/she write? What is his/her inspiration?
En tu opinion, al momento de escribir ¿qué pensás que necesita una escritora o un escritor? ¿Con qué frecuencia escribe? ¿Cuál es su inspiración?
B. 1. Read and highlight the most important words or phrases about the process of ‘writing’.
Leé y resaltá las palabras más importantes o frases acerca del proceso de escritura.
“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
― Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury en goodreads. Recuperado en diciembre de 2021.
B. 2. Compare and Answer. What about your predictions? Were they confirmed or not?
Compará y respondé. ¿Qué hay con tus predicciones? ¿Se confirmaron o no?
Toolkit
In the previous text, Ray Bradbury gives advice on what to do when attempting to write. He uses the form MUST.
Must is a form normally used to express obligation but in some cases, such as this one, it is used to express personal opinions about what is necessary to do.
Bradbury is telling us what, in his opinion, we need to do in order to write.
For example:
You must write every single day of your life.
You must lurk in libraries.
Check that must is always followed by the base form of the verb.
For example: you must WRITE.
Can you look for other examples in the text?
C. Share the words you highlighted in item B and make a word cloud.
Compartí las palabras que resaltaste en el apartado B y hacé una nube de palabras.
Archivo DGCyE
D. Choose and tick. According to the text in item B. 1, what do writers need to write?
Elegí y tildá. De acuerdo con el texto del apartado B. 1 ¿qué necesitan las escritoras y los escritores para escribir?
- A room
- Lurk in libraries
- Read a lot
- Several fights in your head
- Write every day
- Speak the truth
- Write once a week
- Think
- Intuition
- Predict the future
- Match creativity
E. Write your opinion in your notebook. Which items of the previous list do YOU need to write?
Escribí tu opinión en tu carpeta. ¿Cuáles ítems de la lista anterior necesitás VOS para escribir?
In order to write I need…
✍ ACTIVITY 2
Let's learn about Ray Bradbury!
¡Vamos a aprender acerca de Ray Bradbury!
*
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) Born in Illinois, USA. Bradbury is one of the most celebrated 20th and 21st century American writers. He wrote fantasy, horror and science fiction. Among his best known books are The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951) and his first novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
A. Read this extract about Ray Bradbury’s reading experience.
Leé el siguiente texto acerca de la experiencia de lectura de Ray Bradbury.
The Reader
Bradbury’s family ignited his love for reading at an early age. When he was four, his parents taught him how to read newspaper comics. A year later, on Christmas day, his Aunt Neva (short for Nevada) gave him his first book of fairytales, Once Upon a Time, and soon after, she started reading him the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Then the “Buck Rogers” comic strip arrived in his life at age eight. Bradbury was such a fan, that he “lived in a state of near hysteria waiting for the comic to slap onto my front porch each night in the evening paper.” With “Buck Rogers” came “Tarzan” and “John Carter, Warlord of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He later borrowed Burroughs’s books from his Uncle Bion, who lived around the corner. Bradbury read them many times, and almost committed their entire texts to memory. He reminisced, “Long before I went to the regular library, I picked up on those elements of fantasy which I think influenced me and changed my life.”
Texto tomado de la página oficial de Ray Bradbury, apartado 13 things you didn’t know about Ray Bradbury, recuperado en diciembre de 2021.
B. Choose the best sentences from the extract to describe this information and complete Ray Bradbury’s experience:
Elegí del texto las mejores oraciones que pueden describir la siguiente información acerca de la experiencia de Ray Bradbury:
A. Age when he started reading:
B. People who taught him reading:
C. His first book:
D. List of readers and comic strips:
C. Complete. Do you remember your experience? In your notebook, make a list of your favourite readers since you were a child.
Completar. ¿Recordás tu experiencia como lectora o lector? En tu carpeta, hacé una lista de tus lecturas favoritas desde tu infancia hasta la actualidad.
For example:
- The Little Mermaid
- Little Red Riding Hood
- Greek Myths
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Animal Farm
- The Diary of Anne Frank
D. Complete these sentences about your reading experience.
Completá las oraciones acerca de tu experiencia como lectora o lector.
A. First contact with books:
B. Age/ moment when you started reading:
C. People who taught you reading:
D. Your first book:
For example/Por ejemplo:
A. First contact with books: 3 years
B. Age/ moment when you started reading: 6 years
C. People who taught you reading: mother-teacher
D. Your first book: Little Mermaid
E. Write. Describe your reading experience.
Escribir. Describí tu experiencia como lectora o lector.
Archivo DGCyE.
For example:
“My reading experience”
When I was 3 years old I found the first book at home. Then, when I was 6 years old I started reading books. My mother gave me my first book: “The Little Mermaid”. My mother and my 1st grade teacher, called Marisa, taught me to read. In 1st grade we created our classroom library and every week we took one book home. From that moment on my favourites have been: The Little Mermaid, Mafalda, Puss in Boots, The Sleeping Beauty and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Animal Farm. I have always loved to read.
Toolkit Simple Past – Present Perfect
To account for events that happened once or several times in the past, you will need to use the Simple Past.
Check out:
When I was 3 years old I found the first book at home.
To account for experience, you will need to write in the present perfect tense. You use this tense because your account refers to experience up to the present.
Check out:
I have always loved to read.
From that moment on my favourites have been: The Little Mermaid, Mafalda…
Food for thought: When we speak Spanish, do we use similar verb patterns?
“Cuando tenía 3 años…”
“Siempre he amado leer…”
F. Portfolio. Include activity E in your portfolio, give a name to this section.
Portfolio. Podés incluir la actividad E en tu portfolio, elegí un nombre para esta sección.
WRITING EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCIA DE ESCRITURA
✍ ACTIVITY 3
A. Read these phrases about Ray Bradbury’s writing experience.
Leé las siguientes frases acerca de la experiencia de escritura de Ray Bradbury.
Extracts from: “A conversation with Ray Bradbury” by Lawrence Bridges.
"I grew up in a poor family, I could never make it to college, Thank God for that. But I had enough sense when I was 18 years old to start going to the library five or six nights a week. Every morning I wrote. Every afternoon I sold newspapers on the street corner and I graduated from the library when I was 28 years old."
“I didn't know I was writing poetry but I am…”
“Love what you do and do what you love. There isn’t anybody else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love, so you as a child must imagine what you want and then you build anything that you want but imagination should be the centre of your life.”
“Stand on top of the cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.”
Bridges, L. (2009, 8 de Julio). A conversation with Ray Bradbury about Larry Fahrenheit 451. Canal de Youtube de Larry Bridges. Recuperado en diciembre de 2021. Material Audiovisual optativo. El ingreso al enlace consume datos móviles o necesita de una conexión a Internet.
B. Read the sentences, tick true sentences or correct the mistakes.
Leé estas oraciones, tildá las correctas o corregí los errores.
- Ray grew up in a poor family, he didn’t attend Primary School.
- When he was 18 years old, after he finished working he went to college.
- He wrote every morning.
- Ray knew he was a poet while he was writing.
- Bradbury encouraged people to write, to read, to love what they do and that imagination should be the centre of their lives.
Example:
1. Ray grew up in a poor family, he didn’t attend Primary School. X
Ray grew up in a poor family, he didn’t attend college.
✍ ACTIVITY 4
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
“With more than 5 million copies in print, this is a glorious American classic everyone should read: It’s life-changing if you read it as a teen, and still stunning when you reread it as an adult. Censorship is at the core of the novel, which is both a literary thriller and a dark meditation on the future of humanity.” —Boston Globe.
Texto tomado de la página oficial de Ray Bradbury, apartado Work. Recuperado en diciembre de 2021.
A. Read an extract from “The Introduction to the 50th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury.
Leé el extracto de “La introducción a la edición de los 50 años de Fahrenheit 451” de Ray Bradbury.
B. Underline words or phrases related to the experience of writing.
Subrayá las palabras o frases relacionadas con la experiencia de escritura
March 12, 2003.
What is there new to be said about Fahrenheit 451?
I have written three or four introductions in the past thirty years trying to explain where the novel came from and how it finally arrived.
(...) The novel was a surprise then and is still a surprise to me.
I’ve always written at the top of my lungs and from some secret motives within. I have followed the advice of my good friend Federico Fellini who, when asked about his work, said, ´Don’t tell me what I’m doing, I don’t want to know.´
The grand thing is to plunge ahead and see what your passion can reveal.
(...) So here, after fifty years, is Fahrenheit 451. I didn't know what I was doing, but I’m glad that it was done.
Bradbury, R. (2013) “Introduction” en Fahrenheit 451. Harper Collins Voyager.
Wordpool:
top of my lungs very loud.
plunge to jump or dive with energy.
C. Choose the correct answer a, b or c. Exercise 1 is done as an example.
Elegí la respuesta correcta a, b o c. El ejercicio 1 está hecho como ejemplo.
1. How many introductions has the author written for his novel?
- 1
- 3 or 4 ✔️
- 1 or 3
2. The novel was…
- a surprise.
- a nightmare.
- joy.
3. The writer has written the novel...
- with surprise.
- without passion and out of breath.
- with real passion and from secret motives.
4. The book was edited after…
- 30 years.
- 50 years.
- 10 years.
✍ ACTIVITY 5
FAHRENHEIT 451: the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns.
Bradbury, R. (2013) “Introductory pages” en Fahrenheit 451. Harper Collins Voyager.
A. Match. Look at the pictures and match to the correct word.
Unir. Mirá las imágenes y uní cada una con la palabra correcta.**
| FLAME – HEARTH – SPARKS – FIREBALL – BONFIRE - FLARE |
B. Look at this image and circle the words that better describe fire.
Mirá la imagen y hacé un círculo a las palabras que mejor describan el fuego.
Imagen de Elena Penkova tomada de Flickr a través de Creative Commons.
| DARK – ORANGE – CALM – FURIOUS – DANGEROUS – PEACEFUL – EVIL – HOT –COLD – WARM – LUMINOUS – INCANDESCENT – DEVOURING – CHARRING – CARBONIZE – SPARKLING |
Toolkit
We will concentrate on words that describe things.
For example:
Fire was incandescent, warm and devouring.
The words incandescent, warm and devouring are describing fire. Notice how they are placed after the word they describe and after the verb to be.
✍ ACTIVITY 6
BRAINSTORMING
Think. Can you describe fire positively? And negatively?
Pensá. ¿Podés describir el fuego positivamente? ¿Negativamente?
A. Complete. Describe FIRE positively and negatively.
Completar. Describí el FUEGO positivamente y negativamente.
*You can reuse vocabulary from 5. B.
*Podés reutilizar el vocabulario de la actividad 5. B.
| POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS | NEGATIVE CHARACTERISTICS | NEUTRAL CHARACTERISTICS |
|
|
Deslizar en sentido lateral para ver todo el contenido.
B. Read the beginning of the novel Fahrenheit 451.
Leé el comienzo de la novela Fahrenheit 451.
PART ONE
The Hearth and the Salamander
It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.
Bradbury, R. (2013) “Part one” en Fahrenheit 451. Harper Collins Voyager.
C. Writing Contest. Write to continue the author's idea about fire. Use the vocabulary from ACTIVITY 5 A; 5 B or ACTIVITY 6 A.
Concurso de escritura. Escribí un párrafo para continuar la idea del autor acerca del fuego. Usá el vocabulario de la ACTIVIDAD 5 A; 5 B o la ACTIVIDAD 6 A.
D. Add an image, photograph or a drawing of your own to represent your writing.
Agregá una imagen, fotografía o dibujo propio que represente tu escritura.
E. Record your reading aloud in a voice recording or video.
Grabá tu lectura en voz alta en un audio o en video.
F. Share your production with your teacher and classmates.
Compartí con tu profesora o profesor, y compañeras y compañeros de clase.
Example
Archivo DGCyE.
Fire.
Archivo DGCyE.
Now, over to you. Use the following as guidance.
Ahora, tu turno. Usa esta guía.
Archivo DGCyE.
** 1. Imagen de comedy_nose tomada de Flickr.
2. Imagen de Tim Ereneta tomada de Flickr.
3. Imagen de Ward’s Works tomada de Flickr.
4. Imagen de Kasey Johnson tomada de Flickr.
5. Imagen de fishfish_01 tomada de Flickr.
6. Imagen de David Doherty tomada de Flickr.
Imagen de portada: Pixabay.