DON’T COMPROMISE

Unit 2
Language Literary Response and Expression

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Test type for Reading/Thinking Skills :
Personal Recounts – Autobiographies
• Inferring meaning using contextual clues

Grammar:
Talking about events in the past
• Past perfect tense
• Past perfect continuous tense

Vocabulary :
Proverbs

Text type for writing:

Personal recounts – authogbiographies

Writing:
Writing on autobiography text

Information Literacy:
Spelling 1

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Reading Skill
Before you read …
Do you know where South Africa is? Locate it on a world map.

We are going to read an extract the life story of a famous South Africa leader, Mr. Nelson Mandela. In this extract,
Mr. Mandela writes about his childhood in the countryside. As you read, you will come across several words, that are
unfamiliar to you. You can :
• Ignore the world if the words does not prevent you from understanding the main ideas, or
• Reread the sentence or paragraph to try to infer the meaning of the word from its context.

To infer is to decide what something means based on the information

provided and what you know.

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Reading Skill

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After you read …
Compare Nelson Mandela’s childhood with your childhood., Discuss this with your partner and complete a chart
like the one given below. Use the criteria given below and others that you can think of.
Criteria for comparing and
Nelson Mandela’s childhood My childhood
contrasting
How free time was spent

People with whom free time was

spent

In what ways Nelson Mandela’s childhood similar to or different from yours?

Mr. Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. He fought
for equality in South Africa. His autobiography is entitled long walk to freedom. Log on
to a search engine on the Internet and enter his name to search for more information
about hism. Shre it with your class.

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Grammar
Inferring meaning using contextual clues

In the text we read earlier in the unit, the author, Mr. Nelson Mandela uses severqaal words that
are unfamiliar to most of us. For example:

From an early age, I spent most of the my free time in the veld playing and
fighting with the other boys of the village.

What do you think the world veld means?

Even though we may not know the meaning of the word, we can guess its meaning from the context
in which it appears – “In the veld” suggest that it is a place.

We often come across unfamiliar words and phrases in a text. They may be English words that we
have never come across before or words borrowed from another language. We may not understand
the meaning of such words or phrases immediately.

However, we do not need to know every words in a text to understand the main ideas in the text.
If the word is important to the main idea, the author usually explains its meaning and/or provides
examples of it. Or, as we read on, the context will often contain clues that five us an ideas of what
the unfamiliar words means. So do not stop reading when you come across an unfamiliar words.

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Talking about events in the past

Past Perfect Tesent

Read again about what hapend to Mr. Mandela when he was a young boy.

When my chance come, I jumped on the donkey bolted into a nearby thornbush. It bent
its head, trying to unseat me, which I did but not before the thorns had pricked and
scratched my face, embarrassing me in front of my friends. Like the people of the East
African have a highly developed sense of dignity, or what the Chinese call “face”. I
had lost face among my friends.

Past Pefect Tense

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Mr. Nelson Mandela still remembered the indent after many years because he h ad lost face among his
friends.

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Vocabulary
Proverbs

Young Mandela loved to listen to the stories his mother told him. From these stories, he learnt valuable
lessons. Proverbs, too, teach us valuable lessons. A Provers is a short saying which a commonly used and
which expresses a general truth or gives good advice. Provers are commonly used and area a part of
everyday language.

Here the provers from Africa:

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Sometimes, we may come across unfamiliar proverbs. How can we understand what they mean? One
way is to visualize the literal meaning of the proverbs and apply the same message to different situations.
The illustration above show both the literal meaning of each proverb and how it is used in a different
situation.

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Reading skill
Do you read ….

Here is another autobiography text. In it, the writer tell us about her childhood. As you read,
think about the writers purpose for telling us her life story

I am an Artist
They saying the middle child's never facts she belongs in the family. Well, Growing up
in a family of musicians, I learned that only one thing this matter. If I could sing or
play the guitar, maybe even dance, that would count. I could not do all I know for any
period: this is I am an artist. I just had to find my own kind of art.

Many people try to make art follows rule. They say if it is not one certain way, it is not 5
art. You have to paint. You have to sing opera. You have to play jazz. You have to do
ballet. It is not true. There are many kinds of art as there are people.

I did not know that as a child. It was my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Tully, who changed
my thinking. It started on one of the worst days of my life. 10

On rainy days, I spent all my time cutting up magazines and making clothes for my
paper dolls. One day, I shared my creations with someone I well it was a friend. She
laughed.

The next day at school, everyone knew about my paper clothes. I called it artwork. They
just laughed. As I think back, my recollections of that day hurt. I can still feel hot 15
tears on my cheeks. I tried to hide them but misses Tully noticed. After school, she
called me in.

At first, I was afraid to talk. But missus truly got me to share my feelings. See listened,
wrap up in my words. Then, she asked if i could let her come to my house to see the
paper clothes period happily i invited her period 20

As I opened my box of paper clothes, Mrs. Tully grew silent. She picked up one after
another and examined them. Finally, she spoke. Her words are vivid in my mind.. I
remember each of them period.

“My dear, “ she said. “These are works of art. You have a gift. Don't ever let anyone tell
you differently”. 25

I have lived every day of my life since then knowing I am an artist.

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They say an artist has no choice thing period an artist has to pay attention to what
things look like. I have always been bad add noticing things. I once drew a chicken 30
with four legs exclamation I'd never notice birds have only two. In 6th grade, we had
to draw a cat. I tried to draw one from memory and gave her round ears. Many
laughed and said, they are supposed to be pointed”

“I hope you don't plan to be an artist,” the teacher said. I think she was trying to be
kind but her words hurt. 35

Luckily, I remembered Mrs. Tully’s word that I had a gift. So what if I did not notice
what things look like on the outside? I noticed what they were like inside. Maybe I
could not draw. I would do something else instead. I would show how something felt
how it made you feel, not what it looked like 40

I am an artist now. That is how I make my living. In my art, I love everything played
together, what I do is make books I do not just write them. I make them. I put a piece
of clothes over cardboard for the covers. Then, I make the pages. A book might have
only four pages or it might have twelve.

On one pages, I might use melted crayons, turn cloth and broken bits of toys. On 45
another, I might use charcoal, pressed leaves and bits of bar. Some of my pages are so
thick I have to frame them. Those books are very fat.

I might put a poem right in the middle of a page or on the page facing it. I might
surround the poem with colored ribbon or gum wrappers

These are not the kind of books you buy in a bookstore. People buy them at fairs and 50
art shows. Sometimes they come to my house and buy them

As a child, I thought there were only a few ways to be an artist. I have learned there
are many periods I have learned that I have my own special way of looking at things,
and I have learned to share it. I have even learned that I can sing. I miss a few of the
high notes but not all of them. Anyways, it is enough that I hear my own voice 55

After you read ,,,,

Why do you think the writer wrote her story? What kind of person do you think the writer is?
How can you tell?

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Grammar
Perfect Continuous Tense

Read the sentence below and study the timeline.

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