4. The book makes us
See the world
with the eyes of a
musician (composer)
who
sees the world
as an interplay of
Music + Arts (painting,
sculpture, acting) +
Religion
“Music hurts us in an
allowable, almost
palatable
way….But nothing
works so well as
real life. It has no
competitors
whatsoever.”
(pp.110-111)
Problem
5. Ways to provoke interest
Talking about the Writer
Reading online Interviews with writers.
Watching online interviews with writers.
(YouTube)
What facts from his life are interesting and
astonishing for you?
doing quizes, presentations
6. Reading tasks
• Facts understanding:
the backgrounds should be understandable
for the Russian students
• Finding out things about a different
culture:
the peculiar way of reflecting reality as
different from the Russian one
• Living the character’s life:
the tasks should involve every student into
discussion.
Requirements
7. Narrative openings
• Dramatic reading of the
Opening Part of the
Chapter.
• Why does the author start
the story like this?
• What do you think will
follow?
8.
9. “She woke, not howling, but with a noise in her throat trying to be
howling.”
[Maclaverty, B., p. 28]
“The crunch of feet on the gravel of the church driveway stopped when
they reached the door and the coffin was set down on trestles in the
porch. The sound of the tolling bell was strange. Scratchy almost.
Thin.” [Maclaverty, B., p. 56]
“Day crow. Taglied. Morning song. A rooster making a racket from the
Muirs’ place. In Kiev, Olga had a different name for the sound. Ko-ko-
reek-o. A homophone of sorts. Certainly more accurate than the
English cock-a-doodle-dоо. (Dave was gone).” [Maclaverty, B., p. 141]
11. • Part 1 Listen to Beethoven Opus III (p.41),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2OHmszHs4
• Part 5 (the rhythm of urgency)
Stravinsky Rite of Spring. Scenes of Pagan Russia.
Mussorgsky The Great gate of Kiev
• Part 7 Mahler, Kathleen Ferrier Kindertotenlieder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMsXvuz3Voc
• Erik Satie Vexation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQUFbdZdN5o&list=RDdBhjGId
• Part 5, 9 Shostakovitch Seven (Babi Yar symphony)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FKQUTxDtWg
12. Making the character’s “aural atlas”
1 page = 1 Part
• What sounds prevail in
the character’s aural
environment? Why?
• Make a list of this “aural
atlas” (p.36) to prove
your ideas.
Write at home on pieces
of paper the sound
words
Colour the paper,
choosing the colours:
positive-negative
14. Talking about the character:
1. facts
• Are these facts and
people mentioned in
Part … real or
imaginary? What is
the role of their
names in the story?
He looked Liam
Neesonish.
• Liam Neeson
15. Talking about the character:
2. music and other arts
• Find and comment on the author’s
comparisons btw music / architecture /
sculpture / painting .
What does it tell us about the character?
16. If, as one of her tutors had once said, architecture was frozen music
then she dreaded to think what kind of music this was. (part 3)
17. Messiaen – he’s supposed to see sound as colour and I
wondered – what if the reversed happened. People talk
about loud colours – you’d come away from a Matisse
exhibition deafened.” (part 4)
http://www.lunanova.org/podcasts/MerleNoir.mp3
18. His fingers were square, like chisels, as they moved on the
keys. This music was of the highest order, of Bach-like
proportions - architectural, controlled – but it also cut at
heart. (part 8)
19. Cross-cultural issues:
universal and unique
• Try to find in the text
examples of the way the
writer depicts reality:
things common to the
Russian and English
cultures (what we do, how
we do smth) and the way
they are expressed; and
things unique for the
English culture.
20. The students’ reaction:
“yes, we do it too, this very way but…
well…how to say it in Russian?!”
Work form: presentation, example-picture-
words
22. Do you do it?
What’s the Russian for these
phrases?
• p. 3 In the bus she chose a place towards
the back and put her knees up against the
seat in front of her.
Gesture it
23. p.5
• She took one of her red and grey capsules
and washed it down, gulp-swallowing
water…
24. p.7
• The fat one had a tanned face which
stopped at his hat line.
25. p.8
• She tried to keep time with her toes inside
her shoes.
26. p.16
• Her mother began to wipe the butter off
her hands with her apron.
27. p.17
• Another of the women, Mrs Steel, was
baking. She had taken a baking tray from
the table and had eased fluted paper buns
from the hollows with a knife.
28. p.18
• I was always washing the sugar out of the
bottom of your cup.
29. p.22
• When it did she wiped away the tears from
her face with her right sleeve, the her left.
30. p.26
• What was she like? Something dragged
through a hedge backward was a phrase
her mother liked to use.
31. p.26
• The older woman kept swallowing –
keeping her tears back.
32. Students’ tasks
At home:
Find a (1, 2, 3…) description of the ways we think,
act, feel, speak, etc common for the Russian
and the Irish cultures. Find a picture which
demonstrates it. Or gesture it.
In class:
the student shows the picture / gestures it and
says the page Numb. The other students try to
find this E.g. in the text.
33. Writing on the Blog
http://englishreadingclass3.blogspot.ru/2013/09/reading
developing
English writing skills
Critical thinking skills
Part 4, pp. 83-114
(up to “If her mother wanted…”)
Evaluation. Comment on Miss Bingham’s
statement: “You are not the only one. I am
where you have been.” What does she imply?
Do you agree with it?
