Cours anglais - Englisharing



Séance 4: On the road (text)

And for the first time in my life, the following afternoon, I went into the west. It was a warm and beautiful day for hitchhiking. To get out of the complexities of Chicago traffic I took a bus to Joliet, Illinois, went by the Joliet pen, stationed myself just outside town and pointed my way. All the way from New York to Joliet by bus, and I had spent more than half my money.

My first ride was a dynamite truck with a red flag, about thirty miles into great green Illinois, the truckdriver pointing out the place where Route 6, which we were on, intersects Route 66 before they both shoot west for incredible distances.

Along about three in the afternoon, after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand, a woman stopped for me in a little coupe. I had a twinge of hard joy as I ran after the car. But she was a middle-aged woman actually the mother of sons of my age, and wanted somebody to help her drive to Iowa. I was all for it. Iowa! Not so far from Denver, and once I got to Denver I could relax. She drove the first few hours, at one point insisted on visiting an old church somewhere, as if we were tourists, and then I took over the wheel and, though I'm not much of a driver, drove clear through the rest of Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, via Rock Island. And here for the first time of my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up. Rock Island – railroad tracks, shacks, small dowtown section; and over the bridge to Davenport, same kind of town, all smelling of sawdust in the warm midwest sun. Here the lady had to go on to her Iowa hometown by another route, and I go out.

The sun was going down. I walked, after a few cold beers, to the edge of town, and it was a long walk. All the men were driving home from work, wearing railroad hats, baseball hats, all kinds of hats, just like after work in any town anywhere. One of them gave me a ride up the hill and left me at a lonely crossroads on the edge of the prairie. It was beautiful there. The only cars that went by were farmer-cars; they gave me suspicious looks, they clanked along. Not a truck. A few cars zipped by. The sun went all the way down and I was standing in the purple darkness. Now I was scared. There weren't even any lights in the Iowa countryside; in a minute nobody would be able to see me. Luckily a man going back to Davenport gave me a lift downtown. But I right where I started from.

- Repérages:

( first reading) Identify the nature of the document, ho can you see it? It's a sort of autobiography as it is the personal pronoun "I" that is used, it's the narrator who is talking.

Tout d'abord "pick out the words in relation to the road". Pick out the people and the time markers.

Now "pick out the words starting with a capital letter", "what sort of words are they?" They are places.

Try to find most of the places in the maps (une des Etats-Unis et une de l'Illinois), ce qui permettra la visualisation par les élèves. Je leur demanderai d'entourer ("circle") en rouge ou en vert pour que cela se voit bien.

What can you conclude about the topic document? The narrator is doing a road trip across the United States, here he is crossing the state of Illinois to go to Iowa. How long in the passage does the journey last? Just one afternoon.

- Relier les informations: relate the different step of the narrator's journey (where he goes, the means of transport, the time of the day). A faire dans un tableau.

|Step |Places |Means of transport |Time of the day |Activity |

|Step 1 |From Chicago to Joliet |He took a bus |At the beginnning of the | |

| | | |afternoon | |

|Step 2 |Route 6 towards the west |Truck | | |

|Step 3 |In a roadstand at the beginning.|A middle-aged woman gave him a |It started along three in the |Eat an apple pie and ice-cream. |

| |They drove through Illinois to |ride in a coupe. |afteroon |They visited an old church. |

| |Davenport in Iowa via Rock | | | |

| |Island, they crossed the | | | |

| |Mississippi River. | | | |

|Step 4 |Up to the hill, in the |A man gave him a ride |The sun was going down |After a few beers |

| |countryside, the prairie | | | |

|Step 5 |Back to Davenport |A man gave him a lift |The sun went all the way down | |

- INTERPRETATION, les sentiments du narrateur: pick out words or expressions which qualify the narrator's feeling during the trip. At some points the narrator is glad to discover new landscapes, to cross mythical roads, and to travel in such conditions, however, when he is left alone in the countryside he starts to be scared.

Focus on the last paragraph, and more precisely comment on the attitude of the farmers.They gave a suspicious look to the narrator, they don't seem to trust him and that is certainly why they don't want to give him a ride.

In some states hitchhiking is forbidden can you say why?

Interprétation personnelle des élèves, je leur laisserai deux minutes pour réfléchir à des arguments puis nous en discuterons pendant 5 minutes maximum, en demandant constamment si les autres ont compris et sont d'accord. Ces éléments pourront servir de conclusion à la dernière trace écrite.

Reflexion sur la langue:

* les prépositions: demander aux élèves de repérer les prépositions dans le texte qui donnent une indication spatial. Envisager de faire des schémas au tableau avant de distribuer la feuille.

* le présent perfect: à donner certainement le vendredi comme exercice à faire, le travail pourra être commencé vendredi en cours si le temps nous le permet. You're the narrator of the story, you decide to tell about your experience to one of your friends. Tell him/her about the different steps, use the tense which is normally used to talk about experiences.

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