English Reading Assignement

English: Reading Assignement

This is a reading assignement I had to make for english class, since I tought it was pretty good, I decided to share it on this blog

Chistmas eve – John Moat

To be honest, I had no clue on how to go search for a poem. But then I read the extra assignement, and I tought, let's look for a poem that I can easily link to a song I feel good with. So I went searching for some stuff, and I found this poem about christmas. When I read the poem, I think about a lonely man sitting is his hut at chistmas eve. Listening to to the blackbird, carolling. For some reason, I get the feeling that the man is a bit down/depressive, but that when he hears the blackbird, who is just carolling and not worrying about anything, get's happy again. I like that this poem is really unclear, there's not a real clear meaning. You have to find out what it means  yourself. Even better, you have to find out what it means to you personally. You can see something in it that another person won't see. That's what I like about poems like these.

There is one kind of rhyme in this poem.  In verse 6 and 7 we can see an end rhyme.  In verse 4 we can see an alliteration : "Surety of Spring". You also have an alliteration in verse 6: "forgetful on the fields".  There is also clearly Literary consonance. In the whole poem you can spot the letter  "r" more as 35 times.

I made this picture in a photo-editing program. I searched for some nice pictures on google. The christmas background with the package, the christmas tree and the nice text really fit the normal christmas feeling. When you get lots of presents and have a ncie shiny tree. But then I aslo added the picture of the deserted, lonely hut in the snow and added the blackbird to it.This resembles the poem. The lonely hut of the man in the woods and the carolling blackbird. Like I said, in this kind of poem everyone has to find  his own meaning. So, even tough I am not a drawer nor an artist, I tought having my own picture to resemble a poem like this, was important.

I said I started searching for poems to link a song to, so I did. For me, a song that is calm, slow and written in a minor key will fit perfectly. It will also need warm sounding instruments. And ofcourse it has to have a christmas feeling to it. Luckily I made myself a christmas song last christmas. So the song that I will link to this is my own christmas song. You can find it here : https://soundcloud.com/funkywim/christmas-song

Beware of the dog - Roald Dahl (download)

Activity A : Write a different ending to the story

I chose this activity because I like to write myself. I also don't think the ending is bad, but since this story has an open ending it seems a pretty good idea just to write an ending to the story. This means I won't be adjusting the story, I will just add an ending

Here goes:

The man in the chair said : "Well, let's get this stuff over. I'm afraid you'll have to answer a few questions so that I can fill in this combat report. Let me see now, first of all, what was your squardron?"

"I can't tell you that." , said the man in the bed.

"How do you mean you cant tell me that? You have te tell me, it's the standard procedure when a pilot gets hit."

"I haven't even seen your identification card.", said the man in the bed.

"Well, here you go", said the man in the chair. And he stood up and gave a card to the man in the bed. At that moment, the man was certain. He was in France, captured by the germans. It was all too obvious, the planes, the countryside, the sign, everything. The air ministry would never sent an ordinary RAF officer. And the uniform was old, they weren't using  those anymore since months. But the identification card made it final. It was definently fake. He had to come up with something good now, the man must believe him.

"I don't feel well, could I go to the badroom first? I'll anwer all your questions afterwards.", he said.

"Sure then", said the man in the chair. "Nurse! Could you bring this man to the toilet please!", he cried.

The nurse came in, put the man in a weelchair, and took him to the badroom. When he was in the badroom, he quickly searched for something to take out the nurse with. There was a metal trashcan. "Perfect!", he tought.

"What's taking you so long?", said the nurse.

"I'm right there" , said the man. He openend the door and knocked out the nurse with the trashcan. As quickly as he could, he put himself in the weerchair again, and raced across the halways. Luckily , the whole place was deserted. He searched, and found, the communication room. He went to the radio and quickly looked for the right transmission. He found the right transmisson and started speaking. "Peter Williamson here, please, can somebody help me!".

"Bristols military airport here, what is your situation", they answered on the other line.

"I ...." . Suddently, a gunshot was fired. The man fell down, but didn't lose his consciousness yet. The nurse walked up to him, and said : "It's a shame you figured it out, we're gonna have to get rid of you now." She shot him again, and everything turned black. On the other side of the radio, you could still here "What was that?!" .But then the nurse shot the radio too. The man tought about everything that happenend. How a litte while ago, he was still thinking that nothing was wrong and he would just land an have a good laugh. Then everything faded...