Mrs. Mc Williams: My name is Evangeline. I am afraid of all kinds of things, especially loud noises and lightning.
Neighbour: I live next door to the Mc Williamses, I often visit them. To tell you the truth, they are funny people and they often make me laugh. Glad to meet you.
Tom Sawyer: I am the main character in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” My name is Tom and I hope that you like to read about my adventures. I live with my Aunt Polly, my sister Mary and my brother Sid. I am very fond of Aunt Polly. Here are my best friends – Huck Finn, Joe Harper and Becky Thatcher. The man on the right is our teacher. None of us likes him. He is not just, he beats children, he shouts at us and often punishes us.
Huck: My name is Huck Finn. These two white men with guns, Negro Jim and me are in another book. It is about my adventures. Come on, Jim . Don’t be afraid. We have come to the country where all the people are free and these two bad men with guns can do you no harm.
1st Compare: It is time now to begin speaking about the author who wrote the books in which these characters appear.
2nd Compare: Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in 1835. He died in 1919. This great American writer was the son of a small-town lawyer in the state of Missouri. Samuel spent his boyhood in the small town of Hanibal on the great Mississippi River. There, he went to school and had many friends. He was a bright, lively boy. He could easily swim across the Mississippi and was the leader in all the boys games.
3rd Compare: In 1847, when Samuel was eleven his father died and the boy had to leave school and look for work. For ten years he worked as a printer. All his life Samuel was very fond of reading. While he was a printer he spent his spare time in libraries. It was also while he was a printer that Samuel began to write for newspapers and other publications, sending travel letters to them as he journeyed about the country from job to job. In 1857 he found a job on a boat and travelled up and down the Mississippi, this is where he got his pen-name” Mark Twain” (mark two). It was taken from the call of the Mississippi pilots when they measured the depth of the river. Clemens worked as a pilot for more then four years.
4th Compare: Later the young man went to Nevada where about this time silver had been discovered. He worked as a miner for some time in Nevada. He suffered great hardships but found no silver and left the mining camps as poor as he had came to them. It was here that he began to write short stories and send them to newspapers. The publisher of the paper liked them and he was invited to work as a journalist. The writer’s pen-name appeared in print for the first time in 1863. Samuel started his literary activity as humorist. His humorous stories about the life of the common people of America soon become very popular.
5th Compare: In 1876 Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” was published. As Mark Twain said lately, many of the events described in this book really took place , and the characters came from real life. Tom Sawyer was very often the portrait of the writer himself, Huckleberry Finn was his friend. Aunt Polly was his mother; Tom’s brother Sid was like his own brother.
Now we shall see several scenes from this famous book acted by pupils of our school.
l. The pupils act several scenes from the book “ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
6-th Compare: I enjoyed the play and you? Now let’s listen to the American cowboy song “Home on the Range”.
Home on the range.
1. Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam.
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
Chorus:
Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
2. Where the air is so pure and the zephyrs so free,
And the breeze is so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my home on the range
For all the city so bright.
Chorus.
3. How often at night, when the heavens are bright
With the light from the glittering stars,
Have I stood there amazed, and asked as I gazed,
If their glory exceeds that of ours.
Chorus.
7-th Compare: I hope you liked that American song. Now let’s go on with Mark Twain’s biography.
As you know “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” was published in 1876 . “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in 1884. These two novels are now known to children and grown ups all over the world. The writer showes the boys and girls of his time with great sympathy and understanding. Readers often see themselves in these characters for boys and girls of all times have something in common.
In the book “The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn” Mark Twain protested against slavery and one of the main characters is a Negro Jim who is honest, brave and kind. He is described with much sympathy and is a general favourite with all who read the novel.
Now you will see a scene from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
2. The students act one scene from the book “ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .”
8-th Compare: We’ve, shown you only one scene from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. It is really a wonderful book and I recommend you to read it. You’ll certainly enjoy it. We’ve told you that Mark Twain wrote humorous stories about the lives of common people . Here is one of his stories.
3. The students act the play “Mrs. Mc Williams and the Lightning”.
6-th Compare: Well, how did you like it ? The actors performed it well, didn’t they?
Many years have passed since the death of Mark Twain. Yet even now some Americans feel the biting satire in some of his works, and try to represent him as a humorist, and nothing more.
But Mark Twain was not only a fine humorist. He was also a realist, and the author of a number of biting satires which
revealed a good deal of truth about the America of his day.
And it still remains the truth today.
Now let’s see all your costumes and sing “Cindy”.
Cindy
(American Folk Song)
1. You ought to see my Cindy,
She lives way down south;
She’s so sweet, the honey bees
Swarm around her month.
Chorus:
Get along home , Cindy, Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy,
I’ll marry you some day.
2. The first I seen my Cindy
She was standing in the door,
Her shoes and stockings in her hand ,
Her feet all over the floor.
Chorus.
3. I wish I was an apple ,
hanging on a tree,
Every time that Cindy passed
She’d take a bite of me.
Chorus.
Висновки.
У контексті програми національної освіти, підгрунтя якої складають гуманістичні цінності поколінь, світова художня культура виступає засобом виховання людини ХХІ століття, з новим мисленням, новим поглядом на життя. Такий курс, допомагаючи старшокласникам вступати до процесу художнього спілкування з іншими культурами, сприяє усвідомленню абсолютної унікальності національної культури, збагачує національними скарбами моральних та естетичних ідеалів.
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