A pirate's life for me

Transcription

1 A pirate's life for me Have you ever thought aout eing a pirate? You may have read aout pirates in stories and thought that it would e a great life. Pirates sail all day and never have to go to school. But think again! A pirate's life may not e as much fun as you think. Food is not easy to find at sea. There are no refrigerators onoard so you can forget aout eating fresh food. Meat goes ad after just a few days. Dry food like flour and read has weevils and other nasty creatures crawling inside. Imagine eating a sandwich full of insects or meat served with maggots. Pirates' hammocks are often hung over arrels of stored food. That's the perfect place for rats and mice to live. If you ecome a pirate you could wake up each morning sharing your ed with a few friendly rodents. Going to the toilet is not that easy either! Over the side of the ship is the only place for this. Rough weather makes this really tricky, even for the most experienced sailor. It's not all plain sailing on a pirate ship. Some of the time you will have to do attle with other large, hairy pirates with long swords, huge guns and very loud cannons. This could e extremely dangerous deadly even! So if you are thinking of eing a pirate, maye you should go ack to school and find out a few more facts efore you set sail. Being a pirate might not e as much fun as you think. 1

2 1 The writer thinks eing a pirate would e full of prolems. fun ut dangerous. a great way to live. etter than going to school. This question requires students to integrate information after reading the whole text. Students must interpret the nature of the pirate experience as eing prolematical in order to select the correct response. Students may e misled y A pirate s life may not e as much fun as you think and select fun ut dangerous as a response. This could e due to the use of fun in the response or due to their pre-existing idea that it would e a great life tempered y textual references to the various challenges pirates face. Teaching tip: Challenge students to create questions for their peers ased on a shared text. Share with them the differences etween questions that require the reader to locate and retrieve answers and questions which require the reader to integrate several elements of the text in order to determine a correct answer. 2 The writer says that fresh food on a ship rots quickly. can e easy to find. is used for sandwiches. needs to e stored in a refrigerator. This question requires students to interpret information in the text in order to make an inference. Upon locating the relevant part of the text, students need to interpret the information ( you can forget aout eating fresh food. Meat goes ad after just a few days ) to infer that fresh food will rot. In this question, students enefit from possessing a roader vocaulary. Teaching tip: Have students compile a glossary of common words for a topic eing studied and then uild a personal thesaurus of words they will use instead. 2

3 3 Weevils can e found in flour. meat. fresh fruit. vegetales. This question requires students to locate explicitly stated information in the text, specifically, Dry food like flour and read has weevils. Teaching tip: Re-reading purposefully is an important skill for students to learn and use during tests. Prompt them to re-read sections of a text with a focus on key words or phrases from a question in order to identify significant parts of a text. Engaging in a think aloud can help students to eliminate incorrect responses. 4 The writer uses the words, a few friendly rodents, to show that only a few are good. make you elieve they are good pets. make an awful thing sound not so ad. show you how friendly rats and mice are. This question requires students to interpret the language which has een used y the writer and recognise that the phrase ( a few friendly rodents ) depicting one of the challenges of eing a pirate is used humorously. Students may e misled y a literal interpretation of the phrase and thus select the response show that only a few are good. Teaching tip: Share texts which use humour in various ways, such as irony or sarcasm, as part of a description. Discuss the effect of using humour and how it can seem to e saying the opposite of what it actually intends (as aove). Key: C 3

4 5 Going to the toilet on a ship is easy in good weather. difficult for all pirates. tricky only in ad weather. easy for experience pirates. This question requires students to make an inference ased on the language used to descrie going to the toilet on a pirate ship. Students need to recognise the significance of even for the most experienced sailor. Teaching tip: Encourage students to approach such questions logically, y locating points of information which could e relevant, restating them in order to gauge if they offer the correct answer and eliminating those which are not in accord with the stem. Key: B 6 It s not all plain sailing on a pirate ship In this sentence the words plain sailing means pirate ships are not easy to sail. decorated eautifully. can e dull and oring. need smooth seas to sail. This question requires students to interpret the meaning of It s not all plain sailing.... Students are ale to use their knowledge of vocaulary and idioms in conjunction with contextual clues such as an immediate description of attles and references throughout the text to a pirate s life not eing much fun. Teaching tip: Students can gain a deeper understanding of idioms and commonly used phrases (such as All clear ) y reading a wide range of texts. Encourage them to use terms and phrases typical to different types of characters when role-playing e.g. a policeman, a doctor, an annoyed parent. 4

5 7 This could e extremely dangerous (paragraph 5). The word This is referring to eing a pirate. rough weather. fighting other pirates. putting up the sales. This question requires students to interpret the relevant section of the text correctly. Students need to recognise that This is referring to the suject of the sentence immediately preceding it ( you will have to do attle... ). Students who do not recognise This as a referent may e drawn to the general statement seen in the response eing a pirate. Teaching tip: Provide students with a range of texts which require readers to make connections etween different parts of a text and inferences drawn from a text, for example, through the use of pronoun referents. Key: C 8 The writer gives four facts to support the argument in this text. Briefly state what these are This question requires students to interpret information from the entirety of the text and infer. Students need to recognise that the four middle paragraphs, detailing challenges such as fresh food, sleeping arrangements, going to the toilet and surviving fights, are all facts to support the argument that A pirate s life may not e as much fun as you think. Teaching tip: Encourage students to highlight key details in each paragraph of a text and create suheadings in order to identify key topics. Key: Open ended 5