Bob Newhart-Stop It!!

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AMISH

BBC News, 5 February 2011 Last updated at 20:11 GMT

Amish children killed in US storm

The remains of the buggy of an Amish family, which overturned in a creek killing four.

Four Amish children have died in Kentucky, after the horse-drawn buggy they were travelling in overturned in a creek swollen by heavy rain.

The accident happened on Thursday, after a family of nine travelled in the torrential rain to make a call in a "phone shack".

Authorities say the group was crossing a creek when the buggy overturned in the water. The dead were all aged under 12, and included a five-month-old baby. 'Water was swift'

Two adults and three other children and the horse pulling the buggy all survived.

"Whenever they crossed the creek, the water was so swift it just took the buggy and tipped it over," said County Sheriff Dewayn Redmon.

The group was travelling in the rural community of Dublin in western Kentucky, which has a large Amish population.

Teresa Cantrell, the mayor of Mayfield, the closest city, described the area's Amish community as conservative and private.

Most members of the Amish community shun modern technology including electricity and cars, and preach isolation from the modern world.

Study

1) Type of document composition. 2) Picture description and conclusion which you can draw from it.(place, time, way of life) 3) The main facts about the article. Draw a six column chart and sort out the information given. When/ where/ Who/ What/ Why/ information given by the authorities. Then be ready to report to the class. 4) Inference. Try to translate the following words. What elements helped you? Remains, overturn; creek; shun

5) Given the information you gathered, imagine what the life of the Amish is like. 6) In depth. Learn more about the Amish and their lifestyle. Read the next article (page 2) and your book page 128 (the Amish) and pick out as many pieces of information as you can. Write down a paragraph to sum up all you know. 7) Would you like to live in such community, explain why?

Who are the Amish?

Some 200,000 Amish people live in more than 20 US states

On the surface, many Amish look like they stepped out of the rural 19th Century.

The most conservative, Old Order groups of these reclusive, religious people drive horses and buggies rather than cars. Many have no telephones or electricity in their homes.

They send their children to private, one-room schoolhouses until the age of 13.

They eschew technology and preach isolation from the modern world. They do not join the military or accept assistance from the government.

The Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was a model for the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, a thriller which contrasted the violent modern world with their peaceful existence.

The Amish experience many of the same problems as other communities, but keep them private.

Strict regulations

Some 200,000 Amish people live in more than 20 US states and in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The oldest group of Old Order Amish, about 16,000-18,000 people, live in Lancaster County, a rural, farming area where Amish first settled in the 1720s - many fleeing religious persecution in Europe.

The Amish are divided into dozens of separate fellowships, broken down into districts or congregations. Each district is fully independent and lives by its own set of unwritten rules, or Ordnung.

The Old Order are the most conservative of these groups, and observe strict regulations on dress, behaviour, and the use of technology, which they believe encourages humility and separation from the world.

Men and boys wear straw broad-brimmed hats

Old Order Amish women wear modest dresses with long sleeves and a full skirt, a cape and an apron. They never cut their hair, but wear it in a bun on the back of the head.

Men and boys wear dark-coloured suits, straight-cut coats and black or straw broad-brimmed hats. They grow beards only after they marry.

Modern technology is not rejected out of hand. Some farms have telephones and local groups can allow electricity to be used in certain circumstances.

Most Amish are trilingual. They speak a dialect of German called Pennsylvania Dutch at home, use High German at their worship services, and they learn English at school.

In some ways, the Amish are feeling the pressures of the modern world. Commentators say child labour laws, for example, are threatening long-established ways of life.

While many Amish own firearms, used to hunt and kill wild animals, their communities have until now been largely free of violent gun crime.

FACTS ABOUT THE AMISH

- Anabaptist Christian denomination

- Communities in the US and Canada

- Many communities reject links to outside world

- Most Amish shun modern technology including electricity and cars

- Plain clothing - no buttons allowed in some communities

- Speak English and a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch.

Book page 121

Investigating on an Amish Farm

Essayer de faire le travail suivant en autonomie

Si vous avez des difficultés, n'hésitez pas à aller sur ze blog, je vais y mettre des aides pour l'étude

1°Read the title and make a list of the potential characters. Imagine a plot (the story).

2° Read the document once and tell what it is about. (a short summary)

3°Make a list of all the characters and classify them into different groups. (Three groups, a group may be composed of only one character )

4° What do we learn concerning the investigation? Divide your findings into two groups:

- facts (it is certain)

- hypotheses (it needs being looked into)

Is the investigation the real interest of the text ? Explain your answer.

5° What do we learn concerning the investigation. Facts (certainty), hypotheses (that need to be looked into)

6° ZOOM IN

For each character, pick out what he or she says, how he/ she reacts (body movement etc..) and draw conclusions.

Name	What he/ she says	How he/she reacts	Conclusions

7° Bearing in mind (en gardant à l'esprit) what you have done so far, reread the text and pick out as many pieces of information as you can on the Amish life-style (daily activity/ clothes/ way the society is organized/ rôle of each sex). Be ready to present your findings in a short paragraph.

8° Does Lizzie manage to reach a clear-cut conclusions? What are her first impressions?? What are her second thoughts?

TRAVAIL SUR LA LANGUE
9° Exercice 1, 2 et 3 page 122.

YOUR TASK

250 words

Lizzie has eventually found out the truth and she writes her report to her superior who does not know anything about the Amish community. She explains how this society is organized, the difficulties she has met in her investigation, and she tells about her conclusions. Write this report.

10° Allez voir la vidéo ( cliquez sur le mot vidéo si la vidéo ne part pas depuis l'image fixe) Amish Paradis sur 'the blog' (your reaction, why? Type of doc? )

Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise (1996)

http://www.eagertown.blogspot.com/

Je vais faire un article pour finir l'étude de ONE NIGHT STAND et je vais mettre des aides pour le travail que je vous demande dans cette séquence. N'hésitez pas à m'envoyer un commentaire si quelque chose n'est pas clair......

Invisible man

a link to a VOA speacial learning English program on Ralph Ellison

' I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or only figments of their imagination-- indeed, everything and anything expect me.'
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

‘Yessuh’, he said, handing over the yams, ‘I can see you one of these old-fashioned yam eaters’

‘They’re my birthmark’, I said. ‘I yam what I am!’

a few more quotes

Les thématiques
- La notion d'altérité
- Se trouver soi-même, roman d'apprentissage et de la construction de soi
- De Jim Crow au mouvement des droits civiques, une vision de l'Amérique
- Le jazz
- Le mélange de différents genres littéraires: le bildungsroman (roman d'apprentissage), a slave narrative, a picaresque novel (l'exemple le plus connu étant Don Quichotte), le roman gothique....
- Les différents courants de pensée ( existentialim, freudianism, naturalim...)

Sans oublier la satire et l'ironie et bien d'autre encore

Si Ralph Ellison pioche dans le pot commun de la littérature ( avec, entre autre , des parallèles avec The Invisible Man de HG Wells , dont le titre de l'oeuvre est quasi similaire), son livre deviendra aussi source d'inspiration pour beaucoup et notamment The Human Stain de Philip Roth (1990).
Le palimpseste devient à son tour une couche intermédiaire et source d'inspiration pour la littérature américaine.