Generalitat de Catalunya Departamentd’Ensenyament Escoles Oficial d’Idiomes

“” by Bill Bryson

Introduction

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson , OBE , (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before returning to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham , Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of . Bill Bryson, the author of the set of columns collected in “Notes from a big country,” is an American who wrote travel books and newspapered in England for 20 years before returning to New with his wife and family in 1996. This book consists of many chapters, and in each of them the author dwells upon different aspects of life in America. The chapter “So Sue me” is taken from this book. In this chapter the writer reflects on the issue of crime, and mocks at the amount of ridiculous lawsuits with his typical sense of humour In the early seventies, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe – in search of enlightment, beer, and women. Twenty years later he decided to retrace his journey. The result is the affectionate and riotously funny book Neither here nor there . One of the chapters taken from this book describes the Northen lights and is called “Hammerfest”. This text is full of epithets and is rich in descriptive nouns, adjectives and verbs. The main aim, apart from enjoying reading, is to understand descriptive texts, learn the vocabulary selected by the teacher, use it in the context, gives detailed descriptions.

Levels: 4, 5

This text is aimed at levels 4 and 5 and it might be used to expand such topics as travelling, visiting places, nature description and so on. In our particular case it was used to complement the text about the Northern Lights in Unit 9, p.94 (New Inside out advanced).

Materials elaborats pel grup de treball de literature anglesa – Departamentd’Ensenyament /BritishCouncil Hammerfest. Bill Bryson. Natalia Nefedova ( EOI Mollet) Generalitat de Catalunya Departamentd’Ensenyament Escoles Oficial d’Idiomes

Objectives :

Understand descriptive texts, learn the vocabulary selected by the teacher, use it in the context, give detailed descriptions.

Timing:

1hour 15 minutes .

Possible difficulties:

Students might find it difficult to deal with the new vocabulary, but this difficulty may be overcome easily if we provide them with definitions of the new words and pre-teach the new vocabulary.

Materials elaborats pel grup de treball de literature anglesa – Departamentd’Ensenyament /BritishCouncil Hammerfest. Bill Bryson. Natalia Nefedova ( EOI Mollet)