Heir Conditioning - Moral Values

Adapted from : http://www.scribd.com/doc/39158913/Heir-Conditioning

Moral Values

1. Appreciate Nature
Stanza 2 in the poem conveys a strong message regarding appreciating nature. The poet reminds us that during our grandparents time, they believed what goes around comes around they took care of nature. They believed that everything in nature was created by God. Therefore, if one appreciated and respected God’s gifts to mankind, the returns would be bountiful. However, since the dawn of modern inventions, lifestyles and priorities have changed. As the poet points out, µnow nature fears you and money is your God. This shows that the present generation does not care and appreciate nature. In fact, they have become more materialistic and believe that money and riches are more important. In turn, nature has suffered due to their lackadaisical (unconcerned/ laid back) attitude. Today, the destruction of forest, streams and hills have shaken the balance in living cycles. As a result, we are faced with problems such as pollution, stress, and traffic jams.

2. Respect and Love
Through the question and answer session, we know that there is mutual respect and love in this family. The grandparents show patience to their grandchild by answering his questions. At the same time they also make attempts to educate and warn him of the dangers of modern inventions to the environment and about having good values and lifestyle.

3. Believe in God
The poet reminds us that today’s younger generation is too preoccupied with making money and maintaining a certain standard of lifestyle and status. They tend to be extravagant. Such emphasis on material things has made them forget God. Thus, they do not fear God. Their need to believe in God is slowly waning (fading/weakening) as other objects and material things become more important.

Heir Conditioning – by M. Shanmughalingam

Adapted from : http://www.scribd.com/doc/39158913/Heir-Conditioning

Summary

The poem talks about the differences on the ways of living of two different generations. The poet uses an interesting way of a question and answer session between a grandchild and his/her grandparents. The child questions his/her grandparents on how they could live without all the necessities they today’s generation could not live without such as air cons, fans, faxes and telephones. The grandparents replay one after another that even though the necessities were not yet invented to comfort them, they could live in comfort as their life were free from pollution, stress, traffic jams, destruction of forests, streams and hills. They warn their child that there is a price to pay when they do not fear God and appreciate nature. They have made money as their God and nature fears them because of the rapid pace of development and the destruction of the beautiful environment.

Theme

1. Technology Brings More Harm
It may seem that we are living in comfort with all the technology that keeps on improving, but we do not realize the harms that the technology has brought us. The grandchild thinks that it is impossible for their grandparents to live in comfort with the help of technology. The child does not realize that because of the technology itself, the world becomes hotter and that is the reason why some technologies are created to blind humans with the fake comfort that the technologies bring them. For example, electric fans and air cons. Technological advancements have other setbacks such us pollution, stress, traffic jams, and destruction of forests, rivers and hills.

2. Fear
The older generations were God-fearing people and respected His creation nature. However, today’s generation does not fear God. On the contrary the poet says that “now nature fears you and money is your new God”. This indicates that the younger generation has become more materialistic. They do not care for nature but gives priority to riches and money rather than practicing good values such as preserving God’s creation.

3. Importance of Preserving Nature
God created nature to preserve life. In stanza 2, the poet gives the consequences of not preserving nature -pollution, stress, traffic jams, destruction of forest, streams and hills. Humans seem not to aware that the more pollution they make, the more they need to preserve the nature. In paving the way for development, forest and hills have been destroyed and streams have been polluted. This has destroyed the natural habitat of many species of animals and plants which help to retain balance in our ecosystem.

WORD CLASS/PARTS OF SPEECH

NOUN

A Noun is a name: as, pencil, London, Aminah, Lim Cheng Swee, Raju, beauty.

PRONOUN

A Pronoun is a word used for instead of a Noun; it shows the person or thing without actually giving the name of the person or things; as, he, she, it, this.

ADJECTIVE

An Adjective is a word which adds to the meaning of a Noun, that is, it tells something more about the Noun; as, black cat, good boy, beautiful house.

VERB

A Verb is a word which tells us something about a person or thing. It is a "telling-word" or a "saying word". It tells us what a person or thing does. It also tells us what a person or thing is or suffers (i.e. has done to it) ; as, Milon writes. Dogs bark. Rahim is good. The cat is loved by the girl. The Verb is the most important word in a Sentence.

ADVERB

An Adverb is a word which adds something to the meaning of a Verb, an Adjective or another Adverb; as,

He speaks loudly (speaks=Verb. Speaks how?)

She is very good (good=Adjective. How good?)

He talks too loudly (loudly=Adverb. How loudly?)

PREPOSITION

A Preposition is a word which joins Nouns and Pronouns to other words; as, The book is on the table. He is in the room. The cat is under the table.

CONJUNCTION

A Conjunction is a word used to join words or groups of words together; as, Two and two make four. He is bad but you are good.

INTERJECTION

An Interjection is only a cry. It is a sound or a noise a person makes when he is excited, to express some strong feeling. It is not an important Part of Speech: Oh! Hallo! Hurrah!

Summary Writing

What is a summary?
A summary restates the main ideas of an author (without most of the details) in your own words. It is generally about 25% the length of the original.

Why are summaries important?
In the upper class high school courses and certainly in university courses, you often have to write research papers. In these papers you gather information from many sources and include this information in your paper. A few direct quotations are allowed, but generally you are expected to summarize or paraphrase this information in your own words. (You also have to indicate the source of the information.) Summary writing gives you practice in this rather difficult task. Most students also tell me that when they write summaries, their understanding of what they are reading improves. In addition, by the end of the course many of my students say that they feel their writing has improved as well, and I would agree. Finally, as students use new words they have learned in their summary writing, their vocabulary improves as well.

How do I write a summary? (check off each step as you do it)

__1. Preview the article (read the title, subtitle, headings, first paragraph, first sentence of the following paragraphs, and the last paragraph. Get an overall idea of what this article is about. This is when to use your dictionary. Look up unknown words that seem to be important from your preview.

__2. Read the article. Underline (about 20%) as you read.

__3. Go back over the article and make boxes over just the key words/phrases that you underlined. The boxes should remind you of the author’s main idea. (Boxes should equal about 5% of the article). If I give you study questions to help you find the main ideas, answer those in your own words.)

__4. Find the author’s thesis statement and summarize it in your own words. You can use headings or the main text of the article.

__5. Make an informal outline of the article from your “boxes”. Usually, but not always, you should include in your outline one main idea from every paragraph of the article. Emphasize the points the author emphasizes.

__6. Summarize the author’s conclusion (last paragraph) in one sentence.

__7. Begin to write your summary from your outline, without looking at the original article.

__8. Your first sentence should approximately follow this model: “In his article ‘March on Washington’ (Newsweek, April 8, 1991) Osborn Elliot (discusses, states, argues, describes)...” MAKE SURE THAT YOUR FIRST SENTENCE GIVES THE THESIS (i.e., main thrust) OF THE ARTICLE.

__9. At a later point in your summary remind us one more time that you are summarizing another person’s work: e.g. “Mr. Elliot (or ‘the author’) also (states, believes, argues, etc.)...”

__10. If you want to, you may directly quote the author once briefly. Use quotation marks.

__11. Include a response at the end. Mark it “ MY RESPONSE” Here and only here should you include your opinions.

__12. Go back over your summary and check that you have used your own words and not copied! (By all means, use new vocabulary from this article in your summary. Underline these new vocabulary words.)

__13 Now read your summary out loud and make sure that your meaning will be clear to someone who has not read the article.

__14 Now read your summary out loud a second time, and look for mistakes. Especially look for mistakes in: (1) fragments and run-ons, (2) verb tenses, (3) articles, (4) spelling of easy words

__15. Type your summary and use spell-check. For most of the articles we read in this class your summaries should be not less than 200 words nor more than 250 words.

I Wonder by Jennie Kirby - Synopsis

The persona, a child, is wondering about the natural happenings, asking why the grass is green (instead of being other colours) and why the wind is invisible. He or she continues to ponder on how the birds know how to build nests without any instruction and why the trees shed their leaves in autumn. He also wonders where the other part of the moon is (when the moon shows up in the sky in a crescent shape).

He wonders about who makes the stars shine and what makes the lightning flash about. He asks who colours the rainbow and put the clouds high in the sky. His father, however, would not answer the child's arguments. He wonders why the father was unwilling to give him all the answers.

Distribution Of English Literature Elements

This is the distribution of literature elements for Form 1/2 this year...notes will be coming soon!!

Form 1 :
Poem : The River, Mr. Nobody
Short Story : Flipping Fantastic
Novel : Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Form 2 :
Poem : I Wonder, Heir Conditioning
Short Story : One Is One and All Alone
Novel : Rumplestiltskin

Common Errors in English Language

Adapted from TESL MALAYSIA Dot Com

The definition of errors can be very complicated and controversial, hence we will not elaborate on this technical term. Rather, we are more concerned with some usual deviations from the standard use of English, especially by ESL students. In this part, we’re looking at the errors in word usage.

ADVANCE vs. ADVANCED

When you hear about something in advance, you get notice or information ahead of time. Advance also means to move forward or to make progress. Advance can also function as adjective, as in the case of “an advance payment”, which means payment made ahead of time/before hand. When you say something is advanced, it means “complex or sophisticated” and should not be confused with the past tense form of “advance”. Note: We often see advertisements use “Advance Level”, which should be “Advanced Level”.

ALPHABET

A, B and C are called letters of the alphabet, NOT alphabets. Alphabet is a character set that includes letters and is used to write a language.

AWHILE vs. A WHILE

When “awhile” is spelled as a single word, it is an adverb meaning “for a time” (“stay awhile”); but when “while” is the object of a prepositional phrase, like “Lend me your monkey wrench for a while” the “while” must be separated from the “a.” (But if the preposition “for” were lacking in this sentence, “awhile” could be used in this way: “Lend me your monkey wrench awhile.”)

BACKUP vs. BACK UP

To “back up” is an activity; “back up your computer regularly”; “back up the truck to the garden plot and unload the compost.” A “backup” is a thing: “keep your backup copies in a safe place.” Other examples: a traffic backup, sewage backup, backup plan, backup forces.

COMPLEMENT vs. COMPLIMENT

Most of the time the word people intend is “compliment”: nice things said about someone or praise. Complement, on the other hands, means supplement each other or making something complete. e.g. vs. i.e.“e.g.” is the short form for exempli gratia, and means “for example”. “i.e.” is the short form for id est, and means “that is”. Use “e.g.” when you want to give an example (or several examples) of something just mentioned. Use “i.e.” when you wish to explain briefly or to clarify what you just said, or say the same thing in other words.

PRINCIPLE Vs. PRINCIPAL

A principle is a formulation regarded as a basis for thought or action. For example, the principles of liberty. A principal is the person you see in schools, who leads the school administration. As an adjective, “principal” means “foremost, first, primary, main”, as in “the principal reason I am here is …” or “the principal cause of this phenomenon is …”

LOSE Vs. LOOSE

Contrary to normal rules of English, the single ’s’ in loose is pronounced like an ’s’ – as in wearing trousers that are too loose. Lose on the other hand, relates to loss – for example: “I hope we don’t lose this game”. A good way to remember this is that in the word “lose” you have lost the second ‘o’ from loose.

BORED Vs. BORING

Students often use “I was very boring at the party”. It should be “I was very bored at the party”. Adjectives that end with -ed talk about one’s own feelings, whereas adjectives that end with -ing talk about a person, a thing or a situation that causes one’s feelings. Examples: The movie was boring (so I felt bored). My boyfriend has a very annoying habit (so I am annoyed).

IRREGARDLESS Vs. REGARDLESS

Irregardless is an informal term, which is technically incorrect. The suffix “-less” in regardless has already indicated the meaning of “without”. By adding “ir-” as prefix (means “not”), it creates a “double negative”, which shows the opposite meaning instead.