Volunteering

1. What is volunteer work?

2. Describe the following photographs:
-What type of volunteering work are they doing?
-What are you supposed to do do in each situation? (think of as many activities as possible)
-If you were asked to do some volunteering work, which of the following situations would you choose and why?

3. Can you list some reasons why people volunteer? What benefits do people get from volunteering?

4. Would you consider volunteering when you are old enough? Why? Why not?

5. Try to convince your classmates to start some volunteering work.

  

 

The best job in the world

Last year you were selected for the position advertised by Queensland to become an island caretaker at the Great Barrier Reef for a year. You have just come back. Write a magazine report about the experience. (Watch the VIDEO again to remember the information )
Include the following:

The job offer
-Who offered the job.
-Why this job was offered.
-Why you decided to apply for it.
-How many applicants were there, what you were supposed to do there... (some more relevant information about the offer here until you were  selected)
-Your family's and friends' opinion.

Life on the island
-Your arrival.
A short description of the island and your daily routine.
-How you felt as the months went by. (Who/what you missed....)
-A special moment there.
-The day you left (how you felt.....)

Back to normal
-Your feelings back in Spain (how you feel, what you miss, ....)
-How this experience has cahnged you.

Plans
-Plans for the near future (another adventure??)

Walt Whitman and Sylvia Plath

• O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Oh captain, my captain               Oh, captain, my captain

Here you are two different links to the famous poem by Walt Whitman, O, Captain, my Captain, which appears in the film "Dead Poets Society" where the students tribute to their teacher, who taught them think different.

• Poppies in July by Sylvia Plath

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

Poppies in July

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American writer. She was most well known for her poetry, but she also wrote novels, children's books, and short stories. She suffered from bipolar disorder and killed herself in 1963. Poppies in July was written in 1962. Her marriage was in difficulty and she was suffering from a severe depression. Plath starts the poem on  a seemingly possitive, harmless description of the poppies. However, the description changes, giving us an insight into the inner turmoil that plagued her.