Personal engagement is an indispensable component of the reading procedure ( Shirley 1973, p. 93 ) . In the context of reading Guthrie ( 2001 ) postulates, “ Battle is strongly related to reading accomplishment. ” It becomes even more of import in the context of the Outer and Expanding Circles of Kachru ( 1985 ) where sometimes pupils are less motivated to read the text of any prescribed text edition ( Khand, 2004 ) . The instance of learning novel is one such illustration. While learning fresh ‘The Old Man and The Sea ‘ , the writer found that pupils were non motivated plenty to read the text of the novel. There are many grounds for this deficiency of motive. The aim is non to discourse the grounds of this deficiency of motive. The intent of this article is to speak about the activities that a instructor of English can follow to increase personal battle of her/his pupils. ‘The Old Man and the Sea ‘ will be treated as a instance survey to lucubrate the proposed activities. Puting a intent of the reading ( P. Ahuja & A ; G. Ahuja, 2007, p. 2 ) , linking to the related scheme ( Anderson et al. in Hudson, 1982 ) , and developing cultural apprehension ( Evans & A ; Gonzalez, 1993 ) can assist develop personal battle.

Students need to hold a specific intent to read the text of the novel. Text can be better comprehended if the information in the text complements the bing repertory of cognition and information of pupils. A instructor can assist pupils visualise the state of affairs given in the text. Students can go more occupied if they are able to understand the civilization of the text under survey.

Puting a intent for the reading

Goodman ( 1986 ) recommends supplying context, pick and intent for reading. Rozmiarek ( 2006 p. 7 ) suggests to do pupils read for amusement, garnering information, organizing sentiment, ‘reflecting ‘ on past experiences and schemes, work outing jobs, and larning new accomplishments etc. In the words of Nuttall ( 1982, p. 75 ) “ Why am I traveling to read this? More specifically, what do I desire to acquire from it? ” For Khand ( 2004, p. 44 ) scholar is the Centre of attending so the scholar should play an active function in the determination devising procedure.

In our instance survey novel The Old Man and the Sea pupils need to be encouraged to believe about the pick of the intent of reading the text even before the start of the reading procedure. Students can be prompted to reply in yes/no format to the activity shown in figure 1. Students are given clip to believe for themselves – the intent of reading. The procedure is aimed at affecting pupils right from the beginning of the reading activity. This prepares the pupils to look for ( skim/scan ) the related information into the text.

Activity 1

Statement: I want to

Yes/No

Read this novel to understand the narrative.

Read to cognize the characters of the novel.

Read to cognize about the people in other parts of the universe live in.

Know about new topographic points.

Know the subject of the narrative.

Be informed.

Know what the writer thinks about life.

Read for pleasance.

Know how it relates to my life.

Figure 1, Adapted from Rozmiarek ( 2006, p. 9 )

Triping and Connecting to Prior Schema

“ In proficient reading, information from the text is stored by linking it to the selected scheme ” and “ linking new information to prior cognition may besides do the reader to spread out or revise the old scheme ” ( Rycik & A ; Irvin, 2004, p. 22 ) . Cook thinks that “ the head, stimulated by keywords or phrases in the text or by the context, activates a cognition scheme, and uses it to do sense of the discourse ” ( 1989, p. 69 ) . The sum and nature of background cognition affects the reading procedure, if the background cognition: which is straight related, is sufficient to understand the purpose of the author so the comprehension of the text becomes easy ( Alderson, 2000, p. 33 ) . It is the country of shared premises between the author and the reader, the bigger the country the better the apprehension ( Nuttall, 1996, p. 7 ) . Students who can associate new cognition to their old experiences become more occupied in the reading procedure ( Guthrie, 2001 ) .

“ The Old Man and the Sea ” is about the life of a fisherman with which a huge bulk of the pupils might non be familiar except for those who live in the coastal parts or whose lives are straight or indirectly related to fishing. A instructor can get the better of such jobs by utilizing some images printed from different web sites given in Appendix 1, titled “ Websites that instructors can utilize to learn The Old Man and the Sea. ” Such images can assist pupils actively prosecute into expecting the narrative and visualizing the scenes. In the position of the writer such images might be helpful for pupils with Visual/Spatial Intelligence to go actively engaged with the text.

Pictures taken from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.awn.com/oscars00/oldman.php3

Activity 2 ( Double entry diary )

Having shown the images and doing expectancies formation about the narrative of the novel, pupils can be motivated to portion their personal experiences and cognition about the subject. Groups of pupils should be encouraged to write down their personal experiences and cognition on the right side of the given diary and so compose down any related information they find while reading on the left side of the diary, as illustrated in the undermentioned figure 2:

Text information

Reader ‘s response

( based on experiences and cognition )

The conditions under which the old adult male lives.

The old adult male catches a large fish seafaring in his skiff.

Fishermans are hapless.

Large fish are caught utilizing angling trawlers.

Figure 2, Adapted from Rozmiarek ( 2006, p. 24 )

This activity lets pupils happen similarities and differences between their personal background information and the facts in the novel. This manner they might reshape and change their inventive visuals harmonizing to the narrative of the novel.

Activity 3 ( Predicting and corroborating )

Reading is a guessing game during which a reader makes probationary determinations to be confirmed, rejected or refined ( Goodman, 1967 ) . Harmonizing to Dechant reading is a uninterrupted procedure of foretelling ( 1991, pp. 211 ) . “ Readers who develop foretelling schemes, who make on-going anticipations and readings of text, who learn to speculate, to corroborate or reject and to alter hypotheses, tend to go good comprehenders ” ( Ringler & A ; Weber, 1984 cited in Dechant 1991, pp. 211 ) . This activity is discussed here as a portion of linking to prior scheme because it is besides helpful in making so. This activity can besides be used for pulling decisions. The advantages of this activity harmonizing to Davies are that, on the footing of their background cognition: pupils are involved in the coevals of a hypothesis and its testing, “ and secondly, the checking of these anticipations against a scope of beginnings of information, including other readers ” ( 1995, pp. 160-1 ) . Davies has suggested that pupils should be handed over a selected infusion of the narrative. Students start reading the text and after reading the text they explore the text to happen out replies to inquiries such as:

When and where does the narrative take topographic point?

Who are the chief characters?

What are they like, and how do you come to cognize this?

What are the ends of the chief characters, and how do you cognize them?

How will these ends be achieved?

What sort of declaration do you foretell?

Nature of anticipations and their verification is a subjective affair and it varies from individual to individual, due to the differences in their background cognition. Thus this activity is used here to develop a personal battle with the text.

Activity 4

Like the old activity, this activity besides relates to linking to prior scheme, tracing, and construing rhetorical administration. The ground for the pick of this activity at this phase is that it is an advanced degree activity and it can be used on three different phases of reading i.e. pre, during, and after reading. A three-column worksheet, holding columns for, before reading anticipations, during reading verifications, and after reading reaction statements, is developed ( Rozmiarek, 2006, p. 26 ) . Rozmiarek suggests that the instructor theoretical accounts the activity and so pupils follow. This activity can be done in braces, groups or even on single footing. The activity worksheet will look like:

Subject: “ The Old Man and the Sea ” .

Before Reading Predictions

During Reading Yes/No

After Reading Reaction Statement

The old adult male is non luckless?

Yes the information about his yesteryear reveals that he was non luckless.

The old adult male successfully catching a large fish means that he was non luckless.

Figure 4.3, Adapted from Rozmiarek ( 2006, p. 26 )

This activity will do pupils cognizant of their ain mental procedures and they will be able to interact with the text. Students maintain developing and altering their initial anticipations based on the regular feedback they get from the text, during and after reading.

Visualizing

This is an effectual tool for linking texts to their anterior cognition ( Rozmiarek ( 2006, p. 27 ) . Rozmiarek suggests that pupils should be asked to pull images about their anterior cognition and compare them with words, headers, subheadings, graphs, diagrams, and illustrations. Protherough ( 1986, pp. 101-4 ) thinks that pupils can utilize images and fit them with the text or they can make their ain visuals. At the terminal of the activity, pupils should explicate to a spouse how the image corresponds to the state of affairs in the novel, if it does non, how it is different ( Rozmiarek, 2006, p. 27 ) .

Activity 5 ( Visualizing the state of affairs )

This activity divides the pupils into groups to discourse their anterior cognition or what images they create in their heads about the subject of the novel. They can be allowed to briefly preview the text of the novel. They should discourse what they will be reading in the novel. Each group draws visuals, and in the terminal visuals created by all the groups are discussed in the category. Such visuals can be made for all the major parts of the novel. For illustration the old adult male with the male child, the old adult male in the deep sea, the old adult male fighting with the marlin, the old adult male coming back and being attacked by sharks, the skiff with the carcase of the fish.

Performing this pupil centred activity, as Collie & A ; Slater ( 1987, p. 6 ) suggests, pupils can set up a originative relationship with the text. Such activities are merely pre-reading activities and are used to give pupils a gustatory sensation of what is to follow and to rouse the spirit of probe and develop wonder. In the words of Protherough ( 1983, p. 184 ) “ The map of pre-reading activities is basically to act upon students ‘ reactions to the reading so that they will be more sympathetic, watchful and informed. ” These activities besides serve for brainstorming pupils ( Rozmiarek, 2006, p. 29 ) , and aid in visualizing textual information.

Activity 6 ( Analyzing sensory inside informations )

Sensory inside informations involve images of colorss, hearing, gustatory sensation, touch, and odor. In the words of Rozmiarek “ adept readers create mental images ” ( 2006, p. 59 ) . Collie & A ; Slater ( 1987, p. 101 ) have presented a star shaped diagram with five corners. Each corner is reserved for one specific type of sensory inside informations ( plot given in appendix 6, the diagram is used to learn the novel The Lord of the Fliess by William Golding. It can be easy adapted ) . The thought is to split pupils into five groups. Each group receives a chart with the star diagram. There are 128 pages in the original text and there are five groups of pupils. In order to cover the whole text the distribution of pages per group will be 25, 25, 26, 26, and 26. Each group is required to plane through the assigned pages and extract look that express the centripetal elements and compose them on the chart in the related corner.

Collie & A ; Slater ( 1987, P. 8 ) maintain that such pupil centred activities are helpful with “ pupils who are non literature specializers and who may non yet have developed a wish to read literature in their mark linguistic communication on their ain enterprise. ”

Developing cultural apprehension

“ Language significance is obscured without some acknowledgment of cultural values ” ( Valdes, 1986, p. 3 ) . A individual ‘s feelings of the universe are influenced by the environment and the society in which s/he lives ( Alderson, 2000, p. 45 ) . Teaching the civilization of the mark linguistic communication helps develop “ attitudes of openness and tolerance towards other peoples and civilizations ” ( Dirba, 2007, cited in Gura, 2009, p. 70 ) , accordingly, civilization larning positively influences pupils ‘ linguistic communication accomplishments ( Genc & A ; Bada, 2005, cited in Gura, 2009, p. 70 ) .

In the instance of The Old Man and the Sea it is of import to learn the Caribbean civilization because the novel has been set in Cuba ( Valenti, 2002, p. 165 ) . In the words of Valenti “ Santiago can non be to the full understood apart from his linguistic communication, his faith, and those elements of his life that reflect the racial influences and national beginnings of the state in which he lives. ” The people of Cuba adopted the American game of baseball to separate “ themselves from the civilization imposed by Spain and manifested in the athletics of bullfighting ” ( 2002, p. 83, p. 124 ) . Valenti adds that in his book American Big Game Fishing, published in 1935, Hemingway gives a elaborate history of marlin: bluish marlin is a ‘voracious feeder ‘ while black marlin is stupid though really powerful ( ibid. , p.27 ) . Hemingway “ caught his first large fish in Cuban Waterss during the summer of 1933 ( ibid. , P. 55 ) . ”

Khand ( 2004, P. 45 ) cultural apprehension is of import for successful instruction. The fright of the people that their ain civilization might be threatened by the foreign civilization, keeps the pupils from understanding the foreign civilization, therefore hindering knowledge and comprehension ( Mansoor, 2002 ) . In order to allow their pupils derive cultural information instructors can entree the web sites provided in Appendix 1 and publish all the relevant information to be given to their pupils. Critical reappraisals and essays can be the best assistance to developing such apprehension. The treatment of reappraisals and essays is beyond the bounds of this research. Therefore, merely one such reappraisal is presented in Appendix 2 for the interest of illustration.

One of the techniques, instructors can follow is the comparing technique. It is an established fact that pupils find comparative attacks more comprehendible and to such attacks, they respond more expeditiously ( Protherough, 1986, p. 131 ) . A comparing of the life of fishermen in the Caribbean as found in The Old Man and the Sea can be compared with life of fishermen in pupils ‘ ain state or the state they might be familiar with.

Activity 7 ( Cross cultural life manner and attitudes )

The aim of the activity is to broaden the position of pupils towards understanding universe civilizations and particularly Western civilization, guaranting them that their ain civilization and societal values will non be affected by merely doing comparative surveies.

Wallace ( 1992, p. 108 ) suggests comparing life manners and attitudes of people. In this activity, instructors make their pupils undertake a comparative survey of life of fishermen in Cuba and their ain state or the state they might hold known. They draw similarities and differences between lives of fishermen in both the states. It can affect a comparing between the games of baseball and the favorite game in their ain state. Students can discourse similarities and differences in the play-field and the equipment. Enthusiasm of the multitudes towards these games, societal and political deductions of these games. Cultural, political, economic, private, and public life of fishermen can be discussed. Groups of pupils besides discuss why the characters ( the old adult male, the male child and others ) acted in the specific manner, and how fishermen in Pakistan would hold behaved in such state of affairss. Cultural specific texts pose jobs for 2nd linguistic communication scholars and a cross-cultural comparing helps ( Wallace, 1992, pp. 107-8 ) .

Activity 8 ( Comparing narrations )

Protherough ( 1986, p. 104 ) asserts that narrations of the same subject can be discussed. For illustration, there is an Urdu short narrative The Tale of the Old Fisherman written by Abdullah Hussein ( Memon, 1991, p. 197 cited in Patel, 1993 ) . Though this narrative is straight related to political issues in India but it is embedded in the adversities of a fisherman ‘s life ( Patel, 1993 ) . Both the narrations are compared to happen out similarities and differences between the several civilizations of the two. The life, nutrient, wonts, and avocations of the states, in which these narrations are set, are discussed. Students create a dual entry diary left side is for the cultural inside informations from the novel of Hemingway and right side is reserved for Abdullah Hussein ‘s narrative.

Analysis activities “ can strike a healthy balance between the necessity of learning the mark civilization and formalizing the pupils ‘ native civilization, which bit by bit sharpens pupils ‘ civilization consciousness. ” ( Shumin, 2002, p. 210 )

Summary of the Chapter

There are certain schemes that university instructors can follow so that their pupils are motivated adequate to read the novel The Old Man and the Sea successfully. Personal battle of pupils is an of import factor, and the given schemes aim at its development. The activities demonstrated that personal battle can be achieved if pupils are given some existent nonsubjective to read through the text. Rozmiarek suggests that instructors should allow pupils cognize that they are reading to happen a solution of some job, form personal position about the subject, gather information, reflect on past experiences, or larn new accomplishments etc ( 2006, p. 7 ) . Dreher thinks that such active engagement besides improves motive degree ( 2000, p. 82 ) . It is apparent that activities such as activity 1 ( pupils and instructors, together find the intent of reading ) can be used to put the intent of reading for the pupils, lending towards the development of personal battle.

Activation of the scheme is of import, the writer thinks, if pupils are able to remember their anterior cognition about fishing and the lives of fishermen, they will be able to understand the text and read it with involvement. Students will make dual entry diaries to understand their response to the text ( activity 2 ) . They will believe about the topographic point, the narrative, characters, and ends and outlooks of the writer, through anticipation and verification of anticipations ( activity 3 ) . They will besides analyze their response to the text making a three-column diary to enter pre, during and after reading ( activity 4 ) , which can assist trip background scheme of pupils to enable them to do hypotheses and corroborate them. Wallace suggests that apprehension of the text is augmented by anticipations which are merely possible on the footing of the conventional cognition already present in the heads of the reader ( 1992, p. 33 ) .

Visual image of the narrative, characters, and the objects, the writer thinks, can be helpful in developing and reshaping anterior scheme. Schema in bend can turn out helpful in fostering cultural apprehension. Pulling images and scenes about the novel ( activity 5 ) and analysis of sensory inside informations ( activity 6 ) can assist trip and better the scheme, therefore developing a originative relationship with the text ( Collie & A ; Slater, 1987, p. 6 ) .

Comparing lives of fishermen, both in Cuba and their ain state ( activity 7 ) , and comparing narrations of the two countries/cultures about the same theme/topic ( activity 8 ) can be utilised to develop cultural sensitiveness and apprehension. Inter-cultural analysis augments development of cultural apprehension ( Shumin, 2002, p. 210 ) .

Personal battle with the text, in the position of the writer, can be developed when the pupils are able to read for a intent, connect the textual information to their conventional cognition, and understand the mark civilization. Engaged readers are besides clear about larning cognition ends ( Guthrie et al, 2000, pp. 210-1 ) , and they activate background cognition and associate it to the text. Graham & A ; Harris ( 2000, p. 55 ) think that “ instructors need to be particularly sensitive to cultural and background differences. ” This ensures that culturally sensitive topics/issues are touched without piquing the reader.

There is an of import point to observe that all the activities suggested in this article usage texts, images, charts, documents and pencils to develop the needed accomplishments. The usage of the Internet has merely been suggested as an option.

Mentions:

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Appendix 1

Web sites that instructors can utilize to learn The Old Man and the Sea.

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.ernest.hemingway.com/oldman.htm

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.oceanstar.com/shark/oldman.htm

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.awn.com/oscars00/oldman.php3

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldman/

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/oldman/about.html