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FOURTH EDITION

READING POWER
Extensive Reading • Vocabulary Building • Comprehension Skills • Reading Faster

Linda Jeffries
Beatrice S. Mikulecky
Reading Power 2, Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc.


All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted


in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.

Pearson Education, 10 Bank Street, White Plains, NY 10606

Staff credits: The people who made up the Reading Power 2, Fourth Edition team, representing
editorial, production, design, and manufacturing, are Pietro Alongi, Danielle Belfiore,
John Brezinsky, Dave Dickey, Oliva Fernandez, Massimo Rubini, Barbara Sabella,
Jaimie Scanlon,Jennifer Stem, Paula Van Ells, and Pat Wosczyk.

Text composition: Rainbow Graphics


Text font: 12/14 Caslon
Illustrations and tech art: Bergandy Beam and Rainbow Graphics
Credits: See page 296.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Mikulecky, Beatrice S.
Reading power 2: extensive reading, vocabulary building, comprehension skills, reading faster/
Beatrice S. Mikulecky, LindaJeffries.-4th ed.
p.cm.
Summary: Its innovative design allows intermediate-level students to use four key sections
concurrently to become better readers in school, college, or business.
ISBN 978-0-13-814388-6
1. English language-Textbooks for foreign speakers. 2. Reading comprehension-Problems,
exercises, etc. 3. Thought and thinking--Problems, exercises, etc. 4. Vocabulary-Problems,
exercises, etc. I.Jeffries, Linda. II. Title. III. Title: Reading power two.
PE1128.M566 2009
428.6'4-dc22
2009017283

ISBN-10: 0-13-814388-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-814388-6

PEARSONLONGMAN ON THE WEB


Pearsonlongman.com offers online
resources for teachers and students. Access our
Companion Websites, our online catalog, and
our local offices around the world.
Visit us at pearsonlongman.com.

Printed in the United States of America


5 6 7 8 9 10--V016-13 12 11
. ·. -��
Conten:t:� .
..
,,_,.�-- �,.
. ·•-�·
.·_ �

Introduction to Reading Power 2 V

Part 1 Extensive Reading


Introduction 2
Unit 1: New Vocabulary in Your Reading 4
Unit 2: Fiction and Nonfiction 8
Unit 3: Books 16

Part2 Vocabulary Building


Unit 1: Guidelines for Learning Vocabulary 30
Unit 2: Learning New Words from Your Reading 44
Unit 3: Guessing Meaning from Context 50
Unit 4: Word Parts 61
Unit 5: How Words Are Used Together 70
Unit 6: How Words Work in Sentences 82

Part3 Comprehension Skills


Introduction 100
Unit 1: Previewing 101
Unit 2: Scanning 117
Unit 3: Making Inferences 135
Unit 4: Focusing on the Topic 150
Unit 5: Understanding Paragraphs 162
Unit 6: Identifying the Pattern 184
Unit 7: Thinking in English 205

Part4 Reading Faster


Introduction 222
Unit 1: The W hite Woman of the Genesee 233
Unit 2: Two Popular Authors 253
Unit 3: Popular Health and Psychology 273
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank teachers around the world for their feedback
regarding Reading Power 2. The following colleagues and reviewers
have been particularly helpful: Anna Masetti,University of Modena;
Esther Robbins,Prince George's Community College,Largo,MD;
Kate Johnson,Union County College, Elizabeth,NJ; Lesley Morgan,
West Virginia University,Morgantown,WV; Meghan Ackley,
University of Texas,Austin,TX; Paula Richards,Northern
Essex Community College,Haverhill,MA; Marjorie Stamberg,
Hunter College,New York,NY.

I am also very much indebted to the development editor,Jaimie Scanlon,


who helped me enormously with her sharp eye for detail and her clear
vision of the book as a whole,as well as with her patience and sense of
humor.

Thanks,
Linda

About the Authors


LindaJeffries holds a master's degree in TESOL from Boston
University. She has taught reading,writing and ESL/EFL at Boston
College, Boston University,the Harvard University Summer ESL
Program,the University of Opole,Poland,and the University of
Bologna,Italy. She lives in Italy,near Bologna,and teaches academic
reading and writing at the University of Modena.

Bea Mikulecky holds a master's degree in TESOL and a doctorate


in Applied Psycholinguistics from Boston University. In addition to
teaching reading,writing,and ESL,she has worked as a teacher trainer
in the Harvard University Summer ESL Program,in the Simmons
College MATESL Program, and in Moscow, Russia. She is the author
of A Short Course in Teaching Reading Skills.

iv
To the Teacher
Reading Power 2 is unlike most other reading textbooks. First, the book is
organized in a different way. It has four separate parts that correspond to four
important aspects of proficient reading, and therefore it is like four books in one.
Teachers should assign work on all four parts of the book every week.
The four parts of Reading Power 2 are:
• Part 1: Extensive Reading
• Part 2: Vocabulary Building
• Part 3: Comprehension Skills
• Part 4: Reading Faster
Second, the focus of Reading Power 2 is different. While most books focus on
content, this book directs students' attention to their own reading processes. The
aim is for students to develop a strategic approach to reading at this early stage,
so that they learn to view reading in English as a problem-solving activity rather
than a translation exercise. This will enable them to acquire good reading habits
and skills and to build confidence in their abilities. In this way, they will gain
access more quickly to English-language material for study, work, or pleasure.
For a successful outcome, teachers should follow the indications for work in
pairs or small groups. Talking about their work will help students formulate ideas
and consolidate vocabulary learning.
Reading Power 2 is intended for students who are at the advanced-beginner or
low-intermediate level in English. It is assumed that students who use this book
will be literate and have an English vocabulary of about 600 words.
In this fourth edition of Reading Power 2, the approach remains the same as
in the earlier editions, though in response to recent research as well as feedback
from teachers, there is more emphasis on vocabulary acquisition and learning
strategies. All the units have been updated and more guidance has been added
for students in learning the skills. The major changes in this edition include:
Part 1: Extensive Reading-a new nonfiction passage and more guidance in
vocabulary learning
Part 2: Vocabulary Building-guidance in vocabulary learning methods
including dictionary work, strategies for guessing meaning from context,
work on word parts (prefixes, suffixes, and word families), sentence structure,
collocation, and lexical phrases

V
Part 3: Comprehension Skills-a new "Focus on Vocabulary" section in each
unit with a reading passage containing ten target words and exercises to teach
these words
Part 4: Reading Faster-new readings and revised comprehension questions

A separate Teacher's Guide contains the answer key, a rationale for the approach
taken in Reading Power 2, specific suggestions for using it in the classroom, and
a sample syllabus.

To the Student

Reading is an important part of most language courses. Improving your reading skills
can also help you improve your general skills in English.

It can help you


...learn to think in English.
...build your English vocabulary.
...write better in English.
...prepare for study in English.

Reading Power 2 can help you learn to read well in English.In this book, you
will work on reading in four ways in the four parts of the book:

Part 1: Extensive Reading-reading a book that you choose and reading a lot
Part 2: Vocabulary Building-learning new words
Part 3: Comprehension Skills-learning to understand what you read
Part 4: Reading Faster-learning to read faster and understand more in English
Work on all four parts of the book every week.This way you can become a good
reader in English.
What does reading mean to you?
A. Complete this questionnaire about reading in your life.

Reading Questionnaire

1. What is your name?

2. Where are you from?

3. What is your first language?

4. Do you like reading?

5. Do your parents like reading?

6. Do your friends like reading?

7. What do you enjoy reading in your language? Check(✓) your


answers.
books __ magazmes __ webpages/articles
__ newspapers __ other(____________)

8. Do you have a favorite book or writer? _________

Book title: ___________________

Writer's name: __________________

9. Do you read in English? ______________

If so, what do you read in English? __________

B. Work with two other students. Talk about your answers. Do you like to
read the same things?

Extensive Reading
The best readers are people who love to read and who read a lot. In Part 1, you will learn
about and practice extensive reading.

What Is Extensive Reading?


• Reading a lot-many books in a semester
• Choosing books that you want to read
• Reading as fast or as slow as you want
• Not having any tests on your reading

Why Is Extensive Reading Important?


If you read a lot in English, you can become a better reader, and you can improve your
English in many ways.

Extensive reading will help you


... read faster and understand better.
. ..learn new words .
. . . write better.
. .. learn about the world.

When you read a lot in English, you get a lot of practice with the language. You learn to
recognize words more quickly and understand sentences better. You may even begin to think
in English.But this only happens if you read a lot!

Introduction
New Vocabulary
in Your Reading

When you read stories or books, you will find new words. Sometimes you may not know the
exact meaning of a word, but you can guess the general meaning. This may be enough to
follow the story.

Follow these guidelines for dealing with new vocabulary in your reading:
• Don't stop to look up many new words in the dictionary. If you stop often for new
words, you will read slowly and forget the story.
• Try to use the other words and sentences in the story to help you guess the general
meaning of words you don't know.
In the following exercises, you will read some passages with missing words. This is like
reading a passage with words you don't know.

EXERCISE 1 j;/ j ,,,\:.,.

A. This passage is from the beginning of a story. Some words are missing.
Read the passage, but don't try to guess the missing words. Then answer
the questions.
Susan Conley and Sam Diamond live in Rosebud, a
small town in New Jersey. It looks like many other xxxx:xx in
the United States. On Main Street, there is a post office and
a police xxxx:xx. The drugstore and the library are down the
xxxx:xx. There's also a shopping center with a supermarket, a
video store, and a fast xxxx:xx restaurant.
Dr. Sam Diamond is a dentist. His xxxx:xx is in the
middle of Rosebud, near the post office. Everybody in town
knows and likes Dr. Diamond. He's a good dentist and a
xxxx:xx person. He likes telling funny stories to his xxxx:xx.
They forget about their teeth when they listen to him.
Susan Conley is Sam Diamond's wife. She's a scientist
with a Ph.D. in Biology. She works with a xxxx:xx of
scientists in a laboratory in New York City. They're xxxx:xx
the human brain and looking for ways to xxxx:xx people with
Alzheimer's and other serious brain diseases.

Extensive Reading
Susan usually takes the x:xxxxx from Rosebud to New York. Sometimes she
stays at home and works on her x:xxxxx. She's happy when she can work at home,
but she also likes working in the lab with interesting people.
a. Where do Susan and Sam live? -----------------
b. What is Sam's job? ____________________
c. Why do people like Sam Diamond? ___________ ___
d. What is Susan's job? ____________________
e. Where does she work? _____________________

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

• -:..,
I

. . .
. EXERCISE
�,i[

A. The story continues in this passage. Read the passage, but don't try to guess
the missing words. Then answer the questions.
Susan and Sam are different in many ways. Susan is tall and thin. Sam is short
and xxxxxx. Susan has blonde hair and blue eyes. Sam has dark hair and xxxxxx
eyes. Susan is a quiet person, who can xxxxxx for hours alone in the laborator y.
Sam loves to talk and meet x:xxxxx.
Susan and Sam's children are now grown up and live far away. T heir daughter,
Jane, is an airline pilot. She lives in California and xxxxxx all around the United
States. Their son, Ted, is a journalist. He lives and works in Washington, D.C. He
is xxxxxx to a young Brazilian painter named Maria. Jane and Ted come to visit
Rosebud as often as they can.
In their xxxxxx time, Susan and Sam like to work in their x:xxxxx. Susan
takes care of the rose bushes and the many other flowers. Sam takes care of the
vegetable garden. He's very proud of his tomatoes and his xxxxxx.
Susan and Sam also care a lot about the town of Rosebud, and they try to
make it a better xxxxxx to live. Susan often goes to meetings about xxxxxx in the
town. Sam helps with the town vegetable garden. People in the town can work in
the garden and take xxxxxx some of the vegetables.
a. Do Susan and Sam look alike? ------------------
b. How many children do they have? _______________
c. Where do their children live? ------------------
d. What do Susan and Sam like to do in their free time? ---------
e. How do they help the town of Rosebud? _____________

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

New Vocabulary in Your Reading


..
EXE8CISE

A. Read the passage again. This time, try to guess the missing words. Write your
guesses in the blanks.
Susan Conley and Sam Diamond live in Rosebud, a small town in New Jersey.
towns
It looks like many other---=---- in the United States. On Main Street,
station The drugstore and the library
there is a post office and a police------·
2
street
are down the ___ ___ • There's also a shopping center with a supermarket,
3
food
a video store, and a fast ______
4
restaurant.
clinic
Dr. Sam Diamond is a dentist. His ---=---- is in the middle of
s
Rosebud, near the post office. Everybody in town knows and likes Dr. Diamond.
nice
He's a good dentist and a---,,....--- person. He likes telling funny stories to
6
patients They forget about their teeth when they listen to him.
his------·
7
Susan Conley is Sam Diamond's wife. She's a scientist with a Ph.D. in Biology.
group
She works with a ______ of scientists in a laboratory in New York City.
8
studying
They're ___ help
___ the human brain and looking for ways to _____
9 10
_
people with Alzheimer's and other serious brain diseases.
train
Susan usually takes the------,-,--- from Rosebud to New York.
11
laptop
Sometimes she stays at home and works on her ------,=----·
12
She's happy
when she can work at home, but she also likes working in the lab with interesting
people.

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

Extensive Reading
·-
EXERCISE

A. Read the passage again. This time, try to guess the missing words. Write your
guesses in the blanks.
Susan and Sam are different in many ways. Susan is tall and thin. Sam is short
fatty
and ------· Susan has blonde hair and blue eyes. Sam has dark hair and
brown eyes. Susan is a quiet person, who can __ stays
__ for hours
2
people _
alone in the laboratory. Sam loves to talk and meet _____ 4
Susan and Sam's children are now grown up and live far away. Their daughter,
travles all around the
Jane, is an airline pilot. She lives in California and---,,----
5
United States. T heir son, Ted, is a journalist. He lives and works in Washington,
marrid to a young Brazilian painter named Maria.Jane and
D.C. He is ______
6
Ted come to visit Rosebud as often as they can.
free
In their ------ time, Susan and Sam like to work in their
7
garden
------· Susan takes care of the rose bushes and the many other flowers.
8

Sam takes care of the vegetable garden. He's very proud of his tomatoes and his
potetos
9
Susan and Sam also care a lot about the town of Rosebud, and they try to
make it a better place to live. Susan often goes to meetings about
10
gardening
___ 1 1 __
_ in the town. Sam helps with the town vegetable garden. People in
_
away
the town can work in the garden and take ______ some of the vegetables.
12

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

Remember

You can tell a lot about a word from the other words and sentences around it. You
can often guess the meaning. You will practice this more in Part 2.

New Vocabulary in Your Reading


Fiction and NonfiG ion

In this unit, you will learn about two types of reading material: fiction and nonfiction. You
will practice some steps for reading and understanding fiction and nonfiction.

What Is Fiction?
Fictional stories or books are about people and events that are not real. The author makes
up the people, the events, and sometimes the place. Fiction often includes a "message"-an
idea or opinion about life in general.
There are different kinds of fiction:
• realistic stories about people and places today, or about people and places in the past
• fantastic stories about unreal worlds, or about our world in the future

This story was written in 1933 by the famous American author Ernest Hemingway.
The definition for some words are given at the bottom of each page. These will
help you follow the story better. You do not need to learn these words.

A. Preview.

• Look at the picture and read the title. What do you think this story is about?
• Do you know anything about the author, Ernest Hemingway?

B. Read the story to the end. Don't stop to look up new words.

Extensive Reading
A Day's Wait
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed, and I
saw he looked ill. He was shivering, 1 his face was white, and he walked slowly as
though it ached2 to move.
"What's the matter, Schatz?"3
5 "I' ve got a headache."
"You better go back to bed."
"No. I'm a11 ng . ht. "
"You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed."
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very
10 sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew
he had a fever.
"YiOU go up to bed'" I Sal"d. "YiOU're SIC
. k. "
"I'm all right," he said.
When the doctor came, he took the boy's temperature.
15 "What is it?" I asked him.
"One hundred and two."
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored
capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever,
another a purgative,4 the third to overcome an acid5 condition. The germs6 of
20 influenza7 can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know
all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not
go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic8 of flu and
there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia. 9
Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the
25 time to give the various capsules.
"Do you want me to read to you?"
''All right. If you want to," said the boy. His face was very white, and there
were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached10
from what was going on.
30 I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book ofPirates, but I could see he was not
following what I was reading.
"How do you feel, Schatz?" I asked him.
"Just the same, so far," he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time
35 to give him another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but
when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.
"Why don't you try to go to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine."
"I'.Ju rather stay awake."
(continued)

1 shivering shaking because you are cold or afraid 6 germs bacteria, small things that make you sick
2 ache hurt 7
influenza a common disease like a bad cold
3 Schatz a nickname (Treasure in German) 8
epidemic a disease that affects many people
4 purgative a kind of medicine 9
pneumonia a serious illness in your lungs
5 acid chemical, sour (e.g., lemon) 10
detached distant

Fiction and Nonfiction


After a while he said to me, "You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it
40 bothers you."
"It doesn't bother me."
"No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you."
I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the
prescribed 11 capsules at eleven o'clock I went out for a while.
45 It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet12 that had frozen so
that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush, and all the grass
and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. I took the young Irish Setter13
for a little walk up the road and along a frozen creek, 14 but it was difficult to stand
or walk on the glassy surface, and the red dog slipped and slithered, and I fell
50 twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.
We flushed a covey of quail15 under a high clay bank with overhanging brush,
and I killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. Some of
the covey lit 16 in trees, but most of them scattered into brush17 piles, and it was
necessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times before they
ss would flush. Coming out while you were poised18 unsteadily on the icy, springy
brush, they made difficult shooting, and I killed two, missed five, and started back
pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy there were so many
left to find another day.
At the house, they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.
60 "V ' · " "d "V '
IOU can t come m, he sa1 . IOU mustn t get what I have. "
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him,
white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed19 by the fever, staring still, as
he stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
65 "What is it?"
"Something like a hundred," I said. It was one hundred
and two and four tenths.
"It was a hundred and two," he said.
"Who said so?"
70 "The doctor."
"Your temperature is all right," I said. "It's nothing to
worry about."
"I don't worry," he said, "but I can't keep from thinking."
"Don't think," I said. "Just take it easy."
75 "I'm taking it easy," he said and looking straight ahead. He was evidently2°
holding tight onto himself about something.

11 prescribed ordered by the doctor 16


lit landed
12
sleet frozen rain 17
brush small trees
13 trish Setter a kind of hunting dog 18
poised standing in a careful position
14
creek a small river 19
flushed red
15 flushed a covey of quail made birds fly up 20 evidently clearly

Extensive Reading
"Take this with water."
"Do you think it will do any good?"
"Of course it will."
80 I sat down and opened the pirate book and commenced to read, but I could
see he was not following, so I stopped.
"About what time do you think I'm going to die?" he asked.
"What?"
"About how long will it be before I die?"
85 "You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?"
"Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two."
"People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way
to talk."
"I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with
90 forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two."
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
"You poor Schatz," I said. "Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers.
You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometer. On that thermometer
thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight."
95 ""rue
- you sure.;:,"
''.Absolutely," I said. "It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many
kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?"
"Oh," he said.
But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself
100 relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack,21 and he cried easily at little
things that were of no importance.

21
slack loose

C. Read the story again. Underline any new words you need to know to
understand the story. Show the words to your teacher. If your teacher agrees,
look them up and write the meanings in the margins.

D. Discuss these questions with another student:

• Where does the story take place? Who are the people in it, and what
happens to them?
• Did you like the story? Why or why not?
• What do you think about the doctor's cure for the flu? What do you do
when you have the flu?
• Hemingway often wrote about hunting. Why do you think he wrote about
hunting in this story? What do you think about hunting?
• Why was the boy confused? Have you ever had a similar misunderstanding?

Fiction and Nonfiction


E. With another pair of students, retell the story from beginning to end. Try to
use your own words. (You can look back at the story.)
F. Choose five words you want to learn from the story. Write them in your
vocabulary notebook with the parts of speech, the definitions, and the
sentences where you found them. (See Part 2, Unit 1.)

What Is Nonfiction?
Nonfiction is about real people, places, or things, for example, history, science, psychology,
travel, nature, a person's biography, or other real-life subjects. In nonfiction books, the writer
gives facts and information that he or she says are true.

Read and discuss the following nonfiction story.

A. Preview.
• Read the title. What do you think this passage is about?
• What do you know about the Middle Ag�s in Europe? What do you know
about the plague? 1

B. Read the passage to the end. Don't stop to look up new words.

1
plague disease that causes death and spreads quickly to a large number of people

12 Extensive Reading
The Black Death
The Black Death was the name people gave to a terrible disease called the
bubonic plague. It lasted for two years in Europe, from 1347 to 1349. In those two
years, twenty-five million people died. That was one third of all Europeans, or one
out of every three people. Whole families disappeared. Farms and villages were
5 left empty. Cities came to a stop. Churches, universities, banks, and shops closed.
How did this happen?
Life in Europe in the Middle Ages was very different from life today. In 1300,
there were no cars or trains. People walked, rode horses, or traveled in boats.
There were no machines to help farmers or to make clothes. There were few
10 factories. People made most of the things they needed by hand: clothing, shoes,
food, tools. There were no printed books or newspapers. And of course, there
was no telephone, Internet, or television. The news traveled from one person to
another by word-of-mouth. And it was usually bad news. Violence was a part of
everyday life. There were wars that went on for years and years. Robberies and
15 murders were common. People often died young from accidents or illness.
In those days, most Europeans lived in small villages. But the cities were
growing. In the early 1300s, the weather was colder and wetter than usual.
Because of this bad weather, farmers often couldn't grow enough food for their
families. Many country people didn't have enough to eat, so they went to the
20 cities.
The cities became more crowded and unhealthy. In fact, they weren't very
pleasant places. The rich people had big, beautiful houses. But everyone else lived
in dark, crowded little houses. No one, rich or poor, had running water or toilets.
All the waste2 was thrown into the streets or rivers.
25 This was one reason why the plague spread so easily. This disease was caused
by bacteria. 3 The waste from sick people's homes was full of these bacteria. Soon
the streets and rivers and drinking water became very unhealthy. Many people got
sick from drinking the dirty water. Others got sick from the waste in the streets­
and because of the rats. There were many rats, and they ran freely through the
30 streets, in and out of houses. People then didn't understand that rats were part of
the reason for the plague. The bacteria that cause the disease were carried on fleas4
that lived on rats.
The plague started in China in the early 1300s. Today diseases move quickly
from one part of the world to another. In the Middle Ages, diseases-like
35 people-traveled more slowly. It took about twenty years for the plague to move
west from China. At that time, rich Europeans liked to buy silks and spices from
Asia. Traders could make a lot of money from these things, so they took long trips
to get them. Sometimes they went over land, sometimes by sea. That was how the
rats that carried the disease probably traveled-by ship.
(continued}

2 waste anything not used, things thrown away by humans


3 bacteria small living things that can cause disease
4 flea a small jumping insect that bites animals or people to drink their blood

Fiction and Nonfiction


40 By 1347, the plague had reached the countries around the Black Sea in eastern
Europe. In October of that year, an Italian ship stopped at a Black Sea town and
picked up the disease. By the time the ship arrived at Messina in Sicily (Italy),
many sailors were dead. A few days later, people in Messina were sick, too. They
sent the ship away, but it was too late. The plague had arrived in Italy.
45 For two years after that-village by village, town by town-the disease
spread north through Europe. By the end of the year 1349, it had spread as far as
Scotland and Norway. Only one part of Europe (central Poland and Lithuania)
stayed free of the disease. No one knows why.
What happened when the plague arrived in a town? People got sick and
50 died-fast. Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about the plague in Florence,
Italy. "How many men and women had breakfast with their families, and the same
night, had dinner with their ancestors5 in the next world!" Not everyone died the
same day, but most people died within three days. And it was a horrible death.
The first signs were black lumps6 around the neck and other places. That's why it
55 was called the Black Death. Then, there was high fever and blood-and that was
the end.
No one understood what was happening or why. Many people thought it was
a punishment sent by God. Some doctors in Paris thought it was caused by the
planets and the stars. Other doctors believed it was caused by a bad smell. (Cities
60 with the plague smelled horrible.) They told people to keep flowers and use
perfume. Some people thought they could keep away the disease with loud noises,
so they rang church bells and fired guns. None of these cures7 helped, of course.
There was no cure in those days. There was no way to help a sick person.
People were terrified. Some stayed in their homes and didn't let anyone in. But
65 the fleas and rats went in and out, and so did the disease. Other people ran away
from the cities and into the country. The countryside was probably healthier than
the city, but these people often brought the disease with them, and they helped to
spread it.
In some towns in Germany and France, people also got angry. They wanted
10 to find someone to blame for the plague, so they blamed the Jews. They said the
Jews had put poison in the water. Angry groups of people went to the Jewish
neighborhoods. They set fire to houses and killed whole families. In Strasbourg
in 1349, 200 Jews were burned to death. In those years, many Jews moved east, to
Poland and Lithuania.
75 The disease died down in 1349, but it didn't disappear completely. It came
back many times in Europe, though it never again spread so far so fast. The last
big outbreak8 was the Great Plague of London in 1665, when about 100,000
people died. After that there were smaller outbreaks in Marseilles, Vienna,
Moscow, and other cities, until the early 18th century.

5 ancestor a member of a family who lived in past times


6 1ump an area on someone's skin or body that becomes larger and hard
7 cure a medicine or treatment that can stop a disease
8 outbreak the sudden start of something

Extensive Reading
80 In other parts of the world, however, the plague continued to be a problem.
Between 1855 and 1929, outbreaks of the plague killed over 12 million people
in India and China. Even now, the plague is still present in some countries, for
example, Madagascar, Tanzania, Brazil, Peru, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Every year
around the world, several thousand people get the plague, and several hundreds of
85 them die.
Could a new outbreak of the Black Death kill millions of people today?
Probably not. Now we understand how the disease is carried and we can stop it
from spreading. We can also cure it with modern medicines. However, another
disease could still be a problem. Even today, new diseases can suddenly appear.
90 Then scientists and doctors have to work fast to understand it and find a cure.

C. Read the passage again. Underline any new words you need to know to
understand the story. Show the words to your teacher. If your teacher agrees,
look them up and write the meanings in the margins.

D. Discuss these questions with another student:


• Why did the plague kill so many people? How did it spread?
• How did people in the Middle Ages try to stay healthy? How do you try to
stay healthy?
• Do you think there could be another plague today?
• Do you know about any diseases that spread and killed many people? What
was the disease? When and where did it spread?

E. With another pair of students, retell the story from beginning to end. Try to
use your own words. (You can look back at the story.)

F. Choose five words you want to learn from the story. Write them in your
vocabulary notebook with the parts of speech, the definitions, and the
sentences where you found them. (See Part 2, Unit 1.)

Fiction and Nonfiction


Books

Choosing the Right Book


It's very important to choose the right book for extensive reading. First of all, you should
choose a book that interests you. Your teacher and friends may have good ideas, but it
should be a book that you want to read.
It's also important to choose a book at the right level. If the book is too easy or too
difficult, you won't enjoy it, so you won't read it. You need to find a book that you will read.
Preview a book to find out if it is right for you.
► Read the title, back cover, and first page. What is the book about? Is it interesting?

► Check the level: Look again at the first page. How many words are new to you?
No new words ➔ This book may be too easy.
1-5 new words ➔ This book is the right level.
6 or more new words ➔ This book may be too difficult.

EXAMPLE

A. Look at the example on page 17. Then answer these questions.


1. What is the title? Anne of Green Gables

2. Look at the front cover and back cover copy. Then read the first page.
What is this book about? -------------------
Is it interesting to you? ________________ ____

3. Look at the first page again.


How many words are new to you? ________________
Is this book the right level for you? __ _____________

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

Extensive Reading
II PENGUIN ACTIVE READING Ll:.VEL 2
(from the back cover)
Anne of Green Gables
"You don't want me!"cried
Anne. "You don't want me
because I'm not a boy! Oh, what
shall I do?"
Maril/a and Matthew Cuthbert
want a boy from the orphanage
to help them on their farm.
But a thin little girl is waiting
for Matthew at Bright River
Station. Anne, a funny and
sometimes difficult child,
changes everybody's life and
wins everybody's love.

CHAPTER MM ofCrcm C�

Anne Arrives in Avonlea Marilia Cuthbert was busy in che kitchen. She was a call, thin woman
with gray hair. Marilla wasn't young or pretty, and she didn't smile very
9
·Yt,u don't wt1n1 mr/ ffird thr rh1/d suddmlJ much. Bue she had a kind heart. She wasn't surprised by Mrs. Lynde's
'"
•You do11i wan, mr brrausr I'm not a boy! visit.

0 nc fine spring afternoon in Avonlca, Mrs. luchd Lynde sat by


her kitchen window. She often sat there because she could .sec the
NHello, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde. "I saw Matthew on the road.
Where's he going?"
"To Bright River Station," answered Marilla...We're getting a little
Avonlca road very well from there. boy from an orphanage in Nova Scotia. He's coming on the train this
A man with a horse and buggy came up the road. lr was Mrs. Lyndc's afternoon."
ncighbor, Matchcw Cuchbcrc. Mrs. Lynde couldn't speak. Then she said, "An orphan boy! Why do
"Where's Matthew going?" thought Mrs. Lynde in surpn.5c. "It's half you wane an orphan boy�"
past three in the afternoon and he has a lot of work on his farm. Where's "Mauhcw is sixcy years old," answered Marilla, "His heart isn't very
he going and why is he going there?" srrong. He wants a boy ro help him on the farm.
Matthew Cuthben lived with his sister, Marilla, in Green Gables, a "We heard about Mrs. Spencer ac White Sands. She's gecting a Jitde
large old house near Mrs. Lyndc's home. Lacer, Mrs. Lynde walked to girl from the orphanage. Matthew and I want a little boy. Mrs. Spencer

h. . . ,.• · · · · · - �:>· '


Green Gables. went to the orphanage today. She's bringing a boy back on the train and
she's going to leave him at the station. Mauhcw will meet him there."
DA ••

� -- ·
.
..·····'

..
Ni(
• Prince


i?t5.. ,.
�· ",/C.
·
0

M.-t /hwtl (n) When your hHrt stops. you •re going to die. Peciple wy th&t your feelil'lgs
buggy f'bAgil (n) In putt mes. peopl• wt rn • buggy•nd • horse pulled It. come from your hNrt.
surprise 1$3"· pn1z. u'pr:nz/ (n) When II friend plans• w� for you, you don't know•bout it. o,ph&n r:>ffaJ {n) An orpftan Ms no parents beause they are de.,d. An orp�fh'Jge is 11
When you learn about it. you•re very wrpriSfti. home for• lot of orph•ns

Books
Getting the Most from Your Reading
After you choose a book for extensive reading, follow these guidelines.

Guidelines for Extensive Reading


• Read for at least 30 minutes every day. Find a regular time in your day for reading.
When you stop reading each time, write the date in pencil in the margin. Try to finish
your book quickly. Your teacher will check on your progress.

• Don't stop to look up new words unless they are necessary to understand the story.

• Look up useful words after you finish reading the chapter or book. Write the words in
your vocabulary notebook with the parts of speech, the definitions, and the sentences
where you found them. (See Part 2, Unit 1.)

• When you finish a book:


► Tell your teacher.
► Write the name of the book on your Reading List on pages 21-22.
► If you liked the book, tell your classmates about it.

Talking about Your Books


Book Conferences
A book conference is a conversation with your teacher. It is not a test. Tell your teacher
when you finish a book. Then your teacher will ask you questions about it. You don't need to
study for a book conference. You just need to read the book!
Here are some questions your teacher may ask:
• What is the title?
• Who is the author (writer)?
• Where does the story take place?
• Who are the characters (people in the story), or what is it about?
• What happens in the story?
• Did you like the book? Explain your opinion.

Reading Circles
A reading circle is a small group of students. The group meets often to talk about the books
they are reading.
Rules for reading circles:
► T he group should have four to five students. It should meet about once a week.

Extensive Reading
► At each meeting, students talk about their books. Each student takes a turn talking
about his or her book (not more than four minutes).
Suggested talking points:
• where you are in the book (beginning, middle, end)
• the level (easy, not so easy, difficult)
• the setting (where it takes place)
• the characters (fiction) or the subject (non:fiction)
• what happens (:fiction) or what it tells about (non:fiction)
• your opinion about the book

► Students who are not talking must listen and then ask questions. One student should
also watch the time and say when four minutes are :finished.

Book Talks
In a book talk, you talk to the class about your book. You should only talk for a few minutes
(not more than five minutes).
How to get ready for a book talk:
► On a small piece of paper, write the information below. Don't write whole sentences.
Write only a few notes (words or phrases) for each answer.
• the title and author
• the level of difficulty
• the characters (fiction) or subject (non:fiction)
• the setting (where it takes place)
• what happens (fiction) or what it tells about (non:fiction)
• your opinion about the book

► Use your notes to talk about the book.

► Practice your talk by yourself or with a friend or classmate. Try not to read from your
notes. Look at them only when you need to. Look up as much as possible. Speak
slowly and clearly. Try not to stop or say "um'' or "ah" too often. Practice saying the
sentences until you can say them fluently.

► T ime your talk before you give it in class. If it takes less than four minutes, think of
more things to say. If it takes more than five minutes, cut out some parts.

Books
Writing about Your Books
Book Reports
When you finish a book, fill in a book report form. Ask your teacher for a form, or copy
these questions onto a separate piece of paper. Your book report may help your teacher
decide which books to get for the class or library.

BOOK REPORT
Title:-----------------------------
Author: ________________ Fiction __ Nonfiction __
Pages: Level of difficulty (1 = very easy, 10 = very difficult): ____
Characters (fiction) or subject (nonfiction): _______________

Setting (where): _________________________


Story (fiction) or what it tells about (nonfiction):

Your general opinion: _______________________

The best parts, characters, or other things you liked about the book:

The worst parts, characters, or other things you disliked about the book:

Rate this book: _________________________

****
*** == aa great book! *x = not very interesting
** = some good parts
good book = a terrible book

Extensive Reading
Book Files
When you finish a book, ask your teacher for a book file card. Then make a card for your
class book files. You and your classmates can use the files to find books you like.
On the card, write information about your book. Follow the example below. Remember to
rate your book.

*****
** a great book!
=

** some
a good book
=

*x = not very interesting


= good parts

= a terrible book

EXAMPLE

TITLE: Anne of Green Gables

AUTHOR: L. /V\. /V\ontgomery

NUMBER OF PAGES: 00 FICTION OR NONFICTION: Fiction

WHAT ISTHEBOOK ABOUT? An orphan girl is adopted by a

farm family.

RATE THE BOOK: ***

Reading List
Make a list of your extensive reading books here. For each book you read, write the title,
author, and the date you finished.

1. Title: _____________________________

Author: __________________ Date finished: ______

2. Title: _____________________________

Author: __________________ Date :finished: _____

3. Title: ______________________________

Author: __________________ Date :finished: ______

Books
4. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

5. Title: _____________________________
Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

6. Title: ____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

7. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

8. Title: _____________________________
Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

9. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

10. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

11. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

12. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

13. Title: ___________________________


Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

14. Title: _____________________________

Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

15. Title: _____________________________


Author: _________________ Date finished: _____

Extensive Reading
Suggested Books
This book list may help you find a good book. But you don't have to read a book from this
list. Any book is good for extensive reading--if it is interesting to you and it is the right
level.

The books in List A were written for students of English. These books are called "readers."
They are written at different levels of difficulty. Check with your teacher about the best level
for you (probably Level 2). Ask your teacher where to find readers. There may be some in
the school or classroom library. You may also find readers in bookstores or public libraries.

The Books in List Bare popular with English speakers. Most of these books were written
for young people. These books are easier to read than books for adults, but they are not
childish. Adults can enjoy reading them, too. You will find them in either the young adult or
the children's section of your library or bookstore.

List A: Readers

The books on this list are all published by Penguin Longman. Other companies
also have readers for English learners. These books are all Level 2. You should start
with this level. Then, if you find they are easy, you can try books from Level 3.
The books with a headphones symbol (g) also have an audio CD. Listening and
reading at the same time is very good practice. If you listen and read the first time,
you can try just reading or just listening another time.
Readers: Fiction
"Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery, L.M. A young girl from an orphanage wins the love of her new
parents.
Babe-The Sheep-Pig. King-Smith, Dick. Farmer Hogget is a sheep farmer. When he wins a pig, he
doesn't want it, and his wife wants to eat it, but Babe has other ideas.
Black Beauty. Sewall, Anna. A classic horse story about Black Beauty who leaves the farm where he grew
up and discovers the cruelty of humans.
" Christmas Carol,A. Dickens, Charles. The famous tale about how cold, hard Scrooge learns that life is
not all about money.
Dantes Peak. Gram, Dewey. A scientist who studies volcanoes goes to a small town where a volcano is
about to explode.
FlyAway Home. Hermes, Patricia. Amy finds some goose eggs, but no mother, and so the baby geese
think she is their mother. Can she teach them to fly south in the winter?
Freckles. Matthews, Andrew. Susie hates her freckles. Her best friend Donna doesn't have any. Then a
new boy comes to school, and both Susie and Donna are interested.
Ghost ofGenny Castle, The. Escott,John. Claire is staying near an old castle with a secret-accidents
happen there: Animals and people die.
Q Gulliver's Travels. Swift,Jonathan. In this classic tale, Gulliver has adventures in a fantastic country of
very small people.

Books
Q jaws. Benchley, Peter. At a quiet seaside town, a woman is killed in the water at night. The town
policeman thinks it's a killer shark.
Jurassic Park III Ciencin, Scott. Young Eric Kirby is in Jurassic Park with live, dangerous dinosaurs, and
Dr. Alan Grant must save him.
Q Kidnapped. Stevenson, Robert Louis. An adventure story about an orphan boy who is put on a ship to
America by his evil uncle.
Lady in the Lake, The. Chandler, Raymond. When the body of a woman is found in a lake, Detective
Philip Marlowe must discover who killed her.
Last ofthe Mohicans, The. Cooper,James Fenimore. A classic tale about Indians, British soldiers, and
settlers in early America.
Lost in New York. Escott,John. On Nicky's first visit to New York, he finds himself in trouble, and soon
the police are looking for him.
Men in Black. Gardner,}.]. In a strange future world, Kay and Jay are the Men in Black who must watch
the aliens on Earth.
Q Moby Dick. Melville, Herman. In this famous story, a young sailor tells about Captain Ahab and his
search for the great white whale.
Moon.fleet. Falkner,}. Meade. Fifteen-year-oldJohn accidentally finds out some dangerous secrets, and
his life changes.
Mr. Bean in Town. Atkinson, Rowan; Clifford, Andrew; Curtis, Richard; Driscoll, Robin. More funny
adventures for this man who can never do anything right.
Mummy Returns, The. Whitman,John. The people of Egyp t are afraid of the Scorpion King, and
someone must kill him.
Mysterious Island, The. Verne,Jules. Three men, a boy, and a dog are in a balloon that comes down over
the Pacific.
OfMice and Men. Steinbeck,John. A young boy, George, has to decide what to do when his friend
Lennie gets into trouble.
Persuasion. Austen,Jane. When Anne meets Captain Wentworth again after many years, she still loves
him, but she doesn't know if he feels anything for her.
Q Pirates ofthe Caribbean: The Curse ofthe Black Pearl Trimble, Irene. On a Caribbean island, pirates
arrive and show interest in young Elizabeth. Where are they from, and what do they want?
Prince and the Pauper, The. Twain, Mark. Two boys born on the same day-one is a prince and one is very
poor. Then they change places in a game.
Project Omega. O'Reilly, Elaine. Julia wants to find her father, who has disappeared, but someone is
trying to kill her.
Q Robinson Crusoe. Defoe, Daniel. The classic tale of a man who is shipwrecked on an island.
Scarlet Letter, The. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Hester Prynne has a baby in 17th-century Boston, but
she won't say who the father is.
Simply Suspense. Aumonier, Stacy; Burrage, Alfred; Stockton, Frank. Three exciting short stories about
dangerous people and places.
Stranger than Fiction Urban Myths. Healey, Phil; Glanvill, Rick. A man falls from a very tall building, but
he doesn't die. Why not? Read about this and other strange stories.
g Three Musketeers, The. Dumas, Alexandre. D'Artagnan and his friends go to fight for the king and
their country against the dangerous Cardinal.
Three Short Stories ofSherlock Holmes. Doyle, Arthur Conan. Three of the classic Sherlock Holmes
detective stories.
Walkabout. Marshall,James V. The story of an Aboriginal boy and two American children in the
Australian desert.
Wave, The. Rhue, Morton. Mr. Ross wants to teach his history class about the Nazis, so he starts an
activity called "The Wave." At first, the students love it, but then it becomes dangerous.

Extensive Reading
Whistle and the Dead Men's Eyes, The. James, M.R. Two men are on vacation. Strange things happen in
the hotel. People see things that aren't there, and there are noises in empty rooms.
White Fang. London,Jack. Half dog, half wolf, White Fang, is taken from the mountains to the world of
men, where he learns to fight and kill.
Readers: Nonfiction
Amazon Rainforest, The. Smith, Bernard. This forest is important for the world's weather and wildlife,
but it is disappearing fast.
g Apollo 13. Anastasio, Dina. The story of the excitement, difficulties, and glory of the first moonwalk
in 1970.
Audrey Hepburn. Rice, Chris. Everyone loved this beautiful and successful actress, but her life was not
always happy.
g Extreme Sports. Dean, Michael. There are many new, exciting, and dangerous sports-what are they,
and who does them?
Gandhi. Rolleson,Jane. Mahatma Gandhi worked for civil rights and led India to independence. In his
time and today, many people follow his ideas.
g Nelson Mandela. Degnan-Veness, Colleen. This is the story of a freedom fighter and one of the
world's great leaders.
g Waterfar Life. Smith, Bernard. We drink it, wash with it, cook with it. In some countries, people
waste it; in other countries, they can't get enough.

List B: Books for Native Speakers


Easier Fiction
g Birchbark House. Erdrich, Louise. The story of an Ojibwa (Native American Indian) girl in 1847 who
lives through disease and difficulties. (256 pages)
g Children ofthe River. Crew, Linda. A girl from Cambodia wants to fit in at her American high school,
but she also doesn't want to go against her family. (213 pages)
Chocolate War, The. Cormier, Robert. A classic story of a high school student who becomes the hero of
the school when he fights a secret society. (191 pages)
g Confessions ofCharlotte Doyle, The. Avi. Charlotte is accused of murder in this 19th-century tale of
action on the high seas. (240 pages)
Esperanza Rising. Ryan, Pam Munoz. Esperanza's life on a farm in Mexico is happy but suddenly she is
forced to escape to the United States. (261 pages)
g Fallen Angels. Myers, Walter Dean. A realistic and intense novel about a young, African-American
soldier in the Vietnam War in 1967. (309 pages)
Gentlehands. Kerr, M.E. A policeman's son falls in love with a rich girl and they discover an ex-Nazi in
her family. (326 pages)
g Giver, The. Lowry, Lois.Jonas lives in a future society where there is no pain, crime, or unhappiness.
But as Jonas learns, people pay a terrible price for all this. (192 pages)
Hatchet. Paulson, Gary. Brian is on the way to visit his father when his airplane crashes and Brian finds
himself alone in the Canadian wilderness. (195 pages)
Hattie Big Sky. Larsen, Kirby. In 1918, orphaned Hattie goes to Montana to make a life for herself and
has to face the terrible prairie winter. (320 pages)
g Holes. Sachar, Louis. A dramatic story in which Stanley is punished for a crime he didn't do and is
sent to a detention camp for boys. (233 pages)
Homeless Bird Whelan, Gloria. Married and widowed at the age of 13, Koly is caught between modern
India and ancient Hindu culture. (192 pages)
How Tia Lola Came to Stay. Alvarez, Julia. At first Miguel and his sister are embarassed by their aunt
from the Dominican Republic, but then she helps them. (112 pages)

Books
g Island ofthe Blue Dolphins, The. O'Dell, Scott.This beautiful book tells the story of a Native American
girl left alone for years on an island. (192 pages)
Julie ofthe Wolves. George,Jean Craig. Julie, an Eskimo girl, is married against her will at 13 and runs
away into the wilderness to live with the wolves. (176 pages)
g Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery. Feinstein,John. Stevie and Susan discover that someone wants to fix
the college basketball championships. (256 pages)
g Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The. Lewis, C.S.The classic series about four children who travel
through a wardrobe to another world. (206 pages)
No Turning Back. Naidoo, Beverly. A boy in South Africa runs away to the city and lives on the streets.
(189 pages)
Pigman, The. Zindel, Paul. Funny and serious, moving and perceptive, this is a classic story about two
young people's search for meaning in life. (192 pages)
g Princess Diaries, The. Cabot, Meg. A high-school student in New York City, Mia, finds out that her
father is really a European prince. (304 pages)
g Radiance Descending. Fox, Paula. Having a younger brother with Down's Syndrome is not easy for
Paul. (112 pages)
Roll ofThunder, Hear My Cry. Taylor, Mildred. An African-American family tries to keep their land and
their dignity in 1930s Georgia. (288 pages)
SOS Titanic. Bunting, Eve. A young Irishman on the Titanic tries to rescue his friends as the ship sinks
into the cold sea. (246 pages)
g Stormbreaker: An Alex Rider Adventure. Horowitz, Anthony. In this spy thriller series, Alex finds out
that his dead uncle was a spy. (192 pages)
Summer ofMy German Soldier, The. Greene, Bette. During World War II, an American Jewish girl falls
in love with a German prisoner of war. (199 pages)
g Witch ofBlackbird Pond, The. Speare, Elizabeth George. In 1687, the Puritans in Connecticut think
Kit is a witch when she moves there from the Caribbean. (256 pages)
g Wrinkle in Time, A. L'Engle, Madeleine. Meg's father mysteriously disappears after experimenting
with time travel. A classic. (217 pages)
Easier Nonfiction
Boy. Dahl, Roald.This is a story of the funny and shocking childhood and school experiences of this
famous English writer. (176 pages)
Chimpanzees I Love: Saving Their World and Ours, The. Goodall,Jane.The world famous expert tells of
her experiences with chimpanzees. (268 pages)
Escape: The Story ofthe Great Houdini. Fleischman, Sid.The rags-to-riches story of a poor Jewish boy
who became a great magician and escape artist. (210 pages)
Go Ask Alice. Anonymous. The real diary of a :fifteen-year-old girl who became addicted to drugs. (188
pages)
Helen Keller: From Tragedy to Triumph. Wilkie, Katherine E. Blind and deaf since she was a girl, Helen
learned to communicate and became famous. (192 pages)
Immigrant Kids. Freedman, Russell. For immigrant children, America has meant freedom, but it has also
meant hard work and horrible conditions. (80 pages)
It Happened to Nancy: By an Anonymous Teenager, A True Story From Her Diary. Sparks, Beatrice.The true
story of a teenager who thought she had found love, but instead found AIDS. (238 pages)
JR.R. Tolkien: The Man Who Created the Lord ofthe Rings. Coren, Michael.The fascinating and
entertaining life ofTolkien. (125 pages)
Leonardo's Horse. Fritz,Jean.The life and times of Leonardo da Vinci, and the story of a sculpture that he
never made. (127 pages)
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u1deline rn1ng
Vocabulary

To become a better reader, you need to learn more vocabulary.

This part of Reading Power 2 is about learning vocabulary. You will find out more about
words and about how they are used. You will also learn about ways to study them and build
a larger vocabulary.

But remember-you can learn vocabulary better if you read a lot. When you read a lot, you
see words many times and you remember them better. This makes it easier to read, so you
can read more. If you read more, you will learn even more words.

Vocabulary is very important in reading. To understand what you are reading, you need to
know many words. In this unit, you will practice using the dictionary to learn new words.
Then you will learn about and practice some new ways to study vocabulary.
Follow these guidelines for learning vocabulary:
• Make good use of the dictionary.
Learn the pronunciation, spelling, and part of speech of new words.
Learn the different meanings and how to use the words.
• Study vocabulary often.
Use a vocabulary notebook and study cards to help you learn and review new words.

Note: Ask your teacher which language to use when you write the meanings of
words (in the exercises, in your notebook, and on your study cards). Should you
write them in English or in your language?

30 Vocabulary Building
Make Good Use of the Dictionary
Choosing a Good Dictionary
You will need a dictionary for some of the exercises in this unit (and for other vocabulary
work). You may want to use a bilingual dictionary to find the words in your language.
If possible, you should also use an English learner's dictionary. For example, the Longman
Study Dictionary or the Longman Dictionary ofAmerican English are good for this level.
Learner's dictionaries are easier to use than other English language dictionaries. The
definitions are written in simple language. They also have a lot of information about each
word. They tell you:
• the pronunciation
• the spelling and part of speech
• the different meanings of the word
• how to use the word

Pronunciation
You can read better and faster if you know how words sound. You can also remember the
words better if you can say them. That's why it's important to learn how to pronounce new
words.
Most dictionaries tell you how to pronounce words. They use special pronunciation symbols
(letters). Look in your dictionary for the key to these symbols. (It's often on the inside back
cover.)

A. Work with another student. Find the pronunciation key in your dictionary.
Take turns saying the example words for each symbol.
B. Read the words and the pronunciation symbols. Say the words to your
partner.
1. a. blood /blAd/ b. much lmAtfI c. won/WM/
2. a. give /g1v/ b. five /fa1v/ c. thief/eif/
3. a. sign /sa1n/ b. thing/011'.)/ c. garage /garad3/

C. Say the words again for your teacher.

Guidelines for Learning Vocabulary


A. Work with another student. Follow these directions for each group of words:
• Take turns reading the words aloud.
• Look up each word in the dictionary. Check the pronunciation symbols.
Did you say the words correctly? Check with your teacher if you aren't sure.
• Practice saying the words correctly.

1. a. brown b. goal c. body d. hour


2. a. weather b. peace c. area d. bread
3. a. cnme b. fix c. bright d. field
4. a. again b. explain c. daily d. hair
5. a. laugh b. taught c. farm d. wall
6. a. ground b. touch c. young d. through
7. a. hold b. nothing c. fork d. cross
8. a. high b. ago c. thing d. age

B. Say the words again for your teacher.


C. Talk about these questions with another student:
• What can you say about spelling and pronunciation in English?
• What can you say about spelling and pronunciation in your language?

Remember

When you look up a new word, check the pronunciation.


• A letter (or group of letters) may be pronounced in many different ways.
Examples: book /'o/, cool /u/, blood /A/
• Different letters (or groups of letters) may have the same pronunciation.
Examples: field, leave, feet /i/

Spelling
It's important to know how to spell words in English. If you know the spelling of a word,
you know what it looks like. Then you see and understand it quickly when you are reading.
When you learn new words, you should also learn the spelling.

Vocabulary Building
.,,,
",
tt
..
EXERCISE
• :l

A. Cover Exercise 2 with a piece of paper. Your teacher will read the words in the
first column (column a). Listen and write the words.

1. ----------- 5. -----------
2. ----------- 6. -----------
3. ----------- 7. -----------
4. ----------- 8. -----------
B. Now look back at the words in Exercise 2. Did you spell them correctly?
Correct them if necessary.

- ---... ' T.
. .
EXERCISE
• ..:.u.-

A. Work in pairs.
Student A: Look at Exercise 2. Copy the "b" words (goal, etc.) under List 1.
Student B: Look at Exercise 2. Copy the "c" words (body, etc.) under List 1.

List 1 List 2

1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.
7. 7.
8. 8.

B. Read the words on List 1 to your partner. Under List 2, write the words your
partner reads to you.
C. Now look back at the words in Exercise 2. Did you spell them correctly?
Correct them if necessary.

Guidelines for Learning Vocabulary


Parts of Speech
The dictionary tells you the part of speech for every word. This helps you understand the
word and how to use it correctly. See the examples in the box below.

Noun (n): a person, place, thing, quality, action, or idea


Examples: George stayed in a nice hotel in Tokyo.
Swimming is my favorite sport in the summer.

Verb (v): a word (or words) that show an action, experience, or state
Examples: I was hungry, so I ate all the food.
Sam is going to Mexico next month.

Pronoun (pron): a word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase


Examples: Her mother will drive them home.
Roger watched the movie with us, but he didn't enjoy it.
She's the woman who won a million dollars.
We visited a church that was built a thousand years ago.

Adjective (adj):a word that describes a noun


Examples: Tickets to the concert are free.
The small room was very comfortable.

Adverb (adv): a word that tells you more about a verb, an adjective, or
another adverb
Examples: I read that book a year ago. It's very good.
He walked slowly into the room.

Preposition (prep): a word that is put in front of a noun to show where, when,
or how
Examples: There was a letter from my mother in my mailbox.
In three hours, we drove across the state.

Conjunction (conj): a word that connects parts of sentences or phrases


Examples: In Rome, we walked a lot and saw many things.
I went to bed because I was tired.

Vocabulary Building
..:n..

EXERCISE 5 _,: \...

A. Find these words on the dictionary page. Write the parts of speech. (A word
may have more than one part of speech.)

Word Part of Speech overhead1 /,ouva,.'hEd/ adf, adv. above your


head: A plane flew overhead. I We put our bags in
the overhead compartments.
1. overlook
overhead2 /'ouva,.,hEd/ n. ECONOMICS money
2. overly that you spend for rent, etc. to keep a business
3. overlap operating: He's trying to lower our overhead.

4. overpass overhear /ouva,.hrr/ v. (past tense and past


participle overheard) to hear by accident what other
5. overnight people are saying when they do not know that you
6. overhear are listening: I overheard some people saying that
the food was bad.
7. overhead
overlap /,ouva,.'laep/ v. (overlapped,
8. overload overlapping) 1 if two or more things overlap, part
of one thing covers part of another thing: a pattern
B. Talk about your answers with of overlapping circles 2 if two subjects, activities
ideas, etc. overlap, they share some but not all
another student. Are they of the same parts or qualities: Our jobs overlap in
the same? certain areas. I The study of history overlaps with
the study of politics. - overlap /'ouva,.laep / n.

overload /,ouva,.'loudl v. 1 to load something


with too many things or people: Don't overload the
washing machine with clothes. 2 to give someone
too much work to do 3 to damage an electrical
system by causing too much electricity to flow
through it - overload / 'ouva,.,loud / n.

overlook /,ouva,.'luk/ v. 1 to not notice something,


or to not realize how important it is: It's easy to
overlook mistakes when reading your own writing.
2 to forgive someone's mistake, bad, behavior,
etc: I can't overlook his drinking any longer. 3 to
have a view of something from above: Our room
overlooked the beach.

overly /'ouva,.,li/ adv. too much or very: It is a


problem but we are not overly concerned about it.

overnight1 /,ouva,.'nart/ adv. 1 for or during the


night: She's staying overnight at a friend's house.
2 (informal) suddenly: You can't expect to lose
weight overnight.

overnight2 /'ouva,.,nart/ adj. [only before noun]


continuing all night: an overnight flight to Japan

overpass /'ouva,.,paes/ n. a structure like a


bridge, that allows one road to go over another road

Guidelines for Learning Vocabulary


Different Meanings taste1 /te1st/ n. 1 the feeling that is produced
when your tongue touches a particular food or
Many words have more than one definition. drink, for example how sweet it is: I don't like the
taste of garlic. I a bitter/sour/sweet, etc. taste I He
Look at the examples of the word taste on the no longer has any sense of taste or smell. 2 the
kind of things that someone likes: We have similar
dictionary page. tastes in clothes. I She never lost her taste for
travel. 3 your judgement when you choose clothes,
When the different definitions are different decorations, etc.: She has really good taste in
parts of speech, there are separate headings. music. 4 a small amount of a food or drink, eaten to
find out what it is like: Here, have a taste and tell
me what you think. 5 be in good/bad/poor taste
When the different definitions are the same to be appropriate or inappropriate for a particular
part of speech, the definitions are numbered. occasion: The joke was in very bad taste. 6 a taste
of sth a short experience of something: The trip
T he first definition is the most common.
gave us a taste of life on board a ship.

To find the best definition for the word as it is taste2 v. 1 to have a particular type of taste:
used in a sentence follow these steps: The chicken tastes really good. I This milk tastes
a little sour. ► Don't say "is tasting." ◄ I What does
► Read the sentence. What part of speech the soup taste like? (=how would you describe its
is the word? F ind the heading for that taste)? 2 to put a small amount of food or drink in
part of speech. your mouth in order to find out what it is like: Taste
this and see if it needs more salt. 3 to recognize
► If there is more than one definition the taste of a food or drink: My co/d's so bad I can't
under that part of speech, read the taste a thing. ► Don't say "I am not tasting." ◄
example sentences. Which definition
makes the most sense in the sentence
where you found the word?

EXAMPLE

Read each sentence and find the underlined word on the dictionary page above.
Write the part of speech and the definition of the word in the sentence.
1. Alda tasted the Spanish cheese and the French cheese. She liked the French
cheese better.

Part of speech: _v_e_rb____

Definition: to put a small amount of food or drink in your mouth in order


to nnd out what it is like

2. Arlene never lost her taste for nice clothes.

Part of speech: _n_ou


_ ___
n _

Definition: the kind of things that someone likes

Vocabulary Building
• • r� •

. - .
EXERCISE
_-_-:_

A. Read each sentence and find the underlined word on the dictionary page.
Write the part of speech and the definition of the word in the sentence.

1. My teacher never lost control in class. control 1 /kan'troul/ n. 1 the power or


Part of speech: ________ ability to make someone or something
do what you want: They don't have
Definition: __________ any control over their son. I Newborn
babies have little control of/over their
movements. I The car went out of control
and hit a tree. I The situation is now under
2. The rider could not control his horse. control. I These events are beyond our
control. (= not possible for us to control).
Part of speech: ________ 2 the power to rule or govern a place,
Definition: __________ organization, or company: Rioters took
control of the prison. I The airport is now
under the control of the UN troops. I The
government is no longer in control of the
country. 3 an action, method, or law that
3. On the old radios, there were few limits the amount or growth of something:
controls. an agreement on arms control I Fire
Part of speech: ________ fighters brought the fire under control(=
stopped it from getting worse). 4 the ability
Definition: __________ to remain calm even when you are angry
or excited: I just lost control and punched
him! 5 something that you use to make a
television, machine, vehicle, etc. work: the
4. By midnight, the army controlled the volume control I the controls of the airplane
streets.
control2 v. (controlled, controlling)
Part of speech: ________ 1 to make someone or something do what
Definition: __________ you want or work in a particular way: If
you can't control your dog, you should
put it on a leash. 2 to limit the amount of
growth of something: a chemical used to
control weeds 3 to rule or govern a place,
5. The university was under the control organization, or company, or to have more
of the students. power than someone else: Rebels control
all the roads into the capital. 4 to make
Part of speech: ________ yourself behave calmly, even if you feel
Definition: __________ angry, excited, or upset: I was furious, but I
managed to control myself

6. Javier was upset, but he was able to


control himself
Part of speech: ________
Definition: __________

B. Talk about your answers with another student. Are they the same?

Guidelines for Learning Vocabulary


Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The law went further. It gave the servant the right of departure
coupled with the right to recover wages due for service rendered up
to the time of his departure, for any—
“invasion of the conjugal rights of the servant, or his (employer’s)
failure to pay wages when due.”[331]
And not even the death of the master terminated the contract,
without the assent of the servant, for the enforcement of which the
servant had a lien as high as rent. And when wrongfully discharged
the servant was entitled to recover wages for the whole period of
service, according to the contract.[332]
That the master was given the right to administer corporal
punishment to the servant under some conditions cannot be denied;
but the phraseology of the South Carolina Act is:
“The master may moderately correct servants who have made
contracts and are under eighteen years of age”—[333] but it also
commanded:
“It shall also be his duty to protect his servant from violence by
others in his presence.”[334]

Yet it specifically provided that:


“Corporal punishment is intended to include only such modes of
punishment, not affecting life or limb, as are used in the army or navy
of the United States, adapted in kind and degree to the nature of the
offense.”[335]

Finally, not to prolong the discussion, when we note that the


servant was not liable civilly or criminally for any act done by the
command of the master, for any tort on the master’s premises[336]
and that the former slave holder was not permitted to dispossess the
non paying helpless former slave, for a year and a month from the
occupancy of dwellings belonging to the former master, but occupied
without any return by the former slave,[337] and what elaborate
provisions in detail were made for the care of such in his or her
helpless condition, we will find that we look in vain in England, old or
New, for such humanitarian legislation, at this date. Why then were
the Codes overthrown? Dr. DuBois is prejudiced and naturally so. He
is not as well informed as he deems himself to be; but he desires to
be fair and just; and so we have from this, the most cultured member
of the colored race in the United States, the real reason for
“Reconstruction and its Benefits.”
“The difficulties that stared Reconstruction politicians in the face
were these: (a) They must act quickly. (b) Emancipation had
increased the political power of the South by one sixth; could this
increased political power be put in the hands of those, who in defense
of slavery had disrupted the Union?”[338]
So, the terrific losses, which he himself itemizes were not enough.
The beaten South was to be manacled. And how does he picture the
victors in that dreadful hour?
“There might have been less stealing in the South during
Reconstruction without negro suffrage but it is certainly highly
instructive to remember that the mark of the thief which dragged its
slime across nearly every great Northern state and almost up to the
Presidential chair could not certainly in those cases be charged
against the vote of black men. This was the day when a national
secretary of war was caught stealing, a Vice President presumably
took bribes, a private Secretary of the President, a chief clerk of the
Treasury and eighty-six government officials stole millions in the
whisky frauds, while the Credit Mobilier filched fifty millions and bribed
the government to an extent never revealed; not to mention less
distinguished thieves like Tweed.”[339]
Remember this is not a Southerner, black or white; but the most
cultured of Northern colored men, who so describes the conquering
East from which he sprang.
It is scarcely possible to state more comprehensively in less space
than that in which Dr. DuBois describes the effects of Congressional
Reconstruction:
“When incompetency gains political power in an extravagant age
the result is widespread dishonesty.”[340]
But he palliates this with the following:
“The dishonesty in the Reconstruction of the South was helped on
by three circumstances:
1. The former dishonesty of the political South.
2. The presence of many dishonest Northern politicians.
3. The temptation to Southern politicians at once to profit by the
dishonesty and to discredit Negro government.
4. The poverty of the negro.”[341]
He fails to furnish any authorized evidence of the first; but the
three last should be accepted as in some degree exculpatory of the
Negroes.
There is something almost pathetic in Dr. DuBois’s description of
the Negroes’ contribution to Reconstruction:
“Undoubtedly there were many ridiculous things connected with
Reconstruction governments: the placing of ignorant field hands who
could neither read nor write in the Legislature, the golden spitoons of
South Carolina, the enormous printing bill of Mississippi—all these
were extravagant and funny, and yet somehow to one who sees
beneath all that is bizarre, the real human tragedy of the upward
striving of down-trodden men, the groping for light among people born
in darkness, there is less tendency to laugh and gibe than among
shallower minds and easier consciences. All that is funny is not
bad.”[342]
And this he follows with what he means to be an indictment:
“—the greatest stigma on the white South is not that it opposed Negro
suffrage and resented theft and incompetence, but that when it saw
the reform movement growing and even in some cases triumphing,
and a larger & a larger number of black voters learning to vote for
honesty and ability, it still preferred a Reign of Terror to a campaign of
education, and disfranchised Negroes instead of punishing
rascals.”[343]
When we reflect that the Confederate generals, Wade Hampton,
Kershaw and McGowan, as has been shown, all supported the revolt
of Delany, Cain and William Hannibal Thomas, against Chamberlain
and R. B. Elliott in 1874 in South Carolina, and that in the columns of
“The Crisis,” today, Elliott is eulogized as a great representative of
the colored race; while no mention has ever appeared of those two
Northern Negroes who most conspicuously opposed the evils of
Reconstruction, Martin Delany and William Hannibal Thomas, we
can only acquit Dr. DuBois of insincerity on the ground of rank
carelessness and immovable prejudice.
The summing up of this very interesting defense of Reconstruction
and plea for the Negroes as lawmakers is unquestionably an able
presentation:
“Reconstruction constitutions practically unaltered were kept in:
Florida, 1868-1885 17 years
Virginia, 1870-1902 32 years
South Carolina, 1868-1895 27 years
Mississippi, 1868-1890 22 years
Even in the case of States like Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina
and Louisiana, which adopted new constitutions to signify the
overthrow of Negro rule, the new constitutions are nearer the model of
the Reconstruction document than they are to the previous
constitutions. They differ from the Negro Constitution in minor details,
but very little in general conception. Besides this there stands on the
statute books of the South today law after law passed between 1868
and 1876 and which has been found wise effective and worthy of
preservation. Paint the carpet bag governments and Negro rule as
black as may be, the fact remains that the essence of the revolution
which the overturning of the Negro Governments made was to put
these black men and their friends out of power. Outside of the
curtailing of expenses and stopping of extravagance, not only did their
successors make few changes in the work which these Legislatures
and Conventions had done, but they largely carried out their plans,
followed their suggestions, and strengthened their institutions.
Practically the whole new growth of the South has been accomplished
under laws which black men helped to frame thirty years ago. I know
of no greater compliment to Negro suffrage.”[344]

It would be idle to deny that these Reconstruction constitutions


were other than most effective.
William Hannibal Thomas, who might be fitly described as in
charge of the rear guard when the Negro government fell in South
Carolina and who has criticised the Black Codes even more severely
than Dr. DuBois, states:
“The Constitutions of the Reconstructed States were framed by
white men under the direction and with the approval of the best legal
intelligence of America.”[345]
They were framed to complete the conquest of the overthrown
States, Dr. Dodd puts it thus:
“The cause of the planters had gone down in irretrievable disaster.
For forty years they had contended with their rivals of the North, and
having staked all on the wager of battle they had lost. Just four years
before they had entered with unsurpassed zeal and enthusiasm upon
the gigantic task of winning their independence. They had made the
greatest fight in history up to that time. Lost the flower of their
manhood and wealth untold. They now renewed once and for all time
their allegiance to the Union, which had up to that time been an
experiment, a government of uncertain powers. More than three
hundred thousand lives and not less than four billions of dollars had
been sacrificed in the fight of the South. The planter culture, the semi-
feudalism of the ‘Old South’ was annihilated, while the industrial and
financial system of the East was triumphant. The cost to the North had
been six hundred thousand lives and an expense to the governments,
State and National, of at least five billion dollars. But the East was the
mistress of the United States, and the social and economic ideals of
that section were to be stamped permanently upon the country.”[346]
The war having ended in a complete conquest of the South and a
sentimental control of the vigorous West, expanded by the East as it
exploited the broken South; through the destruction of the codes and
the imposition of Congressional Reconstruction, the whites of the
South were welded into a new mass, cruder and tougher and not
unnaturally quite inimical to the Negro who had been made to rule
over them, until by revolutionary methods they had overthrown such.
That they, the Negroes, and the Western whites had all been
subjected to the control of the East as thoroughly as economic laws
could subject them to it, was not for decades appreciated in the
South or West.
Had Lincoln not been assassinated and had he remained true to
his Western ideals, he would have been broken on the wheel of
capitalism as relentlessly as was his great Southern successor, who
struck down Germany in her hour of triumph. But Lincoln was spared
that test and died without realizing the entire measure of his service
to the Union and the whites who inhabited it; for to him the Negroes
were a negligible quantity, despite all the phrases with which he
utilized them, in his purpose of preserving the Union. Indeed it was
not until the fountains of the great deep were broken in the World
War, that the inevitable consequences of emancipation forced
themselves upon public opinion, and, in this connection, a small
episode, of the above related meeting of the American Historical
Association in 1909, throws some light upon the state of mind of the
East at that date.
At the same meeting in which Dr. DuBois read his bold, elaborate
and interesting defense of Congressional Reconstruction, the author
of this study submitted, on request, a paper on the Negro question,
in accordance with the limitations, which, while accepted and edited
for publication by the Board, was not permitted publication in the
Report of the Historical Association, Mr. Charles D. Walcott having
the power to exclude it from such, and using the power. That the
skeleton piece of 1750 words was to some slight degree critical of
the East is not to be denied; but if the Eastern scholars rose above
their prejudices when presented with truth why could not the official?
The gist of the little paper when printed does not appear very
inflammatory.
“Says a distinguished Northern writer—‘The North is learning every
day by valuable experiences that there are vast differences in political
capacity between the races.’ Certainly nothing has afforded such an
opportunity for the North to acquire these valuable experiences day by
day, as the diffusion of the Negroes throughout the Union. Meanwhile
as the masses in the South are reduced the Negroes will not
constitute, to the degree they now do, the criminal class; their good
qualities must become more noticeable and their bad ones excite less
that intense or contemptuous regard, which has, in the minds of many
Southern men, made Negro and criminal almost synonymous terms.
The war made the Negro question a national question, and it is too
late to say—‘the man of the South must be trusted to work out this
(the evolution of the Negro race to higher conditions) in his own good
time’ and that ‘he is charged with the burden and must bear it.’ That is
a sectional attitude just to neither the Negro nor the white man of the
South. In time and with greatly reduced numbers of the Negroes about
him, the Southern white man may change the view, which inheritance
of ideas almost forces him to hold, viz., that the Negro is essentially
servile; but that is his sentiment today; and while, therefore, he may
be best fitted to rule him as such, he is not constituted to assist him in
the evolution to a higher condition. As they spread out, the Negroes
must come more and more in contact with all grades of our civilization
and from such draw the lessons best adapted to their own
development. The sentiment therefore, which would deny them this;
which would seek to confine the masses to the South, deciding for
them that it is their natural home and having but little sympathy for
them beyond the pale, is in my opinion, the greatest obstacle to their
advancement and, to some degree, a cause of moral deterioration of
the higher race.”[347]
But while Dr. DuBois and the author of this study, in response to
the invitation of Dr. Hart, before the historians of the United States
were discussing, each in his own way, a subject they thought of
some importance, it is of interest to consider what was occupying the
mind of the wisest and most neglected Negro in the United States, at
the same time. About the same date William Hannibal Thomas wrote
to the author of this study:
“It has long been my dream to see all the railroads under one
management. Therefore had I the influence and cooperation of others,
I would procure a charter from the Congress of the United States
creating a National Railway Company capitalized at fifteen billion of
dollars and empowered to issue bonds for a like amount. Five great
subdivisions would be created. All south of the Potomac river and east
of the Mississippi would constitute the Southern division. New
England the Eastern division. New York and the states north and east
of the Mississippi, would form the central division. Westward of that
great river there would be a northern and southern Pacific division.
Such in brief is the scheme I have in mind and, as an economical
factor in National uplift, I know of but one other thing that would
surpass it.”[348]
We might measure the scope of this Negro’s dream in the autumn
of 1909, by the following news item of April 17, 1923, which
apparently was only another dream:
“Legislation to make affective the plans being worked out by the
interstate commerce commission for consolidation and regional
supervision of the railroad systems of the country will be undertaken in
the next Congress, Chairman Cummins of the Senate Interstate
Commerce Committee said today, after a discussion of the railroad
problem with President Harding—‘I think consolidation for the railway
system as initiated in the transportation act is the only means of
gaining the efficiency that the country requires of the railroads,’ said
Senator Cummins. Moreover it seems to me to be the only method of
bringing down freight rates on commodities on which the rate must be
lowered.”[349]
Whatever difference of opinion may exist amongst railway experts
as to the merits of the legislation concerning railroads which the Iowa
senator has made his name synonymous with, few doubt his
knowledge. Yet he would seem to be just about fourteen years
behind the neglected Ohio Negro, whose opportunities were
restricted to two sessions of the South Carolina legislature in
Reconstruction days. Is there anything that has ever been resolved
with regard to railroads better calculated to serve the general public,
than that introduced by Thomas, when opposing the most brilliant of
the Carpet Baggers, Daniel H. Chamberlain, in 1874?—
“VIII. We hold that all franchises granted by the State should be
subservient to the public good; that charges for travel and freight
should be equitable and uniform and no unjust discrimination be made
between through and local travel.”[350]
Both conventions had to subscribe to that; but if it represented the
views of Daniel H. Chamberlain, the Reformers under Thomas and
others must be credited with some influence in turning him from his
earlier views on railroads, when he was the legal guardian of the
State.
Observe him, fresh from the East.
“Office of the Attorney General,
Columbia, S. C. January 5, 1870.
My dear Kimpton: Parker arrived last evening and spoke of the G. &
C. matter, etc. I told him I had just written you fully on that matter and
also about the old Bk. bills. Do you understand fully the plan of the G.
& C. enterprise? It is proposed to buy $350,000 worth of the G. & C.
Stock. This with $433,000 of stock held by the State, will give entire
control to us. The Laurens branch will be sold in February by decree
of court and will cost not more than $50,000 and probably not more
than $40,000. The Spartanburg and Union can also be got without
difficulty. We shall then have in G. & C. 168 miles, in Laurens, 31, and
in S. & U. 70 miles—in all 269 miles—equipped and running—put a
first mortgage of $20,000 a mile—sell the bonds at $85 or $90, and
the balance, after paying all outlays for cost and repairs, is immense,
over $2,000,000. There is a mint of money in this or I am a fool. Then
we will soon compel the S. C. R. R. to fall into our hands and
complete the connection to Asheville, N. C. There is an infinite verge
of expansion of power before us. Write me fully and tell me every
thing you want done. My last letter was very full. Harrison shall be
attended to at once. I don’t think Neagle will make any trouble. Parker
hates Neagle, and magnifies his intentions.
Yours truly,
D. H. Chamberlain”[351]

What a terrible indictment of the Negro intelligentsia is their utter


neglect of William Hannibal Thomas, the great Negro who could
think of something more than himself and his race, who wished to
serve humanity at large.

FOOTNOTES:
[324] DuBois, Reconstruction and Its Benefits Am. Hist. Rev.
Vol. IV, p. 781.
[325] Compendium Ninth Census U. S. p. 14.
[326] DuBois, Reconstruction and Its Benefits Am. Hist. Rev.
Vol. IV, p. 784.
[327] Ibid.
[328] Ibid.
[329] Statutes S. C. Vol. XIII, p. 279.
[330] Ibid. p. 298.
[331] Ibid.
[332] Ibid.
[333] Ibid. p. 296.
[334] Ibid. p. 297.
[335] Ibid. p. 277.
[336] Ibid. p. 299.
[337] Ibid.
[338] DuBois, Reconstruction and Its Benefits Am. Hist. Rev.
Vol. XIV. p. 782.
[339] Ibid. p. 790.
[340] Ibid.
[341] Ibid.
[342] Ibid. p. 791.
[343] Ibid. p. 793.
[344] Ibid. p. 799.
[345] Thomas, The American Negro, p. 307.
[346] Dodd, Expansion and Conflict p. 328.
[347] Paper, American Hist. Asso. 1909.
[348] Thomas, Letter to author, November 20, 1909.
[349] Charleston Evening Post, April 17, 1923.
[350] News and Courier, October 5, 1874.
[351] Allen, Gov. Chamberlain’s Administration, p. 143.
CHAPTER XIV

With the year 1914, the world entered a new era of thought, for the
effect upon civilization of that great convulsion which afflicted the
world in 1914 was felt far beyond the arenas upon which the World
War was fought. The conflict was on too gigantic a scale for it to be
grasped during its waging. It tested civilization to a supreme degree.
Loosely knit bonds, that in all reason should have parted under the
immense strain to which they were submitted, held all the tighter
under the tugs to which they were subjected. That portion of
humanity which had least to give, gave with a fullness beyond the
imagination of man. Nothing in all time has ever equalled the
volunteer movement of the men of Britain and her dominion states.
Conscription might have produced a more efficient army and less
weakened the State; but the great soldier and greater man, who in
the main fashioned the armies of Britain to the admiration of his
country’s foes, knew that, in that great hour, nothing could equal the
moral effect of that wonderful volunteer movement. Democracy was
put to the test and rang absolutely true.
So much happened before the United States flung her immense
force into the scale, that an infinitude of fact has passed from the
memory of men. Never in the history of the world was it more
thoroughly demonstrated, that “Order is (not) heaven’s first law.”
Democracy moved up to the sacrifice unfalteringly. Autocracy broke
under the strain and, in his own appointed time and in spite of all that
man proposed, God disposed of the event, in a way no one could
have dreamed of. But before the great Republic of the West
intervened, in many ways the United States was affected, and in
none more profoundly than by the migration of the Negroes from the
South and their diffusion throughout the country. The war between
the States and emancipation had made this diffusion only a question
of time and it had been progressing with a quickened and then a
retarded flow, during the decades previous to the Great War; but the
war’s great check on immigration from Europe speeded up the
movement. Lecturing at the University of Chicago in June, 1916, the
author of this study was struck with the nature of the reception
accorded the subject: “The Readjustment of the Negro to the Social
System of the Sixties,” in which the necessity for diffusion was
stressed.
Active from 1890 to 1900, later, the standard of living of the
Northern Negro had risen, and just as capital in the North and West
had forced out the English, German and Irish workmen and replaced
them with cheaper and inferior people; so too, the Northern Negro
could not live as cheaply as the Slav, Greek, Italian and Slovene.[352]
These in their turn, however, the World War had been sweeping
away, since the middle of 1914; and, while the sentimental regard for
the Negro’s advancement, which had been very broad and active a
generation earlier, had gradually become restricted to assisting in
fitting him for a residence in “his natural home, the South,” the need
for the brawn and sinew which he could supply, being felt in the
North and West, in obedience to its demand, the Negro, for a
consideration, was moving out of “his natural home”; for the
philanthropy of the North, the greatest in the world, as it draws its
supplies from, is to some degree, subservient to, the commercialism
of its section.
Almost contemporaneously with the lectures in the great Western
city, which is destined to be the center of Northern Negro opinion,
from the metropolis of the Union came an utterance of immense
importance from the most aggressive, intelligent and humane
publication, spreading out its influence from the center of American
and world finance.
As viewed by The New Republic, the situation in the summer of
1916 was thus stated:
“To the Northern Negro the war in Europe has been of immense and
unexpected advantage. It has shut out the immigrant who is the
Negro’s most dangerous competitor, has doubled the demand for the
Negro’s labor, raised his wages, and given chances to him, which in
the ordinary course would have gone to white men. If immigration still
lags after the war or is held down by law, the Negro will secure the
great opportunity for which he has been waiting these fifty years.... In
Southern cities, Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham, Richmond, Nashville,
Savannah, Charleston, Mobile, Negroes constitute one-third to one-
half the population and more than that proportion of the wage earners
and are given a chance to earn their living, because, without them, the
work of these cities could not be done. In the city of Philadelphia, on
the other hand, Negroes form only 5½ per cent of the population, in
Chicago only 2 per cent, in New York a little less than 2 per cent.... If
white men will not work with them, if the employer is forced to choose
between a large supply of white labor and a small supply of Negro
labor, he will choose the former.... The Negro gets a chance to work
only when there is no one else.... The wronged are always wrong and
so we blame the Negro. If we are fair, however, we must place the
responsibility of a social effect for those responsible for the cause. If
the Northern Negroes have a higher death rate and breed a larger
proportion of criminals and prostitutes than do the whites, it is in large
part our own fault. We cannot understand the problems of the Negro
in the North unless we constantly bear in mind the fact of industrial
opportunity. The Northern Negro has the right to vote, the right and
duty to send his children to school, and technically, at least, many civil
and political rights. We do not put him into Jim Crow cars or hold him
in prison camps for private exploitation. Nevertheless, the pressure
upon him is almost as painful, though not nearly so brutal or debasing,
as that upon the Southern Negro. The Northern Negro is urged to rise
but held down hard.... Immigration after the war seems likely to be
kept down at a low level during several years or possibly decades.... It
is the Negro’s chance, the first extensive widening of his industrial
field since emancipation.”[353]
The fact that this very able statement is not entirely exact in all its
details takes very little from the value of the presentation of it. As has
been disclosed by Mr. Warne, in his, “Immigrant Invasion,” the Negro
had quite a chance until the decade 1900-1910. That he did not
improve it as fully as he might have done was due; first, to his
ignorance; second, to his retention for quite a while of servile
instincts; third, to the determination, on the part of a very
considerable and influential portion of the Northern and Western
public, that the Negro must be kept out of the North and West; and of
the controlling portion of the Southern public, assisted by the
Republican Supreme Court of the United States, that he should be
kept, as near to the condition of a serf of the soil in the South, as he
could be by those so restraining him, keeping themselves,
meanwhile, on the windy side of the law; fourth, to an active,
continuous, well financed propaganda, led by the most influential
member of the race, that he should cling to the South.
Against such forces what could be affected by the few Southern
white men, Carlyle McKinley, Wade Hampton, and M. C. Butler, as
early as 1889, preaching “Diffusion”?
North and South, in the main for purely selfish reasons, the force
of the country was against diffusion of the Negro and for banking him
in the South, where he had been so long a slave. For such a paper,
therefore, as The New Republic, to advocate diffusion was a matter
of the very first importance.
Continuing the discussion in its issue of July 1, 1916. The New
Republic declared:
“For the nation as a whole, such a gradual dissemination of the
Negro among all the States would ultimately be of real advantage. If at
the end of half a century, only 50 per cent or 60 per cent instead of 89
per cent of the Negroes were congregated in the Southern States, it
would end the fear of race domination, and take from the South many
of its peculiar characteristics, which today hamper development. To
the Negro it would be of even more obvious benefit.... For if the
Southern Negro finding political and social conditions intolerable, were
to migrate to the North, he would have in his hand a weapon as
effective, as any he could find, in the ballot box.... Against the
opposition of the preponderant white population, the Southern Negro
has few defenses. He has no vote, he has no wealth; and as for the
protection of the law, that is a sword held by the white man with the
edge towards the Negro. He cannot better his condition by political
action or armed revolt. His one defense is to move away.”[354]

Weighing duly what is urged above, without necessarily accepting


all of it as accurate, is it not apparent, that, for a Southern white man
to argue that the Negroes should remain in the South, in the masses
in which they now exist there, is an indication that he refuses to
consider anything as beneficial, which affects industrial conditions he
has become accustomed to? For the Negro so to think is simply the
survival of the servile instinct, which the bulk of the Southern whites
claim is latent in all Negroes.
To stress the matter a little further, the view of a Southern and a
Northern Negro will be submitted and contrasted.
The first is the view of a colored man, Rev. Richard Carroll, who, in
1890, had attracted the attention of George William Curtis, as has
been before mentioned, by his bold and original utterance, that
Tillman had made the whites as well as the Negroes readers and
thinkers. Some eight years later this colored man had served as the
chaplain of a colored regiment in Cuba. Later he had occupied
himself with a colored school near Columbia, South Carolina, and, to
some extent, had become, to the press of the State of South
Carolina, the type of the good Negro, who agrees with the best of the
whites. That is the distinct ear mark of the “Good Negro.”
Describing the departure of the Negroes from South Carolina in
1916, he states that:
“Hon. H. C. Tillman, son of Senator B. R. Tillman, told me that in the
crowd were one or two of the farm hands that had signed contracts to
work next year, but that he would not interfere with them.”
Next he describes the tearful, melodramatic appeal of a Georgia
divine, entreating the Negroes not to leave the South:
“We have not treated you right; we are going to do better. Let us,
white and colored unite to solve the race question on Southern soil.
We are in debt to you colored people. First of all we owe you the
Gospel; then we owe you protection before the law. There will be no
more outrages when we take up this problem, as we should, and
solve it by the Gospel.”
Having shown the patriotic unselfishness of Captain Tillman and
quoted the wail of the Georgia divine, the colored educator proceeds
to state his own view:
“This is the country for the black man; the white people of the South
should offer the proper inducements and protection before the law to
keep the colored people in the Southland.... It may be as many of our
colored people say: ‘God is in this movement.’ But I believe that if the
colored people of the South had worked together for the last fifty years
for the good of each race and at the same time each race in its place,
we would have had better conditions; in the South—no lynchings, no
cause for lynchings. If the best people in the South had kept it in the
hands of the Gen. Wade Hampton type, this would have been the
greatest country on earth.”
Just about fifty years before Carroll’s utterance, people in the
South, to some degree answering to Carroll’s description of the
Hampton type, framed the Black Codes, as they thought, “for the
good of each race, and at the same time each race in its place.” But,
after Reconstruction, Wade Hampton thought diffusion of the Negro
was the only remedy.
After detailing cases, where he claimed to know that Negro men of
property had been ordered out of the State simply because they
owned property and were prosperous, Carroll states that when they
came to him for advice, he advised them to—
“try to get to some other white men in the county or community, as
there are plenty of white men in South Carolina, who would give
justice and protection.”[355]
The Black Codes made this obligatory on all masters for their
servants. The framers of the codes were raised in the school of
politics which Rhett, in 1850, announced the basic principle of, as
follows:
“Where there is but one race in a community there may be political
equality in rights—but this cannot give equality in mind, character and
condition. Servitude still prevails in one form or another, from a
necessity as stern as the laws. But when the races are different and
one race is inferior to the other, the inferior race must be exterminated
or fall into such a state of subjection as to present motives for their
preservation to the stronger race.”[356]
Residence in the South, a considerable time after maturity, had
therefore apparently lessened the independence of this colored man.
He had come, not unnaturally, to prefer security to independence.
But, in the same year and about the same time, there appeared in
the same paper a temperately worded article from the pen of another
Negro, also a minister, R. R. Wright, Jr., residing in Philadelphia, who
had been employed at various times by the United States Bureau of
Labor and the University of Pennsylvania.
He had also, at an earlier date, published an essay on the Negro
Problem, which treats the subject as a scientific investigation, in
which all temper and feeling is out of place. With regard to the
movement of the Negroes he declared there had been at least four
different migrations of the Negroes from the South to the North since
the war between the States, and estimating in 1916 that there were
then, in that section, usually called the North but embracing a
considerable portion of the West, he thought, of the 1,600,000
Negroes there, three fourths had been born in the South. With
regard to the number of Negroes in the North at that date this
estimate was above what the Census of 1920 disclosed; for by it, the
date 1910, there were only 1,059,000 Negroes in the North and
West and therefore, even if they had increased by 1916 to
1,600,000, three fourths of these could not have been from the
South, even if the total addition of 541,000 had come from that
section, as of the 1,059,000 in 1910, only forty per cent were from
the South;[357] but whether 40%, 50% or 75% were from the South,
Wright believed 80% of those who had moved up would stay,
because he was confident, the most efficient could compete with the
Slavs and Italians in rough work. Indeed he claimed it was no
uncommon thing to see a Negro foreman over groups of Italians in
Pennsylvania. Having seen the same thing practically as to Negroes
and Spaniards, during the World War the writer can believe this.
Higher wages and better educational facilities also Wright claimed
would draw the Negro, North and West, and finally he cited what is in
his opinion the most powerful inducement, for the Negro to move in
increasing numbers from the South to the North:
“The opportunity to vote will also tend to hold them. Politicians are
encouraging Negroes to remain; as they are very generally
Republican. Northern Negroes are encouraging them to stay because
it gives them more power; and after the Negro casts his vote and
takes part in political meetings, he is just like the naturalized foreigner
—he likes it and stays. Of course the white people rule, because
superior intelligence and wealth always rule. But the black man enjoys
being a part of the Government and being called upon every year to
have his “say”.... While there is no more social equality in the North
than there is in the South, and practically no desire for the same, the
longer the Negro lives there, the opportunities to enjoy himself
according to his means appeal to him. He earns more money, can live
in a better house, buy better clothes, develops more
accomplishments, has more leisure and has more protection in his
enjoyment. Personally, I think it is good both for the Negroes and for
the whites that a million or two million Negroes leave the South. It will
make room for a large number of foreigners to come to the South and
will tend to divorce the South’s labor problem more widely from its
race problem, and will give it a new perspective. It will also rob the
South of the fear of ‘Negro domination’ and will give it a chance to
give a better expression to our democratic principles. On the other
hand the scattering the Negroes throughout the country will bring
them in touch with the forces of organized labor in a way to bring them
better protection, while it will also acquaint the North with the Negro in
such a way as to give it a more intelligent grasp of our general
problem of racial relations.”[358]
Meanwhile with views for and views against, shouted to them,
from all sides, the Negroes moved up from the South to the North
and West and to the great centers of industry, to supply the place of
immigrants and soldiers passed and passing to Europe for the great
war.
To the reading Negro, wherever he was, North or South in this
year just before the entrance of the great Republic into the greatest
war of all time, came “The New Negro, His Political and Civil Status
and Related Essays,” by William Pickens, Lit. D. Easily
comprehended, popularly composed, they opened with the usual
attack upon the black laws of the South in the sixties, the author
especially singling out the code of South Carolina for criticism. Of
them generally he says:
“From the standpoint of the Negro’s interests, however, these laws
were ‘black’, not only in name and aim, but in their very nature.
Instead of being the property of a personally interested master, the
Negro was to be converted into the slave of a much less sympathetic
society in general.”[359]
But strange to say this critic, in 1916, actually proclaims that—
“One of the greatest handicaps under which the New Negro lives is
the handicap of the lack of acquaintanceship between him and his
white neighbor. Under the former order, when practically all Negroes
were either slaves or servants, every Negro had the acquaintance of
some white man; as a race he was better known, better understood
and was, therefore, the object of less suspicion on the part of the
white community.”[360]
If this was a handicap in 1916, what must it have been in 1865?
Forty one years before this Negro scholar discovered the handicap,
the South, in attempting to readjust itself to the consequences of
defeat and the overthrow of its industrial system, had legislated to
preserve that acquaintanceship by a system of apprenticeship, which
if it was calculated to work out the problem very slowly; yet was
calculated to produce something superior even to the free persons of
color that slavery had evolved, a worthy product which no Negro or
Northern scholar has ever had the patience to think about. Little as
the author of this study knows about the free persons of color whom
the South reared; yet it is not fair to accuse them of what Pickens is
absolutely justified in stating with regard to the mass of Southern
colored citizens who were the product of Congressional
Reconstruction. Pickens indeed is refreshingly frank in this respect
and so much so that the Negroes will avoid his book. It will not be
found advertised in any list of the National Association for the
Advancement of the Colored Race. He is dangerously near William
Hannibal Thomas in the following:
“Till this day the Negro is seldom frank to the white man in America.
He says what he does not mean; he means what he does not say. I
have heard Negro speakers address mixed audiences of white and
colored persons and both white and black go away rejoicing, each
side thinking that the speaker had spoken their opinions, altho the
opinions of the blacks were very different from those of the whites,
even contradictory. This is one reason for the great misconception in
the white race respecting the desires, ambitions and sentiments of the
black.”[361]
But in the year which followed that in which Pickens’s book was
published the United States entered the World War.
Before discussing the effect of that great adventure upon the
Negro minority of one-tenth of the population of the United States,
the force which swung the whole should have some slight
consideration, and from the pen of a political opponent, the editor of
the greatest Republican paper of the West this is pictured as follows:
“Our chief admiration for Mr. Wilson is for the manner in which he
drove the war activities once we were committed. That determination
was evolved from his character. He used conscription. He furnished
the Allies with what they needed—men, money and materials in the
amounts needed. Weakness at this time might have ruined us. A man
less determined to have his own way, less impervious to what was
said of him, might have flinched at conscripting soldiers. He might
have tried to fight the war with volunteers. He might even have tried to
fight it with money and materials. He might have tried to spare the
nation human sacrifices or to limit the expenditure of human life. Then
we should have entered a losing war and have been among the
losers, just in time to be in the wreckage. Conscription was his big
decision and whether he realized it or not was his most dangerous
one. Hughes might have had serious draft riots. From Wilson the
people took the draft with hardly a murmur, and the war was won right
then. The President did not allow the people to draw back from a drop
in the cup. He took their money. He spent it without a thought for the
waste of it. There had to be waste. He put the United States behind
the Allies with a promise of the last man and the last dollar. It required
courage, intelligence and character; and all the ruggedness and
wilfulness of Mr. Wilson’s temperament served the country as it
needed to be served. Those were the high moments of his career. He
sent 2,000,000 men to France before the astonished Germans
thought that it was possible to do so. He had 2,000,000 in America
training camps and more were being drafted. Then also from the
White House came the thunders of rhetoric which stupefied the
German people behind their armies and disintegrated them in the rear
of their fighting forces. As American divisions put the pressure on
German divisions, Mr. Wilson’s words destroyed the morale of the
German people who had been steadfast; and the war was won.”[362]
But he did more, a Southerner, conscious of the deep prejudices
of his own section and against the protests of many State officials,
he determined that a certain proportion of colored men should have
training as officers; nor did he permit this military training to be
stopped even after the Houston riot, when for the second time Negro
soldiery shot up a Southern city. Those who were guilty were court
martialed promptly; but to the surprise of not a few of the Negro
aspirants for office, the training of Negro officers proceeded. Again
not quoting from a friend; but taking a Negro’s statement we note:

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