Activity 1: Reading Fluency

1. Before you do anything, read the whole paper thoroughly as quickly as

possible.
2. Write your name at the top-left corner of this page.
3. Write your surname at the bottom right corner of this page.
4. At the top right-corner of this page, write the name of the district where you
were born.
5. What do you want to be in future (yes, your aim)? _________________
6. Place a tick on what you know.
a) Singing

b) dancing

c) both

d) none

7. What is the latest movie you have watched? ____________________

8. Which is your favorite colour? _____________
9. Which flower do you like most? ______________
10. In which district are you now?________________
11. Write your mothers name at the right margin.
12. Place a circle around the title of this reading test sheet.
13. Who is your best friend? Just write his/her first name. ___________
15. Put a box around the word written at the end of this page.
16. Which animals picture is there in a 500 Rs note? ______________
17. What is the headquarters of your home district? _______________
18. What is the opposite (gender) of cow? _____________
19. How many instructions are here in this questionnaire? ____________
20. Thanks a lot for following all the instructions sincerely.

Now read the instructions in question no. 1, and give answer to the instructions
2, 12 and 14 only and sit quietly. Dont show your paper to anyone else. Just
look at other people what they are doing.
Thank You!

6. My Heart Leaps up When I Behold

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William Wordsworth

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold is a beautiful poem composed by a

famous English romantic poet William Wordsworth. The poet is a great lover
of nature as well as true worshiper of God and nature. In this poem, the poet
recollects (remembers) the experiences of his childhood days and gives his
emotion and feeling a meaning that he wants continuity of life and nature.
The poet says that his heart leaps up when he sees a rainbow in the sky. It
was the beginning of his life, and now hes well grown up. He knows that he
will grow old and finally die, too. As the child (past) is father (future) of the
man (present), the poet wishes his days to be bound to each period (past,
present and future) by natural piety, that is, natural blessing of divinely
power.
The seventh line is basically the main theme of the poem. The widely
accepted proverb, The Child is the Father of Man has to tell us a lot. He
says that present is the outcome of the past and future will be the outcome
of the present. In this way the poet shows that time and nature are ongoing
phenomena of the universe. If there is any break in this continuation, the
poet wants to die.
The poet presents his main idea of the poem through the paradoxical line
The Child (past) is the father (present) of man (future). The poet means to
say that human life begins from childhood. A man cant be a father without
being a child. According to the poet, father means from whom the creation of
new generation takes place. It is the child from whom the manhood begins.
Thus, the child is really the father of man. Yesterdays child is todays man
(father) and todays child is tomorrows father.
Checking Up
Explain the paradox in The Child is Father of the Man.

The statement The child is father of the man is a paradox. A paradox is a

statement that seems to be absurd or contradictory but is or may be true.
Generally we think the man is father of the child because father is the source
from which something originates. We know that the role of a man is
instrumental behind the birth of the child. A child can never produce a man,
therefore the statement; the child is the father of the man is paradoxical.
The poet says the child is father of the man. A child passes through
adulthood and old age. He gets married and gives birth to his own children.
So the child is called father of the man. To look from the time frame, present
is the outcome of past and consequently, future is the outcome of present.
Similarly, yesterdays child is todays man and todays child is tomorrows
man. Here the word father means one from whom something originates.
In another sense, William Wordsworth, in this statement wants to say that
even the child can give birth to something. The child is closely associated
with nature who can be the source of inspiration to give birth to literature,
philosophy, etc.
Write in one sentence what the poem is about.
The poem is about the joy the poet feels at the sight of a rainbow which has
been source of his ecstasy since his childhood and will continue to be so till
his old age.
Why does the heart of the poet leap up when he sees a rainbow in
the sky?
The poet is identified as a nature loving poet. He enjoys the nature and
natural things. In true sense, the poet was the worshipper of the nature. He
enjoys the scenic beauty of nature. He saw the same rainbow when he was a
child. It is the same at present as in the past. It will remain the same but the
poet will die soon. The rainbow has been the source of his ecstasy since his
childhood and will continue to be so till his old age. So, his heart leaps up
with joy when he sees a rainbow in the sky.
What does the poet mean by natural piety?
Piety here means deep respect for nature. Nature is his God and religion. So,
for him, nature is of great importance. He says that nature has a great power
to attract somebody. He cannot imagine life without nature. His wish of the
devotion to the god is the devotion to the nature because he is really
inspired and delighted by the beautiful scenes of the nature. So there is a
never-ending relationship between life and nature.

1. The Grandmother
-

Ray Young Bear (1950)

The poem The Grandmother, is composed by a modern American Indian

poet Ray Young Bear. He was born in the Mesquaki tribe. The poem can be
read both literally and metaphorically. Literally, he draws a picture of his allloving and all-inspiring grandmother, and metaphorically, he tries to reflect
upon the vanished communities of Native American tribes in general and the
Mesquaki tribe in particular.
Ray Young Bear, draws a realistic picture of his grandmother, all-loving, allinspiring, and remembers the remarkable shape, movement, voice and
activities of his grandmother. He shows deep love towards her. Though his
grandmother is no longer in this world, the images of her wearing a purple
scarf round her head and holding a plastic shopping bag in her hand often
comes to his mind.
According to the poet, if he saw his grandmother shape from a distance, he
would recognize her wearing a purple scarf round her head and carrying a
plastic shopping bag in her hand. If he felt her hands on his head, he would
easily identify her warm and damp hands. Moreover, he could smell the roots
coming from her laborious and lovely hands. He would also recognize her
voice coming from her grave because the voice would be the source of
inspiration for him. The voice would flow inside him just like the flickers at
night.
Here, the poet says that the memory of his grandmother takes him back to
his childhood when they shivered (trembled) with cold at night and his
grandmother would move the fire from the thick ashes to create warmth.
Though the poets grandmother left him many years before, her images,
voice, love, inspiration and memory are still fresh in the mind and heart of
the poet.
Checking Up
What are the four things that Ray Young Bear remembers about his
grandmother?
The four things that Ray Young Bear remembers about his grandmother are
her shape, her purple scarf, warm and damp hands and her inspiring voice.

What images do you find in this poem written by a member of the

Sauk and Fox (Mesquaki) Indian tribe of North America? To what
senses do these images appeal?
The imagery used in the poem has created a visual picture of a grandmother.
It sketches a picture of a laborious old woman who goes to market herself.
The poet has used many images to discover two intertwined themes recollection of his grandmother at one level and search for identity at
another level. In this poem, different images appeal to different senses. The
images like 'purple scarf', 'plastic shopping bag', 'sleeping fire ' appeal to the
readers sense of sight. Similarly, the images like 'smell of root' appeal to the
readers sense of smell. Warm and damp hands appeal to our sense of
touch. The voice coming from the rock and her words appeal to our sense
of sound/hearing. All of these images found in the poem present a real and
clear picture of his grandmother and symbolically link the lost and changed
culture of the American Indian tribe.
How does the speaker feel towards his grandmother? In what words
or lines does he make his feelings clear?
The speaker has a positive feeling towards his grandmother. He finds his
grandmother all-loving, and all-inspiring. He deeply loves and respects her.
The lines that make clear his feelings to her are: Id know so quickly that it
would be her, Id know that those were her hands and Id know her
words would flow inside me like the light. The speaker wants to follow every
activity of her because it gives him the right path of true love.