Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Week 7 Session 11
(120 minutes)
Resource: LN and PPT Week 6, 7 Session 10, 11
John Muir
John Muir (1838-1914), a Scottish immigrant to the United States, is today recognized
for his vital contributions in the area of environmental protection and conservation of the
wilderness. As such, he is often referred to as the unofficial “Father of National Parks.”
Muir came to his role as environmentalist in a rather circuitous way. Born in Dunbar,
Scotland, Muir came to the United States with his family at the age of eleven. The family settled
on a Wisconsin farm, where Muir was educated at home rather than in public school because his
father felt that participation in a education in a public school would violate his strict religious
code. Young Muir did read considerably at home and also developed some interesting
mechanical devices by whittling them from wood; when some of his inventions were put on
display at a state fair, they were noted by officials from the University of Wisconsin, and Muir
was invited to attend the university in spite of his lack of formal education. He left the university
after two and a half years; later, while working in a carriage factory, he suffered an injury to his
eye. His vision did recover, but following the accident he decided that he wanted spend his life
studying the beauty of the natural world rather than endangering his health working in a factory.
He set out on a 1,000-mile walk south to the Gulf of Mexico, and from there he made his way to
Yosemite, California, lured by a travel brochure highlighting the natural beauty of Yosemite.
He arrived in California in 1868, at the age of thirty, and once there, he took a number of
odd jobs to support himself, working as a laborer, a sheepherder, and—after he had become
familiar with the wilderness area—a guide. He also began a writing campaign to encourage
public support for the preservation of the wilderness, particularly the area around Yosemite. He
married in 1880, and for the years that followed he was more involved in family life and in
running the rach given to him and his wife by her parents than in preservation of the
environment.
He had been away from the environmentalist movement for some time when, in 1889, he
was asked by an editor of the magazine The Century to write some articles in support of the
preservation of Yosemite. The editor, well aware of Muir’s talent as a writer and his efforts in the
1870s to support the conservation of Yosemite, took Muir camping to areas of Yosemite that
Muir had not seen for years, areas that had been spoiled through uncontrolled development.
Because of the experience of this trip, Muir agreed to write two articles in support of the
institution of a National Parks system in the United States with Yosemite as the first park to be
designated. These two articles in The Century initiated the Yosemite National Park campaign.
The campaign was indeed successful. The law creating Yosemite National Park was
enacted in 1890, and three additional national parks were created soon after. A year later, a bill
known as the Enabling Act was passed; this was a bill that gave U.S. presidents the right to
reserve lands for preservation by the U.S. government. Pleased by this success but keenly aware
Questions
1. According to paragraph 1, Muir was born
A. In the first half of the eighteenth century
B. In the second half ot the eighteenth century
C. In the first half of the nineteenth century
D. In the second half of the nineteenth century
5. According to paragraph 2, after Muir left the university, it is NOT true that he
A. Took a job in a factory
B. Suffered an unhealable injury
C. Made a decision to quit his job
D. Embarked on a long walking tour
11. According to paragraph 5, it is NOT true that the Sierra Club was founded
A. After the passage of the Enabling Act
B. By John Muir
C. Before the turn of the century
D. To move Yosemite to the Sierra Nevada
12. It is mentioned in paragraph 6 that, for the last decades of his life, Muir
A. Spent a considerable amount of time in Yosemite
B. Wrote a number of new laws
C. Changed his mind on the need for environmental protection
D. Devoted himself to increasing public awareness of the environment
Study the passage and choose the best answers to the questions that follow.
Ella Deloria
It was not until her posthumous novel Waterlily was published in 1988 that Ella C.
Deloria became known for her literary ability in addition to her already-established reputation in
the academic arena of linguistics and ethnology. During her lifetime, she was recognized for the
linguistic ability and cultural sensitivity that went into the production of a collection of
traditional short stories entitled Dakota Text (1932). After her death, her versions of a number of
longer traditional stories and the novel Waterlily were published; with the publication of
Waterlily came the recognition of her true literary ability and the awareness that it was the
strength of her literary ability, in addition to her linguistic expertise and her deep cultural
understanding, that had made her versions of traditional stories so compelling.
Ella Cara Deloria was born into a Nakota-speaking familiy in 1889; however, she grew
up among the Lakota people in North Dakota, where her father was a leader in the Episcopal
Church. Her father, the son of a traditional Nakkota medicine man, valued both the cultural
traditions of his family and those of the country of this citizenship. As a result, Deloria primarily
spoke Nakota at home and Lakota when she was out in the community, and she was well versed
there in the cultural traditions of her Sioux ancestors (with a complex kinship, structure in
which all of a child’s father’s brothers, and all of the children of all these mothers and
fathers are considered siblings). Her education, however, was in English, at the Episcopalian
Saint Elizabeth Mission School and the All Saints School. After high school, she attended
Oberlin College in Ohio for one year, and then she transferred to Columbia University to study
linguistics under Franz Boas, the founder of American Indian linguistics.
After graduating from Columbia, she was encouraged by Boas to collect and record
traditional Lakota stories. She was in a unique position to take on this task because of her fluency
in the Lakota language as well as in English, her understanding from childhood of the
complexities and subtleties of Lakota culture, and her linguistic training from Columbia. The
result of her research was the Dakota Texts, a bilingual collection of 64 short stories. To create
this remarkable work, Deloria was able to elicit stories from venerable Sioux elders, without
need for translators and with an awareness of appropriately respectful behavior. She listened
to the stories as numerous generations had before her, and then, unlike previous generations,
recorded them in writing—initially in Lakota and later in English. She transcribed them
GLOSSARY
The Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota are related groups of people that are part of the Sioux nation.
Questions
1. It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that, while she was alive, Ella Deloria
A. Did little to make use of her education in linguistics
B. Achieved acclaim more for her transcriptions than for her novel
C. Was the published author of a number of types of fiction and nonfiction
D. Was recognized for the literary maturity of her novel
4. What does the author begin paragraph 3 with After graduating from Columbia?
A. To indicate that paragraph 3 follows paragraph 2 in chronological order
B. To clarify that paragraph 3 describes Deloria’s education at Columbia
C. To recognize the importance of education throughout Deloria’s life
D. To demonstrate that paragraph 3 provides examples of a concept presented in paragraph 2
7. It can be inferred from paragraph 4 that “Iron Hawk: Oglala Culture Hero” was published
A. In the same year that it was written
B. Just prior to Deloria’s death
C. Long after it was transcribed
D. Long before Waterlily was published
10. Why does the author mention the untimely death of her husband in a smallpox epidemic
in paragraph 5?
A. It provides a harsh example of Waterlily’s difficult life.
B. It provides evidence of the historical existence of Waterlily.
I do kind of people that work for money. However, some people prefer to be self-
employed and others prefer to work for an employer. Each of the choices has its own positive
and negative things, but in my personal opinion, I prefer to be an self-employed, since it has the
biggest risk I guest and even I never done yet but I have a dreams that I can run my own
business.
My mother have decided to be self-employed. she prefer to do that because she do not
like to be regulated by any procedures, or being governed by under companies' regulation. My
mom told. Me that self-employed have many benefits. First of all, one knows the more she works
the more she gets. Another important reason of being self-employed is independence. One does
not have to report to anyone except her self. However, in addition to these practical benefits, one
gets more responsibilities to take care of. I think that be self-employed is not as easy as it may
seem. My mom is such self-confident, strong and patient. As a self-employed person, there is no
guarantee that they will get a sustainable income she said, as they are paid in accordance with
Employee has the lowest risk ever. They will have steady income through their monthly
salaries, despite that their companies might be performing poorly. And then they would have
additional benefits from the company such as medical allowance, annual leaves and company
cars as well. Lastly, companies are also paying the retirement fund for their employees as well.
People have different options about work. Some people choose to open their own
business, while others prefer to be self-employed. I personally prefer to be a self-employed,
however it takes all my time to maintance my own business but I think about flexible working
hours. I will ejoy it because I have a free soul.
Thank you