READING ACTIVITIES

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 615.

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

1. In small groups discuss what can possibly be called “sport for fun” and “sport for challenge”. What are the pluses and minuses of both?

2.What kind of sport appeals to you? Why?

3. Discuss the problem of chances and opportunity in sport and in life. Are they similar in nature? Can one have a second chance in sport (or in life)?

4. Read the first part of the story and pay special attention to the way the author depicts the major character's mood. What does the character's phrase “I didn't even try” imply?

Sara lay in the bow of the raft and stared into the blue-green water. Tomorrow we'll be at the car, she thought. The river trip will be over, and school starts in a week. Junior high. She sighed.

"The map shows calm water from here on out," her dad said. His voice sounded loud in the stillness. Sara sat up and ran her hand through her short blond hair, mak­ing it stand up in spikes above her green eyes. "You mean the rapid we just did, the one called House Rock, was the last white water on the river?" Her dad nodded.

Sara's stomach sank. Now I have to tell everyone I just rode in the raft the whole trip, she thought. All I talked about last year was kayaking on the big Salmon River in the Idaho wilderness. What a joke! Sara heard a splash and turned to see her older brother, Mick, pad­dling his orange kayak toward her. He had a big grin on his face, and his nose was smeared with white sun lotion.

"Hey, Sara," he called. "Hop in your kayak. That last rapid was great."

Sara stared at her hands clenched in her lap.

"Just 'cause that wave knocked you over on the first day is no rea­son to wimp out totally," Mick said.

"I'm not a wimp." She felt her throat tighten. "If you had almost drowned the first day, you wouldn't want to kayak either."

"You didn't almost drown. You were in the water about two min­utes before Dad pulled you into the raft."

"That's enough," their dad inter­rupted. "Sara doesn't have to kayak if she doesn't want to." Mick threw himself to one side, and his kayak flipped. His body disappeared beneath the water. He brought his paddle to the surface and swept it toward the rear of his boat in a wide arc. He instantly rolled back up, completing an Es­kimo Roll. "See you later, chicken," he called and paddled away.

Sara leaned against one of the wooden food boxes near the bow of the raft. I'm not chicken, she thought. But she closed her eyes and remembered the wave crash­ing down on her, knocking her into the cold water. I didn't try to do an Eskimo Roll, she thought. I just came out of my boat right away. I didn't even try.

5.Go on reading. Comment on Sara's actions.

"Dad," she said, opening her eyes, "head toward shore. I want to kayak."

With trembling fingers she put on her life jacket, snapped her helmet strap under her chin, and paddled away from shore. Her hands were sweaty where they gripped the paddle. I feel like I could tip over any second, she thought. But she kept paddling, and as she glided by the low brown-gold cliffs, her arms began to relax. She heard a canyon wren sing suddenly, shrilly, and then heard a faint sound like wind in the trees. She stopped paddling, listening. She could see Mick in the distance. The white blades of his paddle flashed in the sunlight.

Suddenly, Mick turned his boat upstream and lifted his paddle over his head. "Sara, Sara," he yelled. He raised and lowered his paddle three times.

That means rapid ahead. Sara frowned. But Dad said there weren't any rapids, she thought. Mick's just trying to scare me. He's trying to make me go to shore so he can call me a chicken again.

Sara felt the current becoming faster, stronger. Mick began pad­dling hard upstream, heading for shore. The faint sound she had first heard had grown into a deep thrumming. Sara glanced nervously toward the distant shore. Downstream, the river disappeared as though it just dropped off the end of the world.

"Rapid!" she heard her dad call. She looked back upstream and saw him standing in the raft waving. Sara gulped. It's a rapid, a real one, she thought, and her stomach turned upside down.

Again Mick waved his paddle overhead. "Go back!" he yelled and suddenly lost his balance. His kayak flipped. "Roll back up," Sara pleaded. "Roll back up." Every muscle in her body was screaming to paddle for shore, but she had to see if Mick was O.K. Mick surfaced a few feet from his boat, swimming. Below him, Sara could see white water shooting into the air. He disappeared.

"Mick!" Sara screamed and started after him into the rapid.

6.Read the story to the end. Do you think it's predictable? What your own version of the ending might have been?

There were rocks to her right and left, but straight ahead was a clear channel of smooth water. She aimed for it. White water cascaded over a two-foot ledge, crashing into a pool of boiling foam. A towering wave at the bottom curled toward her. Sara shot over the ledge, fell through the air, and smacked into the wave. It hit like a cold fist, but she kept paddling and burst through into the calm water below.

She saw Mick swimming down­stream. Quickly, she closed the gap between them. "Grab my boat," she yelled. Mick reached for the rope tied to the bow of her kayak. Just as his fingers touched the loop, her kayak slammed into a rock just be­neath the surface. Over she went into the cold water. I've got to roll, she thought, and she swept her paddle back, snapped her hips, and rolled up into the sunlight.

Mick grabbed hold of the rope, and Sara dragged him through the water toward a calm pool where his kayak floated. She stubbed the nose of her kayak on the sandy beach and climbed out. Mick staggered onto shore.

Their dad rowed toward shore with a worried frown on his face. He jumped out of the raft as it hit the beach and hugged them both. "Are you all right?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Yeah," Mick mumbled.

Sara could feel Mick trembling next to her. He wouldn't have flipped if he hadn't tried to warn me, she thought. And I didn't even believe him.

"Let's get some dry clothes on you, Mick," their dad said and walked toward the raft.

"I'm sorry, Mick," Sara said.

"I'm sorry I didn't go right to shore. I thought you were just trying to scare me."

"Sorry? If it hadn't been for you, I'd still be swimming."

"I saw the rescue," their dad said, walking back from the raft with Mick's clothes. "Great job, Sara!"

Sara felt a warm glow spread through her. "What rapid was that anyway?" she asked. "You said there weren't any."

"It looks like a new one," her dad said, pointing across the river. The opposite bank was bare where rocks, mud, and trees had slid into the river, creating a rapid. "Caused by a rock slide. It sure isn't on the map."

"You mean it doesn't have a name?" Sara asked. "I was hoping it had a really neat name like Devil's Hole or something."

Mick looked at Sara with a tired smile. "I think we should call it Sara's Rapid. She's probably the first person who ever kayaked it."

"O.K. by me," Sara said and lay back on the warm beach, locking her hands behind her head. "I suppose the rest of the trip will be pretty boring."

Mick and her dad burst out laughing. Sara grinned, feeling strong.