Ex.1. Listen to a conversation about the national anthem of the USA. Answer the questions below.
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 480.
LISTENING AND WRITING
Ex.9. Divide the group in two teams. Have a debate on the role played by the USA in present-day world politics.
1. What events inspired the writing of the words of the anthem?
2. Who was the author of the words?
3. What did he do before the war with Britain broke out?
4. How did Key come in contact with the British army?
5. Why did he have to stay on his ship and watch the British attack?
6. Was he really inspired by what he saw on September 13, 1814?
7. When did they make the song the US national anthem?
8. What can we see at Fort McHenry today?
Text for listening comprehension
Everybody knows the famous lines, “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?” These are the first lines of the American national anthem. Do you know how it came into existence? Well, according to historians, it all happened on September 13, 1814. On that day Fort McHenry was defended by American forces during the British attack. That attack inspired Francis Scott Key, a 35-year old poet-lawyer, to write the poem which was to become the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
How did Frances Scott Key come to write the poem that became so very famous? He was the son of an established Maryland family. He attended grammar school and later graduated from St. Johns College in Annapolis. Key established a law practice in Georgetown, Maryland and appeared many times before the U.S. Supreme Court. By the way, the site of his house in Maryland is now a memorial park.
And then, in 1812, the war with Britain broke out In August 1814, Key's friend Dr. Beanes was taken prisoner by the British army. Key left for Baltimore as a prisoner of war exchange agent. He sailed down the bay on a truce ship and met the British fleet. Key successfully negotiated his friend's release, but was detained by the British until after the attack on Fort McHenry.
Key's vessel was 8 miles below the fort during the bombardment, under the watchful care of a British warship. It was from this site that he witnessed the British attack. He saw the American flag “Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, / O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming”… It was a most inspiring sight indeed! That is how the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” were conceived.
In 1931 the Congress of the United States of America enacted legislation that made “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem. The flag Frances McKey so honored flies day and night at his final resting place in Maryland. It also flies at Fort McHenry as a reminder of those events in September 1814 that gave birth to the anthem and pride in the American nation.