PORTRAIT OF A TEACHER
PART ONE
Activity 1
(Global comprehension)
(1) What is the relationship between the narrator and Mr. Crossett?
Answer: The narrator’s father, Albert Boeden, was once the pupil of Mr. Crossvett.
(2) Have only good things or both good and bad things been written about the teacher so far ?
Answer: Only good things have been written about the teacher, so far.
Activity 2
(Local comprehension)
Answer the following questions as briefly as you can.
- a) What is the significance of each of these lengths df time as mentioned in the text?
(i) twenty years ago (ii) eighty four years old (Hi) sixty years (iv) two years ago (v) forty years old
(i) Twenty years ago .. Albert Borden assumed that his teacher, Mr. Crossett had died twenty years ago.
(ii) Eighty-four years old.. Mr. Crossett’s present age.
(iii) Sixty years .. Mr. Crossett’s total career as an active teacher.
(iii) Two years ago .. Mr. Crossett formally stopped his coaching two years ago.
(iv) Forty years old .. This is the age at which Albert Borden as a youngster came into contact with his teacher Mr. Crossett for the first time in the school.
(b) Did the narrator develop admiration for his father’s teacher? If so why?
Ans .. The narrator was taken by surprise to find that Mr. Crossett still could recollect his father’s name and his father’s profession as an engineer. The 84-year-old ex-teacher had a vivid memory. He was both courteous and affable in his interaction with the father-son duo.
Activity 3
(Predicting)
Now read the last paragraph of ‘Portrait of a Teacher’ Part One, which ends with but I admired him already.” Look at the following sentences, each of which begins a paragraph in ‘Portrait of a Teacher’ (Part Two). Then decide which of these sentences would begin the first paragraph of the text in Part Two.
(a) At this moment the bell rang announcing the end of the class.
(b) We all sat quietly for a few minutes after my father finished the story.
(c) Later my father and Mr. Crossett talked for half-hour about persons and things they remembered of the school.
(d) Once again, my father referred to his first day in Mr. Crossett’s classroom.
Your answer: (a)/(b)/(c)/(d)
Ans .. C
PORTRAIT OF A TEACHER
PART TWO
Later my father and Mr. Crossett talked for a half-hour about persons and things they remembered of the school. The old man’s hands shook constantly, and he explained to my father how this shaking had begun two years ago and how, only on account of this, he had been forced to give up his teaching. Otherwise he would still be working because his heart and soul were still in the school room with his various students.
Once again, my father referred to his first day in Mr. Crossett’s classroom. He told of an incident that he had never forgotten. All were sitting quietly waiting for a class to begin.
Gap-1
Later the class began, and, in the course of the lesson, he noticed that one of the students looked sick and feverish. He walked to the student’s desk and put his hand on the child’s head.
Gap-2
Mr. Crossett turned rapidly and glared at the student.
Gap-3
After a while he put down his book, looked at us in silence for several minutes, then said, “My friends, we have to spend this year together, and we must try to spend it together happily. Please study and try to be good students. I have no family; you are my family. Last year I had my mother; but she has died, and I am alone. You are the only thing I have in this world, and you occupy all my thoughts, and you have all my affection. I consider you as my children. I hope that I will, therefore, not have to punish you, but you must prove to me that you appreciate my interest and my attention. I do not want you simply to promise me with words that you will be good, but I want you to show me with your hearts that here we are all part of one big family. I want to be proud of you.”
At this moment the bell rang announcing the end of class.
Gap-4
Mr. Crossett patted him affectionately on the head and said, “Do not think any more about it, my son. Here we are all good friends.”
We all sat quietly for a few moments after my father finished the story. Then Mr. Crossett rose and did something which left me entirely speechless. He went to a kind of closet and after a moment brought out a package, properly marked and catalogued by name and date.
Gap-5
My father read the exercise, and tears came to his eyes because on the paper was also the handwriting of his mother, exactly in the manner in which she used to help him at first with his exercises.
(Can’t decide. You give your answer.)
Activity 4
(Understanding the structure of the text)
There are five gaps in the above text, as you must have already noticed. The missing parts are given below, but not in the right sequence. Decide which pan (A,B,C,D or E) will fill which gap in the passage.
- One by one we got up from our seats and left the room quietly. The boy who had gotten up on his seat and made faces, however, went up to Mr. Crossetts’ desk and with his voice trembling said, “I’m sorry, sir.”
- While his back was turned, another student in the class got up, stood upon his desk and began to make faces just in order to make the other students laugh.
- Out of the package he drew a paper and gave it to my father. It was marked with my father’s name and with the month and the year, and it was one of my father’s own copybook exercise. Mr. Crossett thus kept a record of all his old students.
- Occasionally one of the students of the previous year would put his head in the door to say hello to Mr. Crossett. They all spoke to him in such a manner as to suggest that they were very fond of him. Others came in and shok his hand. He remained very serious.
- “Don’t do that again,” he said at last, quietly but firmly. Then he went back to his desk and went on with the lesson.
Now discuss with your group-mates what prompted you to match the parts with the gaps the way you have done it, and find out whether your matchings are correct.
Activity 5
(Understanding the chronological sequence)
Rearrange the following sentences so that they describe the events in the chronological sequence (= sequence in time) m which they happen in the true story presented in ‘Portrait of a Teacher’ (Parts One and Two).
(a) Mr. Crossett did not recognize his old student, although the narrator’s father recognized him instantly.
(b) The whole evening he went on talking about his old teacher and having fond remembrances of him.
(c) The narrator was full of admiration for this eighty-four-year old teacher of his father.
(d) He decided to visit Mr. Crossett, who was living in Delville, only an hour’s ride from his place.
(e) Mr. ‘Crossett then rose and brought out a package.
(f) One evening the narrator’s father while looking through the newspaper gave a cry of surprise.
(g) When the narrator’s father told him his name Albert Borden, Mr. Crossett thought for a while and remembered all about him.
(h) The next afternoon the narrator and his father drove to Delville and knocked on Mr. Crossett’s door.
(i) He had read a news item about Mr.Crossett who was his first teacher in the elementary school.
(j) Mr. Crossett and his old student then shared many memories of school.
(k) Out of the package he drew a paper and gave it to Mr. Borden.
(l) Mr. Borden remembered an incident, which showed how loving and paternal his old teacher had been at school.
(m) He was deeply moved and tears came to his eyes.
(n) It was one of his homeworks which also bore the handwriting of his mother.
Activity 6
(For Group work & Writing practice)
(a) Do you remember your first day at school? What incidents of that day do you remember?
(b) Which teacher made the strongest impression on you at school? And why?
Activity 7
(Usage)
In Text A you have the following expressions. Insert them in appropriate places in the following paragraph:
(as though, in the course of make faces, on account of left them speechless, glared at)
There was nothing special about this class. The boys were naughty as expected, and they loved to at each other whenever the teacher was not theretheir routine exercise, the older boys the newly admitted ones. All this while the new teacher behaved he was a stranger and had come to the school some business with the principal. Then suddenly he turned around and asked them to be quiet which