Unit 9 Topic 1 Information

Topic 1:

Original Story:

John is a fisherman. He hasn’t had much luck catching fish in the past few weeks. He is hoping to catch more fish tomorrow, but he doesn’t know if it will be any better. He has never been a very successful fisherman; even though it is the only job he’s ever had. If he is able to catch two nets full of fish, he will be able to pay off his debt; however, this hasn’t happened in the past four years.

John would have become a farmer if he could have, but he has never had the money to buy land.

His brother bought land last winter, but sold it to the neighbor when the economy crashed. John loves fishing, but longs to be more successful. When he was feeling down, he painted his boat, “Troubled Waters,” blue and shined it up. John asked his brother what he thought of the new look, but his brother just laughed and said, “You’re always fishing for compliments.”

If John had had more energy, he might have argued with his brother, but instead, he began making more nets, with the hopes of increasing his catch the next day.

1. Re-written part:

John’s brother purchased land last winter but sold it to the neighbors when he didn’t have enough money to pay his bills. John wants to be successfully at fishing since he loves to fish. When John was feeling sad, he painted his boat blue and made it look like new. His boats name is “Troubled Waters”. John asked his brother if he liked the boat’s new look. John’s brother laughed at John and said, “You are always wanting people to say nice things to you especially about the boat.”

If John was feeling better he might have said something back to his brother. Instead, John focus on positive thoughts and starts making more nets in hopes of increasing the amount of fish he will catch when he goes fishing the next day.

2. Some of the areas I focused on switching were:

One of the first things I changed was saying John’s brother instead of his brother. Since you are starting a paragraph off you need to make sure the reader is aware of who his is. In this story it represents John but you need to make sure that is clear. Another area I focus on to change was economy crashed. Although we know this means that money is low, some ESL students might not be able to figure out this figurative language and to decrease confusion I just said he didn’t have enough money to pay the bills. I am sure ESL students have heard their parents speak of paying the bills. Another area I focused on was about him loving to fish and wanting to be successful at it. I just felt that in the original story it was choppy. I switched the words around to help it flow more smoothly. The next area I thought that might be confusing for an ESL learner was the comment about fishing for a compliment. Although I love that pun on the fishing story I think it might be hard for an ESL student to understand and they would be confused since the story is actually about fishing. I changed it to wanting people to say nice things to you especially about the boat. Another word I switched was argued. I am not sure an ESL student would know the meaning of that word so I would introduce it to them as we read the story but switched the story to say something back. I like to remain positive and I feel John is trying to be positive at the end of the story so I added the word positive to help the reader understand that John is trying to feel better and be happy and look forward to the future.