język angielski - przykładowe zadania - poziom rozszerzony

I was in my third year of teaching creative writing when one of my students, 16-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother: “Dear Mr. McCort, Mikey’s grandmother who is 80 fell down the stairs from too much coffee and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her so I could go to my job at the ferry terminal. Please excuse Mikey. P.S. His grandmother is ok.”

I had seen Mikey scribbling the note at his desk, using his left hand to disguise his handwriting. I said nothing. Most parental excuse notes I received back in those days were penned by my students. I threw Mikey’s note into a desk drawer along with dozens of other notes. While my class took a test, I decided to read all the notes again. I made two piles, one for the genuine ones, the other for forgeries. The second was the larger pile, with writing that ranged from imaginative to lunatic.

Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard putting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse notes, they were brilliant. The notes I had could be turned into an anthology of Great American Excuses. They were samples of talent never mentioned in song, story or study.

How could I have ignored this treasure trove, these gems of fiction and fantasy? Here was American high school writing at its best  raw, real, urgent, brief, and lying like “The stove caught fire and the wallpaper went up and the fire department kept us out of the house all night.”

The writers of these notes didn’t realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: “Peter was late because the alarm clock didn’t go off.”

One day I had an idea. I typed out a dozen excuse notes and told the students to read them.

“Mr. McCourt, who wrote these?” asked one boy.

“You did,” I said.

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“This is the first class to study the art of the excuse note – the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You’re so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worthy of study.”

Everyone smiled as I went on, “You didn’t settle for the old alarm clock story. You used your imagination. One day you might be writing excuses for your own children when they’re late or absent. So try it now.”

The students produced a rhapsody of excuses, ranging from a 16-wheeler truck crashing into a house to a severe case of food poisoning blamed on the school cafeteria. They said, “More, more. Can we do more?”

I asked the class to think about anyone in history who could use a good excuse note. I wrote suggestions on the board, including the most notorious gangster, Al Capone.

And then I heard, “Mr. McCourt, the principal is at the door.” My heart sank as the principal entered. He started walking up and down, peering at papers. He picked a few up and read them as if he was grading them. He frowned and pursed his lips. On his way out, he said he would like to see me.

Here it comes, I thought. The retribution. The principal was sitting at his desk. “Come in, I just want to tell you that that lesson, that project, whatever you were doing, was top-notch. Those kids were writing at college level. I just want to shake your hand,” he said.