Image credit Siehe Ruckseite, commons.wikimedia.org
Main activity:
Read the story and find the right gap for the following conjunctions:
Be Proud, Be Strong, Be You
STORY TIME
Warm-up:
Look at the picture and say why the children could be arguing.
though , when, but, because , also, while
At my school, I was the foreign girl.
I was also short, I didn’t dress fashionably, I had a problem saying my
R’s and I was Russian. I was usually
teased about my hair or my clothes
or my height. I did feel bad but I
had lots of friends who cared about
me. I was called midget, shortie,
and the worse name of all — Russian spy. __(1)___people thought
of me well too, well at least the
girls. Over the years, I was also the
smart one, the one who could give
good advice, the one who could
share and the one who would never give up on you.
One day, _(2)___school ended, I
was walking to the buses with my
best friend Macy and her friends.
One of them was having serious girl
trouble. I was about to give some
advice when suddenly a kid
stepped in front of me and said,
“No one cares what you say,
Ruthy.” The other guys laughed.
“Back off!”
“Russians are so violent and
dumb,” he said. All the guys
laughed and started talking about
movies, games, books and all these
other things that made Russians
look cruel. I turned away. Macy ran
up to me.“
Ruthy, don’t listen to them; they
are just stupid and jealous,” she
said. Wow, who would be jealous
of me? I got teased every day. Macy went on to say, “Ruthy, do you
know why I became friends with
you?”
“What does that have to do with
this problem?” I asked
_(3)___trying to fight back my
tears. I actually never knew why
she wanted to hang out with me.
We had started talking and then we
started hanging out and we became
friends.
Macy said, “__(4)___you aren’t like
anyone else I know. It’s cool that
you are Russian. You teach me
words in Russian and you are also
caring, helpful and the greatest
friend I have ever had.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” she nodded with a
smile.
We walked a little more and talked
about schoolwork. But, I still didn’t
feel totally okay. I was still sad inside even __(5)____I was relieved
to hear why she was my friend.
Later that day, I was digging
through my backpack when I found
a rectangular piece of pink paper.
It had my name on it. Then I remembered. My science teacher,
Miss Ostapuk, had taught us about
self-esteem.
(cont. on page 11)
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