Lesson 1 How Others See Me

He could not look at her directly. For a moment he felt it was cruel to watch her.
Instead he turned to the baby in the bottle. The tiny half-black thing was drifting and
circling as always in the green alcohol. But now he saw that the bottle and the alcohol
and the long years had gnawed it and little by little the baby was shredding and peeling
off its flesh. The bottle and the alcohol and the long years had choked and shrunk it and
now were eating it up. All the time, through the years, as the baby bobbed up and down
in its own cramped world, it was slowly being destroyed. And no one could do anything
about it.
Mr. Libre felt helplessly hollow inside; he turned his head and shut his eyes
tightly. He forced a smile until his jaw hurt because although he felt no pain in his eyes
now, he wanted to make sure he could hold back the tears.
YOUR DISCOVERY TASKS
Task 1. Creating Symbols
Form groups. Determine what the baby and the bottle symbolize in the text.
Illustrate a semantic map for your output. Use appropriate drawings to enhance the
meaning of your work.
Task 2. Explaining Divisions
Form groups. Reread the story and determine the bases for the division of the
story into three parts. What does each part present? Why is the sequence of the parts
done in this way. Brainstorm on these questions and present your answers creatively to
the class.
Task 3. Giving Assumptions and Predictions (Part 1)
Clarify the meaning of the words, prediction and assumption. Reread the text.
What assumptions and predictions can be made about the couple? Give at least three
of each. What lines in the text help in making the assumptions and predictions you
have? Present your answers in a table similar to the one below. Copy this table on a
sheet of paper. Be ready to present your output to the class.
Assumptions Supporting Lines Predictions Supporting
Lines
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
Grade 7 English Learning Package 66