Pre-Reading Activities
A: Discussion
These statements are paraphrases about
a famous person. Read them and answer the questions that follow:
1. Now she's rich, she can't forget
other people who are poor and she feels she can do something
to help people. She doesn't believe poverty happens to
people who aren't clever enough to avoid it.
2. She's started an organization that
can help all kinds of people in lots of different ways.
3. Music is fun and she really enjoys
it and makes a lot of money from it. But when she's old she doesn't
believe that she can say she did things to help people through
music alone.
4. Love is becoming very important to
her.
5. Her life has been hard but she's
still alive and she feels grateful .
Questions
What job does the person have?
What does she want to do?
What kind of person is she?
Reading Activities
Divide into three groups, A, B
and C. Each group is going to read a different section
of the article and answer some questions. After this, members
of the different groups will work together to answer some other
questions.
Group A Worksheet
A: Comprehension
You are going to divide into three groups
and each group will read one part of today's article. As you
read your part of the article, answer the comprehension and vocabulary
questions. (They will help you understand the article.) You are
reading the first section of the article.
Comprehension Questions
Read this part of the article and answer
the questions:
- What kind of musician is she?
- When did Jewel become famous?
- How many copies has Pieces of You sold?
- What is one thing she wants to do?
- What is one job she had before she became
a musician?
- What did she used to live in?
- What has she done with her mother?
Jewel Wants More Spirit In Life Than Music
By Jacqueline Wong
SINGAPORE Friday April 9 (Reuters)
- She has dug her way out of poverty and now top-selling
Alaskan singer Jewel wants to help those who have not.
"When you've lived with
poverty, it bites your heart and changes how you see the world
forever. It changes the course for the rest of your life,'' says
the folk-pop singer whose home used to be a van.
Jewel, 24, surfaced worldwide
in 1995 with her hauntingly sparse acoustic debut album
Pieces of You. The album has since sold more than 10 million
copies.
Despite her success, Jewel regards
herself an ordinary person yet feels the burning need to make
a difference to other people. Music is fun but it doesn't change
the world, she says.
"I'm now in a position where
I can do something about it, and I can't just turn my back on
it...can't just pretend that (poverty) doesn't happen to many,
many other people that didn't have a talent to get them out of
it.'' |
Born Jewel Kilcher, she rose
from waitressing in coffee houses and playing gigs in San Diego,
California, to become an international star who has graced the
covers of Time magazine, Rolling Stone and Vogue.
"I get paid to be who I
am and that's really fun, a great position to be in,'' mused
the young musician on the Southeast Asian leg of the Jewel Spirit
Tour.
But her child-like nature seems
to belie a serious intention to make things other
than her career happen.
"All over the world there
is tremendous need. We have set up an organization that can be
limitless in its ability over time to do many, many different
types of projects,'' she says.
The organization, Higher Ground
for Humanity (HGH), a non-profit, humanitarian foundation
set up with her mother, Nedra Carroll, was launched about five
years ago.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
|
B: Vocabulary
Match these words from the article with
their meanings (the tense used in the meanings may not match
the tense of the word):
End of Group A Worksheet
Group B Worksheet
A: Comprehension
You are going to divide into three groups
and each group will read one part of today's article. As you
read your part of the article, answer the comprehension and vocabulary
questions. (They will help you understand the article.) You are
reading the middle section of the article.
Comprehension Questions
Read this part of the article and answer
the questions:
- Who did she dedicate her album Spirit
to?
- Jewel has set up an organization called
Higher Ground for Humanity. Where is it working to produce clean
water?
- How does she feel about music?
- How is Higher Ground for Humanity funded?
- Where can you find information about it?
- What are some groups that it has helped?
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Jewel dedicated her second album
Spirit to the one who inspired that outlook --
her mother and manager.
"I don't have enough good
words for her,'' she says.
Carroll wrote that Higher Ground's
vision was to help the ongoing discovery of what it meant to
be human.
The organization is involved
in projects to produce clean water in Asia, Peru and Mexico.
"My mother has always sought
to understand what it means to be a human being in the highest
sense and how to be that.''
About the wider purpose of her
life, Jewel freely admits that music is kind of frivolous.
"It's creative, it's a lot
of fun and I make a really good living out of it, but it doesn't
change the world.'' |
"When you're on your death
bed looking back at your life, I don't think that's what's going
to make me feel like I did a great deed.''
According to a mission statement
on HGH's Web site, the foundation is funded by Jewel,
her mother as well as other individuals and organizations.
Jewel has donated money from
sales of her book of poetry A Night Without Armour, merchandise
and concert tickets. The foundation also takes gifts of expertise,
time, ideas and prayer, because many projects involve promoting
values in the family, workplace and community, the mission statement
says.
Groups that have received help
include youth, research, the arts, community building, spiritual
development and alternative health care.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
|
B: Vocabulary
Match these words from the article with
their meanings (the tense used in the meanings may not match
the tense of the word):
End of Group B Worksheet
Group C Worksheet
A: Comprehension
You are going to divide into three groups
and each group will read one part of today's article. As you
read your part of the article, answer the comprehension and vocabulary
questions. (They will help you understand the article.) You are
reading the final section of the article.
Comprehension Questions
Read this part of the article and answer
the questions:
- Who did she sing with when she was a child?
- What does she think women in Alaska are
like?
- After her parents' divorce who did she
live with first?
- How did Jewel and her mother try to save
money?
- How many albums has she made?
- Does she think that love is important?
FROM RAGS TO RICHES
Jewel used to work the bars as
part of her family's trade of entertaining, but the singer-songwriter
hasn't come away hard-edged.
"The reason I was in bar
rooms wasn't because my parents were neglectful.
It was just our jobs,'' she says.
Jewel performed with her father as a duo in local bars, hotels
and Eskimo villages.
She attributes her ability
to stay above the fray of bohemia to a childhood in Alaska, which
she calls a strong place of very self-reliant people "where
women live alone, build their own cabins and hunt by themselves''.
Jewel and her two brothers spent
their early years in Anchorage, Alaska. When her parents divorced,
she moved with her father Atz Kilcher to Homer,Alaska. They lived
in a log cabin on an 800 acre family homestead with no electricity
or running water.
In 1992, she moved to San Diego
to live with her mother and tried a variety of jobs, including
waitressing. Mother and daughter attempted to |
cut down on living expenses by
moving into separate vans. Part of their experience was to eat
cheaply, mainly peanut butter and carrot sticks.
"Nothing's killed me you
know, so it's good ... Being alive and having a house is the
best thing anyone has and I've always really felt thankful for
that,'' she said.
With two albums to her name,
Jewel feels fortunate but says the responsibility to humanity
becomes larger the more successful she becomes. Pieces of You
has been described as a time capsule of where she was at 19 and
her second album Spirit, the embodiment of the themes she now
cherishes. Asked if she still believes everyone yearns
for love, she says unequivocally: "I believe there are two
places each action comes from in the world, and that's love and
fear. That's the choice all the time...and you usually do both
in a day.''
"I think I'm moving more
and more toward love.''
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
|
B: Vocabulary
Match these words from the article with
their meanings (the tense used in the meanings may not match
the tense of the word):
End of Group C Worksheet
C: Sharing Information
Now work with people from other groups
and answer the questions below. You should all try to contribute
some information in order to give complete answers to the questions.
(One student from Group A works with one from B
and one from C.)
- What kind of music does Jewel sing?
- How successful is she?
- What kind of childhood did Jewel have?
- Has her life been easy or difficult? Why?
- How does she feel about the past?
- Who is very important to her? Why?
- What ideal or aims does she have?
- How important is music to her?
- What does Higher Ground for Humanity do?
- How is Higher Ground for Humanity funded?
- Which of these adjectives would you use
to describe Jewel: selfish, greedy, innocent, independent,
hardworking, caring, carefree, uncomplaining, committed
D: True or False?
Stay in your groups of three to answer
these true [ T ] or false [ F ] questions:
- Jewel
first performed in public in 1995 singing songs from her Pieces
of You Album.
- Her
family life wasn't very stable or settled.
- She
says her parents didn't take care of her.
- The
most important thing in her life is her music.
- Her
mother has taught her a lot about life.
- She
has only worked as a musician.
- Singing
is hard work for her.
- Profits
from her music fund Higher Ground for Humanity .
E: Matching Statements
Scan the article and match the paraphrases
in Activity A of the Pre-Reading Activities
with the direct quotations from Jewel in the article.
Post-Reading
Activities
A: Language Work
Today's article contained some words to
do with music and some idioms. Find each word or phrase in the
article and then using your understanding of the article, match
these words and phrases with their meanings:
Words and Phrases |
Meanings |
1. gig |
A. from being very poor to becoming very wealthy |
2. album |
B. a musical instrument (not electric) |
3. acoustic |
C. to escape something through your own achievements |
4. duo |
D. a live performance of music |
5. folk |
E. a record, tape or CD with at least several
songs by the same musician |
6. to dig your way out of something |
F. music originally sung or made by ordinary
people |
7. to turn your back on something |
G. a pair of performers |
8. to be on your deathbed |
H. ignoring something |
9. to go from rags to riches |
I. to be dying |