Unit 7
Activity 3
Literary road trip
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Group 1Chasing freedom
Group 1
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angt-unit7-activity3-group1.mp3
Just as we rolled into Iowa Qty he saw another truck coming behind us, and because he had to turn off at Iowa City he blinked his tail lights at the other guy and slowed down for me to jump out, which I did with my bag, and the other truck, acknowledging this exchange, stopped for me, and once again, in the twink of nothing, I was in another big high cab, all set to go hundreds of miles across the night, and was I happy! And the new truckdriver was as crazy as the other and yelled just as much, and all I had to do was lean back and roll on. Now I could see Denver looming ahead of me like the Promised Land, way out there beneath the stars, across the prairie of Iowa and the plains of Nebraska, and I could see the greater vision of San Francisco beyond, like jewels in the night. [...]
He woke up with a start at dawn. Off we roared, and an hour later the smoke of Des Moines appeared ahead over the green cornfields. [...] Now I wanted to sleep a whole day. So I went to the Y to get a room; they didn't have any, and by instinct I wandered down to the railroad tracks – and there're a lot of them in Des Moines – and wound up in a gloomy old Plains inn of a hotel by the locomotive roundhouse, and spent a long day sleeping [...]. I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.
He woke up with a start at dawn. Off we roared, and an hour later the smoke of Des Moines appeared ahead over the green cornfields. [...] Now I wanted to sleep a whole day. So I went to the Y to get a room; they didn't have any, and by instinct I wandered down to the railroad tracks – and there're a lot of them in Des Moines – and wound up in a gloomy old Plains inn of a hotel by the locomotive roundhouse, and spent a long day sleeping [...]. I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.
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Vidéo associée
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Questions
You are in charge of one text.
1
What motivates the narrator or characters to take to the road? Identify the feelings and circumstances pushing them to leave.
2
Find quotes that describe the journey. How is the travel experience described?
3
What does the road symbolize for the narrator or characters?
Let's talk this out!
4
Share your findings and explain how each text presents life on the road.
5
To what extent does traveling on the road help the characters achieve their version of the American Dream?
6
Which vision of the road speaks to you the most? Why?
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Pick three key words
that best describe
the values of the road
represented in each text.
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Road Stories Podcast
Imagine you are one of the characters from the texts on these pages. You have been invited to share your experience on the road in an episode of the travel podcast “Destination America”. Explain why you took the road and describe your feelings. What happened along the way? What did you discover about yourself and America?
Imagine you are one of the characters from the texts on these pages. You have been invited to share your experience on the road in an episode of the travel podcast “Destination America”. Explain why you took the road and describe your feelings. What happened along the way? What did you discover about yourself and America?
Une erreur sur la page ? Une idée à proposer ?
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j'ai une idée !
Oups, une coquille
