EFL Interdisciplinary Projects/Intermediate Reading and Writing

Here are listed some ideas of projects based on inerdisciplinary and Multiple Intelligences studies.

News writing

No son of mine

Based on the song "No son of mine" by Genesis

Text compreension

After reading the lyrics:

• What is he talking about? Pick up verses that give hints of what part of his life he is talking about, who he is refering to, what his feeling were at that point.
• Can you portrait how his life was? What are the situations he describes? How he used to react to them?
• What was his decision? What action did he take in that moment? How did that reaction reflet in his feelings and behavior later?
  

Now watch the video clip for the song and check if you had the same idea of what happened.

• How do the images connect to the song?

What kind of extra information do the images add to the lyrics? Observe the details of the video, colors, sequence, cuts, and how those pieces are used to convey specific information. If they were different how would they affect the feelings and connections from the song?

There are three different moments in his life. Separate the verses of the song in those three moments and describe his feelings in each one of them.

Language analisys

• How easy is it to understand the poetry in the song?
• Which are your favorite sentences?
• Which are the most interesting, difficult, beautiful words and verses?

Writing
Now you are going to write a piece of news based o the lyrics. You can pick any angle you like and add up the necessary information from what can be inferred from the lyrics and the video. You should also create a background to explain why the case bacame a piece of news. Pay attention to the structure that must be used for a newspaper text.

Student's productions

Son returns to save his mother

Sep 23, '09

Video No son of mine, by Genesis. Based on the song No son of mine

by Geyssica Caetano Reis and Larissa Schelbauer.

Young man who had run away from home eleven years ago returned but his father refused to welcome him as his son, doing a scene in the main avenue of the city. He was shouting " you are no son, you are no son of mine. You walked out, you left us behind and you are no son, no son of mine". The people who were passing by the local stopped to see the scene. Suddenly the son reacted to  the accusation of his father and  so he said that had left home because he couldn't stand to see his mother cry. In his words: " The blame was yours. You made me leave home. Can you imagine how difficult it is to see your father hitting your mother every day and you can't do anything?" At this moment the people booed the father and someone called the police. So the mother came out of the house crying and hugged her son. The father tried to run away  when he listened to the police's siren but the crowd didn't permit.The police arrived and handcuffed the father that was very furious and shouting to his son that he couldn't have returned.  And his son answered: "I am doing what I should have done long ago". The mother and her son went to the police station to report on the father. And the father is imprisioned waiting for the trial.