The Rock and the Bubble by Louisa m alcott Before reading 1

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The Rock and the Bubble by Louisa M Alcott
Before reading
1 Ask students to raise their hand if they have heard of 
Louisa M Alcott. Put students into pairs and ask them to 
discuss the questions about her. (They should be able to 
make educated guesses about most of the questions.) 
Students can check answers with another pair, but don’t 
check answers as a class yet.
2 Students read the About the author box on page 1 of 
their worksheet and check their answers. Go through 
them as a class.
Answers
1 She was an author and poet.
2 She lived in the 19
th
century – 1832 to 1888.
3 She was American.
4 Little Women (and Little Men and Jo’s Boys)
5 She was unmarried and a feminist.
3 Explain that students are going to read a poem she wrote 
about the sea. Ask them to stay in the same pairs and to 
brainstorm as many words connected with the sea as they 
can. Elicit ideas and build up a list on the board.
 EXTRA ACTIVITY
You could extend this into a pyramid activity. 
Pairs make their list, then join with another pair to 
compare and add to their list. Groups join together 
to create a master list.
 While reading
1 Ask students to read the poem. They can refer to the 
Vocabulary focus box for words they don’t know. They 
should see how many of the words on their list in the 
Before reading section, exercise 3 are in the poem. Ask 
if they can find any other words for the sea. Go through 
the answers together and check they understand all the 
words.
Answers
sea, waves, sailing, floats, waters, blue, shore, foam, 
spray, rippling, sea-birds, ocean
2 Read aloud the main events from the poem and explain 
these are in a jumbled order. Students should match each 
event with the correct verse or verses. Point out that each 
event may match with more than one verse. You could put 
students into pairs. Ask one student in the pair to do the 
task for events a, b, d, f and to look at the first half (verses 
1–10) only. The other student does the task for events c, e, 
g, h and looks at the second half (verses 11–20) only.