Plot Summary for

Cast Away (2000)

After FedEx systems engineer Chuck Noland is ripped out of his hasty life by the clock
in a plane crash, he finds himself alone on the shores of a tropical island. First,
frustration gets to him and then he realizes how little his chances are to ever get back to
civilisation. Four years later, Chuck has learned very well how to survive on his own:
mending his dental health, catching fish with a spear, predicting the weather with a
selfmade calendar. A photograph of his girlfriend Kelly has kept his hopes alive all these
years. Finally, Chuck takes the opportunity to take off for home: He sets off on a
wooden raft with a sail that has washed ashore.

Summary written by Julian Reischl {julianreischl@mac.com}

Chuck Noland is a Fed-Ex manager who demands that everything must be on time and
travels the world to make sure punctuality is on top of everything else. He has a
girlfriend, Kelly, with whom he is deeply in love with and family he hardly sees. When
work intrudes on Christmas Eve, Chuck has a quick gift exchange in the car and kisses
Kelly goodbye. He boards a delivery plane going overseas which gets caught in a
horrendous storm and crashes into the Pacific. The sole survivor Chuck washes up on a
remote island along with several Fed-Ex packages that he must use for supplies. With
limited luxury, he adapts to the island over the course of 1,500 nights. When Chuck
finally sees his chance he rafts out on the ocean and fortunately is spotted. After a
bittersweet welcome-back reception, Chuck finds Kelly has married another man and
has children. But he is missing more than her. For all his life his objective was work.
For four years, it was survival. Now Chuck is compelled to live.

Summary written by Donnel Hoffman

Chuck, a top international manager for FedEx, and Kelly, a Ph.D. student, are in love
and heading towards marriage. Then Chuck's plane to Malaysia ditches at sea during a
terrible storm. He's the only survivor, and he washes up on a tiny island with nothing
but some flotsam and jetsam from the aircraft's cargo. Can he survive in this tropical
wasteland? Will he ever return to woman he loves?

Summary written by Martin Lewison {mlewison@utk.edu}

Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer whose personal and
professional life are ruled by the clock. His fast-paced career takes him, often at a
moment's notice, to far-flung locales - and away from his girlfriend Kelly, played by
Helen Hunt. Chuck's manic existence abruptly ends when, after a plane crash, he
becomes isolated on a remote island - cast away into the most desolate environment
imaginable. Stripped of the conveniences of everyday life, he first must meet the basic
needs of survival, including water, food and shelter. Chuck, the consummate problem
solver, eventually figures out how to sustain himself physically. But then what? Chuck
begins his true personal journey. After four years, fate gives Chuck a chance to fight his
way back to civilization, only to find an unexpected emotional challenge greater than all
the earlier physical ones. His ability to persevere and to hope are a product of his life-
changing experience.
 Summary written by Anonymous

Hanks plays a workaholic who gets stranded alone on a desert island after his plane
crashes. Away from his loved one (play by Hunt), and his haywire lifestyle, he now has
to learn to survive surrounded by the wild, and a few washed up FedEx packages.

Chuck Noland, an engaged, workaholic Federal Express inspector, travels around the world
testing the effectiveness of international shipping offices. His frenetic schedule puts a strain on
his relationship with longtime girlfriend Helen. But when a plane crash leaves him stranded and
isolated from other human beings on a remote Pacific island for four years, Chuck slowly
becomes transformed both mentally and physically as he attempts to survive. This harrowing
personal struggle ultimately brings him to a simple Zen-like understanding of what things in this
world -- in his world -- are truly important.

Genres: Action/Adventure and Drama

Running Time: 2 hrs. 23 min.

Release Date: December 22, 2000 Nationwide

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense action sequences and

some disturbing images.

Distributors: 20th Century Fox Distribution

Cast Away is a 2000 film by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks about a FedEx
employee who is stranded on a deserted island after his plane crashes "somewhere in the
South Pacific." The plot is very loosely based on the novel Robinson Crusoe.

Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a perpetually hurried FedEx executive, is the sole survivor
of a harrowing plane crash. He is stranded alone on a deserted tropical island. After he
lands on the island, Chuck's most immediate need is drinking water, which he satisfies
by drinking coconut water and later by storing rain water in the discarded husks. His
second immediate need is food. He attempts to fish, but is wholly unsuccessful at the
start. As time progresses, his fishing skills steadily increase. Shortly after his first
fishing attempt, he finds a compelling need to produce fire, which after great effort,
many attempts, and some injury he succeeds in doing. Chuck takes shelter in a small
cave for the majority of his stay on the island.

Luckily for Chuck, a few FedEx packages from the plane and the body of one of the
pilots wash up on the shore shortly after he lands on the island. After some refitting,
Chuck dons the pilot's shoes and improvises some tools from items he salvages from the
washed-up packages. But his attempts to escape are thwarted by the high surf.

Four years later, a piece of a port-a-john appears on the shore. Chuck, now with a beard,
long hair and wearing a loincloth, uses this fragment as a sail for the raft he makes to
leave the island. It is revealed that in previous years he has considered suicide as an
alternative to escape from the island. After construction of the raft, Chuck sets off into
the ocean, desperately hoping for rescue. After sailing for an unknown period of time—
when he is on the verge of death—he is rescued by a passing ship.
On returning home, Chuck must then come to terms with the fact that almost everyone
he knew has irrevocably changed, including his fiancée who has since married and had
a child with another man.

The film ends with Chuck at a crossroads, after delivering the one unopened package
from the island.

[edit]

Wilson

"Wilson" the Volleyball

One of Cast Away's notable "characters" is "Wilson," a volleyball from Wilson Sporting
Goods (in real life, the dominant manufacturer of volleyballs). The volleyball is found
in one of the FedEx boxes, and when Chuck tries to make a fire and hurts his hands, he
angrily seizes the volleyball and throws it away. This makes the hand-shaped mark that
forms the ball's "face". Then he bandages his hands and makes Wilson. This volleyball
plays the role of a mute, infinitely patient, non-living listener in the movie, providing
Chuck with a companion for the 1,500 days he spends on the island. From a theatrical
standpoint, Wilson also serves to realistically simulate dialogue in a one-person only
situation. Tragically, Chuck loses Wilson after the volleyball washes off the raft and
drifts too far out to sea for Chuck to be able to retrieve it.

 Wilson the Volleyball at the Internet Movie Database

[edit]

Product placement

Cast Away is well-known for its prominent product placement marketing. In this case
the movie benefited two major brands: Wilson and FedEx.

At the time of the movie's release, Wilson Sporting Goods launched its own joint
promotion centered around the fact that one of its products was "co-starring" with Tom
Hanks.

Despite the fact that the plot revolves around the tragic crash of a FedEx plane, the
company correctly guessed that the movie would not damage its reputation. FedEx
cooperated closely with the filmmakers to ensure that all FedEx materials seen in the
movie were authentic. Chuck's "coming-home" scene was filmed on location at FedEx's
home facilities in Memphis, Tennessee. According to an interview on the DVD release
of the film, FedEx Corporation did not pay for product-placement rights. However, the
extensive support that the company provided to the film can be considered a form of
payment for the placement.

Some commentators claim that the use of the FedEx brand and logo in its present form
is an anachronism, since the first half of the film was set in 1995 while FedEx
Corporation was officially titled FDX Corp. at the time. (FedEx Corporation changed to
its present name in 2000, when Noland returned) However, the brand "FedEx" began to
be used by the overnight-courier division of the company in 1994. The complete
absence of references in the film to the old names that had been recently in use could
still be considered a flaw.

[edit]

Themes
[edit]

Isolation

Isolation is a prominent theme in the movie, as Hanks's character is trapped on a

deserted island for over four years. To cope with his isolation, he creates Wilson out of a
Wilson volleyball that he finds in a package that was supposed to be delivered. It is left
ambiguous as to whether Chuck created Wilson so that he would have someone to talk
to in order to keep from going insane, or whether he has gone insane and thinks that
Wilson can talk, or whether this perceived "insanity" was a necessary tactic against
complete mental breakdown.

[edit]

Return from death

Another theme is return from death. Chuck was trapped on the island for four years, and
was assumed dead by everyone. As such, the world has moved on in his absence . When
Chuck is rescued by the passing ship, he is near death. When he returns, it is almost as if
he has come back from the dead.

[edit]

Trivia
 The producers made up a list of seemingly-useless items that would be in the
packages that Noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video
tapes, etc. They turned this over to a group of survival experts, who decided
what the protagonist might be able to do with them: fish net, axe, etc.

 A FedEx advertisement in the United States features Noland returning some of

the unopened packages to their owners. The ad suggests that they contain
"simple things" such as a GPS Receiver, satellite phone, seeds, and a water
purifier.
  After the movie's release, NASCAR stock car driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. drove
several races with a volleyball in his car, whom he called "Wilson".

 The CEO at the end of the movie is actually Frederick Smith, the real-life CEO
of FedEx.

 In the 2006 videogame Far Cry Instincts; Evolution, set in a tropical south
Pacific location, there is a hidden island containing an easter egg: a small
wrecked boat, two corpses, rocks laid out to spell "HELP!", and a volleyball
resembling Wilson (except in the game, instead of a bloody handprint on the
ball, it is a footprint)

 The movie was spoofed in Family Guy. It shows Peter on the raft with Wilson
(the ball). Peter keeps yelling, "Wilson! Wilson! What are we gonna do now?
Wilson! Wil-" At that moment the ball interrupts saying, "My name is Voit
dumbass!"

 Castaway was spoofed in the movie Behind Enemy Lines, when Owen Wilson's
Character, Chris Burnett, lost a football out to sea. Chris then yells "Wilson!"

 It was also spoofed in the movie Madagascar, when Alex is on stranded on the
beach, talking to his volleyball "Spalding." Incidentally, this film was made by
DreamWorks Animation, which was spun-off from DreamWorks in late 2004.

 In a panel discussing the movie, Director Robert Zemekis said that the final
unopened package at the end contained a waterproof, solar-powered satellite
phone. However opening it would have destroyed the premise of the movie (a
man being stranded in the island).

 Chuck tells Wilson that his dentist's name was Dr. Spalding after he said that he
wished Wilson was a dentist. Spalding is a company best known for its
basketballs.

 The Jeep Cherokee shared by Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt's characters in the
movie is a 1997+ model year. This is an error considering that the film's opening
section is set in 1995.

[edit]

Movie score
 Alan Silvestri. He subsequently won a Grammy in 2002 for the End Credit
Sequence.

[edit]

Cast
 Tom Hanks – Hanks' performance earned him a nomination for the Academy
Award for Best Actor.
 Helen Hunt
 Wilson Volleyball
  Valerie Wildman
 Geoffrey Blake
 Jenifer Lewis
 Chris Noth
 Nick Searcy

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes
regarded as the first novel in English. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title
character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote island, encountering
savages, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. This device, presenting an
account of supposedly factual events, is known as a "false document", and gives a
realistic frame to the story.

The full title of the novel is The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe of York, Mariner: who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited
Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque;
Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself.
With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pirates. Written by
Himself.

Contents
[hide]
 1 Reception and sequels
 2 Real-life castaways
 3 Interpretations
 4 Cultural influences
 5 Plot summary
 6 See also
o 6.1 Classic, famous island/seafaring novels for children
 7 Notes
 8 References

 9 External links
[edit]

Reception and sequels

The book was first published on April 25, 1719. The positive reception was immediate
and universal. Before the end of the year, this first volume had run through four
editions. Within years, it had reached an audience as wide as any book ever written in
English.

By the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of Western literature has spawned
more editions, spin-offs, and translations (even into languages such as Inuit, Coptic, and
Maltese) than Robinson Crusoe, with more than 700 such alternative versions, including
children's versions with mainly pictures and no text.[1] There have been hundreds of
adaptations in dozens of languages, from the Swiss Family Robinson to Luis Buñuel's
film adaption. J.M. Coetzee's 1986 novel, Foe, is a reimagining, retelling, and
reevaluation of the story. The term "Robinsonade" has even been coined to describe the
various spin-offs of Robinson Crusoe.

Defoe went on to write a lesser-known sequel, The Further Adventures of Robinson

Crusoe. It was intended to be the last part of his stories, according to the original title-
page of its first edition, but in fact a third part, entitled Serious Reflections of Robinson
Crusoe, was written; it is a mostly-forgotten series of moral essays with Crusoe's name
attached to give interest.

[edit]

Real-life castaways

There were many stories of real-life castaways in Defoe's time. Defoe's inspiration for
Crusoe was a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk, who was rescued in 1709 by
Woodes Rogers' expedition after four years on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernández
off the Chilean coast. Rogers's "Cruising Voyage" was published in 1712, with an
account of Alexander Selkirk's ordeal. However, Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of
Woodes Roger's account. Selkirk was abandoned at his own request, while Crusoe was
shipwrecked. The islands are different. Selkirk lived alone for the whole time, while
Crusoe found companions. Furthermore, much of the appeal of Defoe's novel is the
detailed and captivating account of Crusoe's thoughts, occupations and activities which
goes far beyond that of Rogers' basic descriptions of Selkirk, which account for only a
few pages.

Other real-life castaways were reduced to an extremely primitive condition, or lost the
use of speech, in a space of a few years. One report describes a Frenchman who, after
two years of solitude on Mauritius, tore his clothing to pieces in a fit of madness
brought on by a diet of nothing but raw turtles.[citation needed] Another story tells of a Dutch
seaman who was left alone on the island of Saint Helena as punishment. He fell into
such despair that he disinterred the body of a buried comrade and he set out to sea in the
coffin (Mandelslo, 1662: 246). Another castaway, the Spaniard Pedro Serrano, was
rescued after seven years of solitude in the 1520s, according to Rycaut and Secord. In
1722/1723 one Philip Ashton from New England stayed sixteen months utterly alone on
Roatan Island before he was rescued; later the castaway wrote a book about his
adventures. There is also an intriguing story of a Dutch ship's officer, Leendert
Hasenbosch, who was set ashore on uninhabited Ascension Island on 5 May 1725 as a
punishment for sodomy. Hasenbosch probably died of thirst (or suicide) after about half
a year. Hasenbosch wrote a diary that was found by British mariners in January 1726.

[edit]

Interpretations

Despite its simple narrative style and the absence of the supposedly indispensable love
motive, it was well received in the literary world. The book is considered one of the
most widely published books in history (behind some of the religious texts). It has been
a publishing hit since the day it was published, into "modern" (current) times.
Novelist James Joyce eloquently noted that the true symbol of the British conquest is
Robinson Crusoe: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist… The whole Anglo-
Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the
persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating
taciturnity".

According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an everyman. He begins as a

wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand; he ends as a pilgrim, crossing a final
mountain to enter the promised land. The book tells the story of how Robinson gets
closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time
alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read. This view was not welcomed by the
established Anglican church of the time who thought the message in the book was
anarchic and close to heresy. Defoe's views are reflected in those of Christian
anarchism.

Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was himself a Puritan moralist,
and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing guide books on how to be a good
Puritan Christian. He wrote such guide books as The New Family Instructor (1727) and
Religious Courtship (1722). While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide for youth
on how to embark on life's journey, it shares many of the same themes that would have
been obvious to a contemporary reader as being in the same category. It shares the same
concerns as guide books, and presents the same theological and moral point of views.
The very name "Crusoe" is very possibly taken from a Timothy Cruso who was a
classmate of Defoe's and who had written a number of guide books including God the
Guide of Youth (1695) before dying at an early age — just eight years before Defoe
wrote Robinson Crusoe. Cruso's name would still have been remembered to
contemporaries and the association with guide books clear. It has even been suggested
that Cruso's God the Guide of Youth inspired Robinson Crusoe because of a number of
passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel, however this is unknown and
speculation.[2]

[edit]

Cultural influences

The book proved so popular that the names of the two main protagonists have entered
the language. The term "Robinson Crusoe" is virtually synonymous with the word
"castaway" and is often used as a metaphor for being or doing something alone.
Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the
term "Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday") originated, referring to a personal assistant,
servant or companion.

In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise on education, Emile, or Education, the main

character, Emile, is allowed to read only one book before the age of twelve, Robinson
Crusoe. Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe, required to rely upon
himself for all of his needs. In Rousseau's view, Emile needs to imitate Crusoe's
experience, allowing necessity to determine what is to be learned and accomplished.
This is one of the main themes of Rousseau's educational model.
Nobel Prize-winning (2003) author J. M. Coetzee in 1986 published a novel entitled
Foe, in which he explores an alternative telling of the Crusoe story, an allegorical story
about racism, philosophy, and colonialism.

Jacques Offenbach wrote an opéra comique called Robinson Crusoé which was first
performed at the Opéra-Comique, Salle Favart on 23 November 1867. This was based
on the British pantomime version rather than the novel itself. The libretto was by
Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux.

[edit]

Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Crusoe leaves England on a sea voyage in September 1651 against the wishes of his
parents. The ship is taken over by Salè pirates and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor.
He manages to escape with a boat and is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship
off the western coast of Africa. The ship is en route to Brazil. There with the help of the
Captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation.

He joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm

about forty miles out to sea on an island near the mouth of the Orinoco river on
September 30, 1659. His companions all die; he manages to fetch arms, tools and other
supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in
habitation and cave, keeps a calendar by making marks in a piece of wood. He hunts,
grows corn, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc. He reads the Bible and slowly
becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.

He discovers native cannibals occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At
first he plans to kill the savages for their abomination, but then he realizes that he has no
right to do so as the cannibals have not attacked him and do not knowingly commit a
crime. He dreams of capturing one or two servants by freeing some prisoners, and
indeed, when a prisoner manages to attempt escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new
companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared, and teaches him English and
converts him to Christianity.

After another party of natives arrive to partake in a grisly feast, Crusoe and Friday
manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father
and the other is a Spaniard. The Spaniard informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards
shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised where the Spaniard would return with
Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a
Spanish port and salvation for all.

Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; it turns out that a mutiny had
broken out on the ship and the mutineers intend to maroon their captain on the island.
The captain and Crusoe manage to retake the ship. They leave for England but leave
behind three of the mutineers on the island to fend for themselves and inform the
Spaniards what happened when they arrive. Crusoe left the island on December 19,
1686. He travels to Portugal to find his old Captain friend who informs him his
plantation in Brazil was well cared for and he has become wealthy. From Portugal he
travels overland to England, to avoid mishaps at sea, via Spain and France; in a
mountainous region in winter, he and his companions have to fend off an attack of
vicious wolves. Back in England, he decides to sell his plantation, as returning to Brazil
would entail converting to Catholicism. Later in life after marrying and having three
children and becoming widowed, he returns to his island for a last time. The book ends
with a hint about a sequel that would detail his return to the island, which has since been
discovered.

castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens
after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island either to
evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively a person or item can be cast
away, meaning rejected or discarded.

The provisions and resources available to castaways allow them to live on the island
until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may
never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, the fact that they are missing is
unknown or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of
numerous stories in the form of novels and film.

Marooning is the act of leaving someone behind intentionally in an uninhabited area.

The word is in use since 1724, and is derived from maroon, a fugitive slave. It could be
a corruption of Spanish cimarron "wild". The practice was a penalty for crewmen, or for
captains at the hands of a mutineering crew. Pirates may have used marooning as well,
and certainly do so quite frequently in fiction. During the late 18th century in the
American South, "marooning" took on a humorous additional meaning describing an
extended camping-out picnic over a period of several days (Oxford English Dictionary).

The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 American romance and adventure film starring Brooke
Shields and Christopher Atkins, produced and directed by Randal Kleiser. The plot is
about two young children stranded on a tropical island after a shipwreck. Emotional
feelings and physical changes arise as they reach puberty and fall in love. The
screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart was based on the novel The Blue Lagoon by Henry
De Vere Stacpoole. The original music score was composed by Basil Poledouris. The
film was marketed with the tagline "A sensuous story of natural love."

Gilligan's Island was an American TV sitcom which aired for three seasons on the CBS
network from September 26 1964 to September 4 1967. It was a comedy that was loved
and watched by many people. It ran for a total of 98 episodes. The first 36 episodes
were filmed and shown in black-and-white (they were later colorized in syndication);
the remaining 62 episodes and the three sequels were filmed in color.

The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" (written by George Wyle and
Sherwood Schwartz), is a well-known example of ballad meter, and it begins:

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of

a fateful trip...

The song was written to give new viewers a capsule summary of the unusual situation
the castaways find themselves in. Another verse was played over the closing credits,
after the invariably unsuccessful attempts of the castaways to leave the island.
The last episode of the show, "Gilligan the Goddess" (prod. no. 1098-670417), aired on
April 17, 1967, and ended with the castaways never succeeding in leaving the island.
Under a wave of pressure to reverse the threatened cancellation of Gunsmoke, which
aired late on Saturday nights, CBS cancelled Gilligan's Island to open up early air time
on Monday evenings, despite the sitcom's solid ratings.

Consequences role play

Margot McCamley, Oman

Why not play a game of consequences with a difference, where students must take on
the role of another person?

Procedure
Give each student a piece of paper. On this they must first write:

1. The first name of their favourite movie star - male or female but of the
opposite gender to themselves
2. Their favourite fruit
3. A number between 1 - 9
4. The names of vegetables - the same number of vegetables as the number
given above
5. A job they don't like
6. Their favourite job they would like to do
7. A description of their dream house e.g. by the sea, in the mountains -
using adjectives to describe this place
8. Finally, they describe what country they would really like to live in.

Now they are required to change character to the person they have described on the
piece of paper. Here are what the points above mean:

 This is their husbands or wife's first name

 This is their family name
 This indicates the number of children they have
 This indicates the children's names
 This is their job
 This is the their husband's or wife's job
 This describes the family house and tells the listener where it is located
 This last point tells us what country they come from.

Students read through the points and now are told they are at a party where they are
meeting famous people. Now they must introduce themselves to several people in the
room as this person.

They need to share the conversation, so they need to be interactive and find out about
other people in the room. It may help to put them in small groups or allow them to walk
around the classroom.

You could follow this up by getting students to say who they felt was the most
interesting person they met and why.
I find this exercise creative as many students try to change accents to their new role and
there are lots of laughs as students try to remember all the key points of their new
family.

Related

Dating game
Richard Frost, British Council, Turkey

This is a great activity for getting students talking. I have used it successfully with many
different levels and age groups and have found that it is very effective at motivating
teenagers to talk. It is particularly useful for practising describing appearance, character
and interests.

Preparation
You will need a selection of flashcards of people, a mixture of ages and types.

Procedure

 Put a picture of a person on the board and ask the students to tell you his/her
name, age and job. Write whatever they tell you on the board. (Note: at first they
may be a bit confused and think that they should know the person, they will
soon get the idea).
o Then ask them to describe him/her physically (again write what they tell
you on the board). Repeat this procedure for his/her character and
hobbies. You should end up with a paragraph profile of the person.
o Read the description of the person and elicit from the students that he/she
is not happy because they are single and would like to meet a
man/woman.
o Then follow the same procedure above to elicit a description of the
person that they would like to meet. At the end of all this you should
have two descriptions.
o Tell the students that you see these kinds of descriptions in lonely hearts
pages in magazines and newspapers.(You could even bring some in to
show them)

 Give the students a picture each and tell them not to show it to anyone. You may
have to stress this, as it is a temptation to show the pictures to friends in the
class. The students then have to write a description of the person in the picture
and the person they would like to meet. Point out that they can use the model on
the board as a guide. Monitor and feed in language as they need it.

 Tell the students to leave their pictures face down on the table and to mingle.
The aim is for them to try and find a partner for the person in their picture. At
lower levels they can take the description with them as they mingle. They need
to talk to everybody and not just settle for the first person who comes along
asking questions to ensure they find the right person. It is also a good idea to
play some romantic music in the background as they are mingling (Marvin Gaye
or Stevie Wonder).
  After you have given them enough time to find partners, stop the activity (if they
are being very choosy give them a time limit and tell them they must
compromise and find a partner). Conduct a feedback session and ask the
students to tell the class about their invented character and the partner that they
have found. The class can then see the pictures for the first time and decide if
they think it will be a successful relationship.

Follow up ideas

 Students can write the story of the relationship or can write letters to the new
partners.

Variations

 You can change the context and replace the pictures of the people with pictures
of houses/flats and ask the students to be either estate agents or buyers looking
for a place to live. Again they can write descriptions of places they want to sell
(of varying standards) and places they would like to buy, mingle and try to find
their dream homes.
 You can adapt the basic idea to suit many different topics.

Story in a bag
Maria Spelleri, Manatee Community College, Florida, USA

This oral story creating and relating activity works best with intermediate level and
above learners. (I don't recall the origins of this activity. I picked it up from some book
or workshop at least ten years ago!)

Preparation
Before class, the teacher fills paper bags with 5-6 random objects. You'll need one bag
per group of four students. To make this activity interesting, the objects should be
diverse and unrelated to each other. Go for a combination of the unusual and the
mundane.

 An example of a diverse content bag from my class is:

o a postcard from Singapore
o a can-opener
o a candle
o a surgical mask
o a theatre playbill (program)a teddy bear.

Procedure

 At a signal, each group of students opens its bag, removes its objects and invents
an oral story incorporating all the objects found in the bag. The stories become
very complex and creative in order to make each object a step in the plot.

Here's an example based on the bag items described above.

 "One morning Shelley received a postcard from her old college friend,
Louise. The card was from Singapore, and in it, Louise had invited
Shelley to come for a visit. Shelley flew to Singapore and met Louise.
The first night she was there, they went to a play at a local theatre. It
was a murder mystery and the ladies were feeling a bit nervous
walking back to Louise's home after the show. When they got home
Louise tried to turn on the light, but there was no electricity. She lit a
candle and ……etc."
 It's important that the story be oral and not written and then read. This allows
spontaneous changes, and for group members to jump in and correct each other
or add details in the final telling.
 When the groups have finished, each group shares its story with the whole class.
Each student in the group should tell one part and hold up the related object
when it is mentioned in the story.
 Some group members may tell two parts, or tell one part that uses two objects- it
doesn't matter. Most of the talking is done in the creation of the story within the
group.

Watch out for those clever souls who would say "Shelley packed her suitcase for
Singapore. In it she put a candle, a can opener, a teddy bear…etc."

Variation

 The teacher makes up a crime that has been committed, for example; 'Professor
Whatsit found dead under a picnic table, Lady Wigglebiggle's diamonds stolen
from her bedroom drawer'.
 The groups are then told that the items in their bags are clues to the crime
collected by a detective. The story that the groups come up with then are the
details of the crime. Here is an example.

"The teddy bear had been ripped open, to reveal a hiding place. It was
now empty. The detective realised it was the place where Professor
Whatsit kept the key to his secret laboratory. Buy how had the killer
made it past the guard dogs? The can opener left on the kitchen counter
was analysed and found to contain traces of dog food. Clearly, the
killer fed the dogs, maybe even drugged them to keep them calm etc."