Class:XII Sub: English Core (301)

SUMMER HOLIDAY ASSIGNMENT 2024-25

I. Advanced Creative Writing skills
Notice Writing
Maruti Public School will be conducting an online course on news reading during the summer
vacations for students of Class XI and XII. In this course, students will learn to understand news
reports, build the habit of reading the news regularly, and will have a chance to interact with
well-known journalists. As Rutwik Sen, Editor of the school magazine, draft a notice in about
50 words for the school notice board, urging students to sign up. Mention any other relevant
details required for the notice.
2. Formal Letter Writing
a. You are Sheena Singh, a recent graduate of High Horizon School. You came across the
following advertisement about an internship in editing that you would like to apply
for. Write a letter to Books Galore, expressing your interest in the position along with
your resumé.
b. Lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and heart diseases have
increased in India. 53% of deaths in India are due to lifestyle diseases. Write a letter to
the editor of a national daily about the issue and your understanding of the reasons
behind the same. Offer suggestions on how one can reduce their risk of having such
diseases and on ways to cope with them. You may use the following cues to compose
the letter. You are Shriya Rawat, a concerned citizen.

Consequences:
- leads to a poor quality of life mentally and physically
- increases the cost of health care
- can reduce life expectancy and cause early deaths
Solutions:
- follow a balanced diet
- incorporate some form of exercise that is sustainable - get regular blood tests to check
our health status
3. Article Writing
You are Sneha Hassan of Class XII. Write an article for your school magazine on the Importance of Active
Listening. Expand on how good listening skills help one to gain multiple perspectives, be an effective team
player, and contribute to an overall atmosphere of empathy and care. Use the given cues along with your own
ideas to compose this article.

Listening skills: listening and comprehending, paraphrasing, active body language like nodding, changing
facial expressions, and sitting straight.Effect on others: we feel heard and acknowledged, builds trust, others
more likely to hear us, leads to more ideas being shared.

II. Literature
 Lesson-1 THE THIRD LEVEL
Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)
1. Who was Charley? What was his problem?
2. “That ain’t money , mister.” When did the ticket-clerk utter these words?
3. Who was Sam? What did he tell Charley?
4. How did Charley contradict the psychiatrist’s opinion?
5. What surprised Charley one day?
6. What had Sam written in his letter to Charley?
7. Why couldn’t Sam go back to his old business in Galesburg?
8. Was the Third level a medium of escape for Charley?
9. Why is Grand Central compared to a tree?
10. Why did he wish to escape Galesburg?
11. What is First Day Cover?
12. What is referred to as ‘the obvious step’?
Lesson-2 THE TIGER KING
Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)
1. What was the miracle that took place in the royal palace?
2. How was the Tiger King brought up?
3. What did the State astrologer say he would do ‘if the hundredth tiger were also killed’?
4. What did the high-ranking British officer wish to do? Was his wish fulfilled?
5. How did the Maharaja manage to save his throne?
6. How did the ‘duraisani’ behave on receiving the gifts?
7. Why did the Maharaja’s tiger killing mission come to a sudden halt?
8. Why did the Maharaja suddenly decide to marry? Whom did he wish to marry?
9. Why did Maharaja order the dewan to double the tax?
10. What did the Maharaja buy as a birthday gift for his son?
11. How did the king’s arm become seriously infected?

Flamingo:Poetry & Prose

Poem -1 MY MOTHER AT SIXTY SIX
EXTRACTS
1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
I looked again at her, wan, pale
as a late winter’s moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile ………)
(a) What was the poet’s childhood fear?
(b) What were the poet’s parting words?
(c) What is the poetic device used in these lines?
(d) Why did the poet smile and smile?
2. Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
……….but soon
put that thought away and
looked out at young
trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes……………
(a) What thought did the poet drive away from her mind?
(b) What did she see when she looked out of the car?
(c) How do you know that the joyful scene didn’t help her drive away the painful
thought from her mind?
(d) What are the merry children symbolic of?
(OR)
(a) Which thought did the poet put away?
(b) What do the ‘sprinting trees’ signify?
(c) What are “the merry children spilling out of their homes”, symbolic of?
(d) Why does the poet make use of the images of ‘young trees sprinting’ and ‘merry
children spilling’?
(OR)
(a) Who looked out at the young trees?
(b) Which thought did she put away?
(c) What do young sprinting trees signify?
(d) Why are the trees described as sprinting?

3. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
Driving from my parent’s
home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother, beside me
doze, open mouthed, her face ashen like that ‘
of a corpse and realised with pain
that she was as old as she looked …
(a) Where was the poet driving to?
(b) Why was her mother’s face looking like that of a corpse?
(c) What did the poet notice about her mother?
(d) Why was the realisation painful?

4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
…….and
looked but soon
put that thought away and
looked out at young
trees sprinting,
the merry children spilling
out of their homes,………..
(a) Name the poem and the poet.
(b) What did the poet realise? How did she feel?
(c) What did she do then?
(d) What did she notice in the world outside?
5. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
…………….and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile
(a) What was the childhood fear that now troubled the poet?
(b) What do the poet’s parting words suggest?
(c) Why did the poet smile and smile?
(d) Explain, “that old familiar ache.”
Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)
1. How does Kamala Das try to put away the thoughts of her ageing mother?
2. What was the poet’s childhood fear?
(OR)
What were Kamala Das, fears as a child? Why do they surface when she is going to the
airport?
3. What were the poet’s feelings at the airport? How did she hide them?
4. Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children spilling out of their homes?
5. What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?
6. What does the poet do to shrug off the painful thought of her mother’s approaching end?
7. Why does the poet draw the image of sprinting trees and merry children?
8. Why have the trees been described as sprinting?

Poem-3 KEEPING QUIET

EXTRACTS
1. Read the stanza and answer the questions that follows:
“Fishermen in the cold sea
Would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt
Would look at his hurt hands.”
(a) What is ‘fisherman’ symbolic of?
(b) What will happen when fishermen do not harm whales?
(c) What has happened to the man gathering salt? What must he do?
(d) What would happen in this moment of silence?
(e) What image does the poet create in the last line?

2. Read the stanza and answer the questions that follows:

” Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later prove to be alive
Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will go.”
(a) Who can teach us?
(b) What does earth teach us?
(c) Why does the speaker count up to twelve?
(d) Explain-‘you keep quiet and I will go’?

3. “What I want should not be confused

 With total inactivity
Life is what it is about
I want no truck with death.”
a) Name the poem and the poet?
b) What is the desire of the poet?
c) What does ‘total inactivity’ imply?
d) Why does the poet say that he does not want his wish to be confused with total
inactivity?
e) Explain-‘I want no truck with death’.

Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)

1. Why shouldn’t we speak any language and move our arms so much?
2. How does the poet distinguish ‘stillness’ from ‘total inactivity’? Explain.
3. “I want no truck with death.” Explain.
4. What are the various wars mentioned? What is the result of these wars?
5. What would be the result of quietude?
6. Why does Pablo Naruda urge us to keep still?
7. ’Under the apparent stillness there is life’. Justify.
8. Why do men become sad? How can this sadness be overcome?

Poem-4 A THING OF BEAUTY

EXTRACTS
1. “Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘gainst the hot season.”
(a) What proves a blessing for the sheep?
(b) Where do daffodils bloom?
(c) What prove to be pleasant shelters in summer?
(d) Name the objects of beauty referred to here.

2. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever

Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness; but will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep
full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth.”
(a) What is the special virtue of a beautiful thing?
(b) How does it bless us?
(c) Explain the expression “A bower quiet for us”.
(d) What do we do everyday?
3. “the mid forest brake,
rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;
and such too is the grandeur of the dooms
who have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.”
(a) What do you mean by ‘brake’? Where does it grow? What makes it all the more
beautiful?
(b) What do you mean by ‘the grandeur of the dooms’?
(c) “All lovely tales that we have heard or read” Explain.
(d) What is the source of the beauty of nature? What is its effect on us?

4. “Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

from our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, trees old,
and young, sprouting a shady boon for simple sheep; and
such are daffodils with green world they live in; and clear
rills that for themselves a cooling covert make ‘gainst the
hot season; the mid forest brake Rich with a sprinkling of
fair musk-rose blooms”
(a) What removes the pall from our dark spirits?
(b) What sprouts a shady boon for sheep and how?
(c) How do ‘daffodils’ and rills enrich the environment?
(d) What makes the mid-forest brake rich?

Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)

1. How do we wreathe a flowery band?
2. Why do human beings suffer or what depresses the human soul?
3. What does Keats mean by the ‘grandeur of doom’?
4. Mention 4 things of beauty listed in the poem?
5. How do we bind ourselves to the earth every morning?
6. Why and how is ‘grandeur’ associated with the mighty dead?
7. What is the source of the ‘endless fountain’ and what is its effect?
8. What is the message of the poem?
9. What according to Keats are the things that cause suffering and pain?
10. What makes human beings love life in spite of all the suffering?
11. Why does the poet say ‘mighty dead’?

Lesson-1 THE LAST LESSON

Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)
1. Why did Franz not want to go to school?
2. Why didn’t M. Hamel punish Franz even though he was late?
3. Mention the three changes that Franz noticed in the school?
4. What announcement did M. Hamel make and what was its impact?
5. What do you think was written on the bulletin board?
6. Why did M. Hamel say that knowing one’s language is a key to prison?
7. Whom did Mr. Hamel blame for not learning the French?
8. What changes have taken place in the school in the last forty years?
9. What did he mean by “Viva La France”?
10. What was the narrator’s greatest fear as he moved towards the school?
11. What was more tempting to Franz rather than going to school?
12. What was the news which was put up on the bulletin board?
13. What was so unusual about the school on that day?
14. Why were the villagers seated on the back benches?
15. Franz didn’t learn French. Whom did M. Hamel blame?
16. What did M. Hamel say about French language?
17. What happened when the church clock struck 12?
Lesson-2 LOST SPRING -STORIES OF STOLEN CHILDHOOD
Short Answer Type Questions (2 Marks, 30-40 words)
1. What does Saheb do for living? Why?
2. “Saheb is no longer his own master”, says the writer. What does she mean?
3. Why did people migrate from the village in Dhaka to Delhi ?
4. What trade does the family of Mukesh follow? Why does the writer feel that it will be
difficult for Mukesh to break away from this tradition?
5. What does garbage symbolize for the adults and children?
6. Describe Seemapuri.
7. Where has Saheb come from and why?
8. Describe the living conditions of bangle makers?
9. “Promises made to poor children are never kept. “Explain with examples from the lesson.
10. Mention the hazards of working in the bangle industry.
11. Do you think Mukesh will realize his dream of becoming a car mechanic?
12. ‘His dreams loom like a mirage’. Whose dreams are being referred to and why are they
compared to a mirage?
13. ‘Together they have imposed the baggage on the child that he cannot put down.’ Who do
‘they’ refer to? What is the ‘baggage’ and why can the child not get rid of it?
14. What was Saheb’s full name? How is it ironical?

English Core (301)

Project Portfolio/Project Report Topics

List with the Tasks

General Instructions:

• It is compulsory for all to prepare the Project file.

• The Internal Assessment of Term II will be in the form of Project Portfolio/Project
Report and Viva. Both Project and Viva will carry 10 Marks each.
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Project-Portfolio/ Project Report

The Project-Portfolios is a compilation of the work that the students produce during the
process of working on their ALS Project. The Project-Portfolio may include the following:

PROJECT FILE

Page 1 : COVER PAGE, WITH TITLE OF PROJECT, SCHOOL DETAILS/DETAILS OF

STUDENTS. Page 2 : STATEMENT OF PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES/GOALS

Page 3 : CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF THE

TEACHER. Page 4 : ACTION PLAN FOR THE COMPLETION OF ASSIGNED

TASKS.

Mid Pages : PROJECT/REPORT DETAILS( Graphics and pictures to be pasted on left hand
side and content of the report to be written in your own handwriting on the right hand
side of the page.

Last Page : LIST OF RESOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS FOR MAKING PROJECT

• The marks allotted for ASL PROJECT 10marks(5 +5) project and viva on the
same taken by the External
• The Project can be inter-disciplinary in theme.
• The topics may be taken up that provide students with opportunities for
listening and speaking. • Some suggestions are as follows:
INTERVIEW BASED RESEARCH:
1. Students can take a project on the theme of their interest. Ex- Impact of
pandemic on Businessmen, the students will interview the business and write
a report on the information in 1000 words.
2. The students should interview and collect information at least ten members
(10 members). 3. The students need to prepare a questionnaire on the topic
taken and it will be same for all the members being interviewed.
4. The questionnaire should consists 15 questions including basic information
(name, occupation etc)
5. The students will take the help of the teacher in preparing the
questionnaire.
6. Each and every student will have a different questionnaire as they have
different topics for project 7. Evidences need to be attached at the last pages of
the project like the questionnaire, photographs with the interviewee.
 8. A video of one or two persons can be taken and should be saved in a pen
drive.

• THE PORTFOLIO OF PROJECT

THE PROJECT PORTFOLIO MAY INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING
1. cover page with the title of the project, school details of the students
2. Statement of purpose or objectives
3. Certificate of completion
4. Content of the project
5. Topic of the project
6. Action plan of the project
7. Project Report
8. Questionnaire
10 . Photographs
11. List of resources and bibliography

NOTE: THE PROJECT SHOULD BE HANDWRITTEN

( The cover page , acknowledgement , certificate can be printed and the rest of
the pages should be handwritten)
USE A4 size paper white sheet for the project and after compiling everything it
should be spiral binding.
PROJECT TOPICS

You have to make pictorial as well as graphical presentation on left hand side of the
file. All data should be collected authentically and handwritten essay of 1000 words
on right side.

TOPIC 1 - F-1 The Last Lesson

• Elaborate the theme of Linguistic Chauvinism and Procrastination and

importance of Time Management.
• Collect data about countries where people have these tendencies.
• How do they give importance to their mother tongue?

TOPIC 2 -F-2 The Lost Spring

• Collect data about various slums in our country and living conditions there.Also
elaborate whether children have access of education there.
• How children are engaged in various kinds of work(Below 14)?
• Collect all information about biggest slums.

TOPIC 3 Book Review:

 Choose any one book of science fiction / thriller /adventure . Read and write the
view using the format suggested.
.
.
TOPIC 4 - My Mother At Sixty-six

• Explain the importance of parents in the family.

• In the context of the poem how do you love and care for your mother?
• Collect data about the condition of old age homes in our country, living conditions
there, number of old age homes.
TOPIC 5- Keeping Quiet

• Collect reasons for environmental degradation.

• How far is man harming the Earth?
• Focus on relevance of meditation and introspection.

TOPIC 6 - A Thing Of Beauty

• Write all about the benefits of going amidst nature.
• Why does man find peace and solidarity there?
• Collect data of important natural destinations of our country.

TOPIC 7- V-1 The Third Level

• Why ‘hurry and worry’ are trademarks of modern men?

• How far today life is insecure? Why do modern men want to escape?
• Interview your school principal or the counselor to know the problems (stress, fear,
anxiety etc.) faced by the students in the virtual platform.
TOPIC 8- V-2 The Tiger King:
Design a poster to conserve the tiger population .And make a PPT on effect of poaching to the environment
TOPIC 9 V-3 Journey to the end of the Earth:
Watch the 'The Story of Plastic' it is a searing expose. Make a project on "Plastic Menace'

— Uncover the ugly truth behind plastic pollution

-Environmental damage created by plastic
-Human Rights abuses that occur throughout the lifecycle of plastic
-False solution of plastic recycling.
- Initiative launched by Union Environment Minister to stop the plastic menace infographic to show
the increase of

● the use of plastic

● -some state/ countries who are
● successful in reducing the use of plastic cutting from Newspaper/Journals to
 ● show the impact of Plastic
views about plastic ban

LIST OF TOPICS/THEMES

I) THE LAST LESSON- FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION

• Linguistic chauvinism

• Importance of Language

• Globalization of Language

• Franco-Prussian War

• Historical References of Events wherein linguistic identity was threatened/snatched

II) LOST SPRING-LIFE IN A SLUM

• Research and case study of a slum.

• Life of the people in a slum

• Education

• Health and Infrastructure

• Government Initiatives

• Role of youth in the upliftment of the weaker sections of the society

• Comparative Study of Slums

• Slums of yesterday turned to cities of today.

 PROJECT LAYOUT

SHEET 1- Cover Page with title, school details,

details of students SHEET 2-Statement of purpose/

Objective/ Goal

SHEET 3- Certificate of Completion under the guidance

of the teacher. SHEET 4- Action Plan

• 3-4 lines about the project.

• Research Tools and Methodology.

• Supporting Material-AV Aids/ PPT

SHEET 5- Introduction of the Project.

SHEET 6- Body of the Project

• Supporting Material

• Questionnaire

• Case Study

• Assignments

• Survey Report

• Transcripts

• Articles

• Interview

SHEET 7-REPORT

800-1000 word essay/script/report

SHEET 8-STUDENT/GROUP REFLECTION

100-150 words paragraph about the experience and learning outcomes

SHEET 9-PHOTOGRAPHS

SHEET 10- LIST RESOURCES/ BIBLIOGRAPHYY

PARAMETERS OF ASSESSMENT

1) Quality of Content

2) Accuracy of Information
3) Adherence to the specified timeline.

4) Content in respect of spellings,

grammar, punctuation 5) Clarity of

thoughts and ideas

6) Creativity

7) Contribution by group members

8) Knowledge and experience gained

Note-All the works are to be done only in A 4 sheets -ruled sheets not in any notes not even
in your reference notes.
Last date of submission -on the reopening day in June 2024 .