Bringing It All Together
Learning Goals
In this chapter, you will learn to:
- Know the rules for dividing words into syllables
- Make inferences and draw conclusions
- Discuss and respond to the digital story Mountain of Stories
- Understand outcome
- Use commas in a series
- Write a how-to paragraph about supporting someone when they “come out”
Getting Ready to Read
Look at this list of book and movie titles. Which titles do you find interesting? Why?
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Me Talk Pretty One Day
- John Dies at the End
- No Country for Old Men
- After. Life
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- There Will Be Blood
- The Motorcycle Diaries
Can you think of a movie with a soundtrack that you enjoyed?
Vocabulary
Scan Bringing It All Together to find a bold word for each of the following.
1. A bar along the bottom or side of a window that you move with a mouse to see parts of the window that are hidden
2. A song on a record or CD
3. An arrow that is on a computer screen and can be moved with a mouse
4. An example of what something will look like
5. Not named
6. Notice or pay attention to
7. To put something where people can see it
8. Related to boys and men
9. Related to girls and women
10. To become visible
Word Patterns
Knowing the rules for dividing words into syllables can help you sound out words you do not know.
- When a word has the pattern vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel (VCCV), you usually divide between the consonants.
Example: ap-pear win-dow
- When a word has the pattern vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV), you usually divide after the first vowel, but if that doesn’t sound right, try dividing after the last vowel.
Examples: What sounds right: ref-und or re-fund? Re-fund sounds right.
What sounds right: mom-ent or mo-ment? Mo-ment sounds right.
- With compound words, each word gets its own syllable.
Example: scroll bar
Divide these words into syllables.
11. robot
12. relax
13. student
14. myself
15. hotel
16. tulip
17. human
18. handbag
19. hello
20. contest
21. dentist
22. invent
23. absent
24. fishpond
Reading Strategy
Read Bringing It All Together. After you have read through the text, answer questions 1 to 5 from Check Your Understanding (below). Then use the storyboard you made earlier and the instructions in the text to:
- Give your digital story a title
- Add images to the storyboard
- Change the timing of the images
- Add a soundtrack
When you need a break from video editing, read about and watch the digital story Mountain of Stories. Answer the Check Your Understanding questions 6 to 13 (below).
Check Your Understanding
1. What are the four main parts of the WeVideo Editor?
2. How do you save your video in WeVideo?
3. What is the MyMedia folder?
4. What is the purpose of the preview screen?
5. What is the purpose of the storyboard in the WeVideo Editor?
6. What does “Two-Spirit” refer to?
7. Why is it often difficult for people to come out as queer, trans, or Two-Spirit?
8. Why do you think coming out is important for queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people to do — even if it is difficult? Make an inference using your own knowledge.
9. The outcome of a story refers to how everything turns out in the end. Nazbah comes out to her mother as Two-Spirit in a letter. She is worried because she does not hear from her mother for three months. What is the outcome of the story?
10. How do the images in Mountain of Stories help you understand the story?
11. How does the music in Mountain of Stories help you understand the story?
12. How does Nazbah’s voice help you understand the story?
13. What tone do the images, music, and Nazbah’s voice work together to create?
Commas in a Series
Grammar Rule
Commas can be used to separate items in a series, or a list. Look at how the comma is used in these sentences:
- The shop had every flavour of ice cream except chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
- She speaks English, French, and Arabic.
- Our hotel room was a disappointment. The mattress was lumpy, the air conditioning was broken, and the window looked onto a brick wall.
Notice that the comma does not go before the first word in the list. Also notice that the word “and” or “or” appears before the last item in the list. The comma goes before “and” or “or,” not after.
The list should have three or more items. If there are only two items in the list, do not use a comma.
- The spy took a gun and a hairbrush everywhere he went.
Fill in the commas in the sentences below.
1. Carrots can be orange purple white red or yellow.
2. At the picnic, we had sandwiches watermelon and lemonade.
3. In my pocket, I found a button a bandage a tissue and a dollar.
4. I saw lots of tropical fish a turtle and some starfish when I went snorkeling.
5. The recipe calls for cocoa sugar eggs milk and flour.
6. A sheep a duck and a rooster were the first passengers ever to ride in a hot air balloon.
7. Niagara Falls froze over in the years 1911 1932 and 2014.
8. A pirate named Captain William Kidd may have buried his treasure in New York Connecticut or Rhode Island.
9. We sat in the vet’s waiting room beside a dog with a cone around its neck and a kitten with a broken leg.
10. Newfoundland is home to places called Bad Bay Bleak Island Misery Point and Cape Despair.
11. There is a house in New Jersey shaped like an elephant a house in Oklahoma shaped like a chicken and a house in Massachusetts made entirely out of newspapers.
12. This weekend, I went for a hike read a good book and played board games with my nephew.
Writing Task
Mountain of Stories is a story about coming out as Two-Spirit. Follow the steps below to write an opinion paragraph on this topic:
How can a friend or family member be supportive of someone who comes out as queer, trans, or Two-Spirit?
1. Think: Try free-writing about this topic for five minutes. Free-writing is an activity where you write everything that comes to your mind. Don’t stop writing, even for a second. Don’t worry about grammar or whether your ideas are any good. The point of free-writing is to come up with as many ideas as possible. When five minutes are up, look back at the ideas you came up with.
2. Organize: Ask your instructor for the How To paragraph planner, or open and print one from the link. You will find a printable version in Appendix 1. Fill in the outline with your best ideas.
3. Write: Follow your outline as you write a first draft of your how-to paragraph. Don’t worry too much about spelling and grammar. Just get your ideas down in a way that makes sense. At this point, you may want to put your draft aside so you can look at it with fresh eyes later.
4. Edit: Use a different colour to make edits to your writing. Check to see how it sounds when you read it out loud. Is the meaning clear? Are there any details that are missing or off topic? Should you use different sentence types to make it flow more smoothly? Are there any words that you want to change to make your writing more alive? (Use a thesaurus to find more interesting vocabulary.) Are all your sentences complete? Do you need to check the spelling of any words in a dictionary?
5. Rewrite: Write a final copy of your paragraph that includes all your edits. You may wish to type it on a computer. Finally, hand in your paragraph to your instructor.
Answer Key
| Vocabulary | |
| QUESTION | ANSWER |
| 1 | scroll bar |
| 2 | track |
| 3 | mouse pointer |
| 4 | preview |
| 5 | untitled |
| 6 | note |
| 7 | display |
| 8 | masculine |
| 9 | feminine |
| 10 | appear |
| 11 | ro-bot |
| 12 | re-lax |
| 13 | stu-dent |
| 14 | my-self |
| 15 | ho-tel |
| 16 | tu-lip |
| 17 | hu-man |
| 18 | hand-bag |
| 19 | hel-lo |
| 20 | con-test |
| 21 | den-tist |
| 22 | in-vent |
| 23 | ab-sent |
| 24 | fish-pond |
| Check Your Understanding | |
| QUESTION | ANSWER |
| 1 | The four main parts of the WeVideo Editor are the menu, the media folder, the preview screen, and the storyboard. |
| 2 | You save your video in WeVideo by clicking on the menu and then clicking SAVE. |
| 3 | The MyMedia folder is the place that holds all your media files, like pictures and sound clips. |
| 4 | The purpose of the preview screen is to let you see what your video looks like as you build it. |
| 5 | The purpose of the storyboard in the WeVideo Editor is to let you arrange your pictures in the right order, decide how long each picture will appear for, and add a soundtrack. |
| 6 | “Two-Spirit” refers to an Aboriginal person who has both a masculine and feminine spirit. |
| 7 | It is often difficult for people to come out as queer, trans, or Two-Spirit because they may lose friends and family, receive unfair treatment, or be victims of violence. |
| 8 | Answers may vary. It is important for queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people to come out so that they can honestly express who they are, find acceptance, meet others like them, and love themselves. |
| 9 | The outcome of the story is that Nazbah’s stepfather tells her mother that there have always been Two-Spirit people in their community, and Nazbah must be accepted and loved. As a result, Nazbah’s mother decides she must love Nazbah twice as much to make up for the other people who may not accept her. |
| 10 | Answers may vary. The images in Mountain of Stories help the audience connect with the characters (Nazbah, her mom, and her stepdad) because we can see their faces. The pictures of the mountains help the audience feel Nazbah’s connection to the land and her ancestors. |
| 11 | Answers may vary. The music in Mountain of Stories helps the audience appreciate Nazbah’s Aboriginal culture and how this shapes her identity and how her family feels about her identity. |
| 12 | Answers may vary. The emotion in Nazbah’s voice helps the audience feel connected to her and to care about her story. |
| 13 | Answers may vary. The images, music, and Nazbah’s voice work together to create a feeling of strength. At first, the tone is worried because Nazbah is afraid she will be rejected. By the end, Nazbah’s acceptance from her mother allows her to feel strong enough to deal with a world that may not be so accepting. |
| Commas in a Series | |
| QUESTION | ANSWER |
| 1 | Carrots can be orange, purple, white, red, or yellow. |
| 2 | At the picnic, we had sandwiches, watermelon, and lemonade. |
| 3 | In my pocket, I found a button, a bandage, a tissue, and a dollar. |
| 4 | I saw lots of tropical fish, a turtle, and some starfish when I went snorkeling. |
| 5 | The recipe calls for cocoa, sugar, eggs, milk, and flour. |
| 6 | A sheep, a duck, and a rooster were the first passengers ever to ride in a hot air balloon. |
| 7 | Niagara Falls froze over in the years 1911, 1932, and 2014. |
| 8 | A pirate named Captain William Kidd may have buried his treasure in New York, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. |
| 9 | We sat in the vet’s waiting room beside a dog with a cone around its neck and a kitten with a broken leg. (No comma is needed because there are only two items in the list.) |
| 10 | Newfoundland is home to places called Bad Bay, Bleak Island, Misery Point, and Cape Despair. |
| 11 | There is a house in New Jersey shaped like an elephant, a house in Oklahoma shaped like a chicken, and a house in Massachusetts made entirely out of newspapers. |
| 12 | This weekend, I went for a hike, read a good book, and played board games with my nephew. |
Attribution
Filmstrip
Image by Erbs55 is in the Public Domain.
