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Nostradamus Email Advanced Instant Lesson™

Pre-Reading Activities A: Discussion 1.

2.

Work in pairs and discuss the question. Which of these sources of information ? are you likely to believe without checking? a magazine a newspaper a phone call from a friend an email a web page an encyclopedia something your teacher tells you a dream you have one night Work alone. Which of the following predictions are likely to come true? (Rank them 1 - 5 in order of likelihood.) __ The sun will rise tomorrow. __ There will be an earthquake of at least 4.5 tomorrow. __ You will lose something important this week, but find it later. __ It will rain in London. __ You will unexpectedly meet someone you have not seen for years and have just thought about.

3. Now compare your ranking with your partner’s. Give reasons for your choices.

Reading Activities A: Predicting 1.

2.

Discuss this question in small groups. ? Can you, or someone you know, predict what will happen before it occurs? If so, give examples of when this has happened. Work alone. This sentence fragment comes from the first part of today’s article. Internet chat rooms are abuzz with talk that sixteenth century astrologer Nostradamus forecast... astrologer - someone who studies the positions of the stars and the movements of the planets in the belief that they influence human activities forecast - predicted

3.

Complete the sentence using your own idea. Share your idea with the class.

B: Scanning Scan Part One of today’s article quickly and look for information which will help you to answer these questions. 1. What are the e-mail messages claiming Nostradamus predicted? 2. On what basis is this claim made? 3. According to this article, do the e-mail messages report the writings of Nostradamus accurately?

ARTICLE © 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON © 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

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Part One BY GEERT DE CLERCQ

SINGAPORE Thursday September 13 (Reuters) - Internet chat rooms are abuzz with talk that 16th century French astrologer Nostradamus forecast the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Thousands of people have received e-mails containing this prophecy, often with a second part forecasting that the attack on the twin towers will mark the beginning of World War III. Several versions are doing the rounds. This is one of them: “In the year of the new century and nine months From the sky will come a great King of Terror The sky will burn at forty-five degrees. Fire approaches the new city.” The text corresponds roughly to a verse in Nostradamus’s Century (section) Six, Quatrain 97.

Several books on Nostradamus have speculated that this quatrain’s first line refers to September 2001, the ninth month in the first year of the new century, while the 45 degrees is interpreted as the latitude of the city of New York. But New York lies just below 41 degrees latitude and Nostradamus’s verse does not mention a great war, contrary to what several e-mails say. In many e-mails, the verse comes with a second part, which seems harder to link to Nostradamus: “In the city of York there will be a great collapse Two twin brothers torn apart by chaos While the fortress falls the great leader will succumb Third big war will begin when the big city is burning.” (Continued.../) ARTICLE (C) 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON (C) 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

C: Headlines 1.

2.

Read Part One of the article again and choose the best headline from the suggestions below. a.

The Writings of Nostradamus

b.

World War Three is Coming!

c.

Nostradamus Describes the Geography of New World

d.

? Did Nostradamus Really Predict New York Attack?

e.

Twin Towers and Twin Brothers

Now look at the headline of Part Two of the article below. (Do NOT read the article yet.)

Hoaxtradamus? ? Discuss these questions with a partner. a. What is a ‘hoax’? b. What point do you think the headline for Part Two is trying to make? Now read Part Two. Part Two

Hoaxtradamus? ? (Continued.../) “(This second quatrain) is NOT by Nostradamus”

reads a statement on www.nostradamus-repository.org, a Web site for Nostradamus study. Hoax or not, various versions of the verse are being forwarded by the thousands every day. “Initially, I was really skeptical, but I went to the web to look up something on (Nostradamus). Some prophecies have come true,’’ Agnes Ng, a 23-year old Singaporean accountancy student, told Reuters Thursday. She received one of the prophecies in an e-mail from a friend. Before forwarding the message to her contacts, she posted a copy on Usenet newsgroup alt.prophecies.nostradamus. The email she received was even more specific, forecasting that:

“The big war will begin when the big city is burning on the 11th day of the 9th month that... two metal birds would crash into two tall statues in the new city and the world will end soon after.” One of the newsgroup contributors who goes by the e-mail moniker of “Justaguy” said this was a fake. “It has been posted ad nauseam,” he said. Nostradamus prophecies surface after nearly every major news event. False or real, they struck a chord in Singapore. Bookstore salespeople told Reuters there had been strong demand for books on Nostradamus since Tuesday’s attacks. ARTICLE (C) 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON (C) 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

ARTICLE © 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON © 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

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D: Vocabulary Work in pairs, (Student A and Student B). Student A should look at Task A below, and Student B should look at Task B. Task A: Find the words in Part One of today’s article and match them with their correct meanings. Words

Meanings

prophecy (n)

guessed / thought / formed an opinion without all the facts

‘doing the rounds’

distance north or south of the equator

correspond

opposite to

speculated

to yield or give in to something / someone

latitude

a statement which predicts what will happen in the future

contrary to

match

succumb

to be passed from one person to another

When you have finished, get your teacher to check your answers, then teach your words to your partner. Task B: Find the words in Part Two of today’s article and match them with their correct meanings. Words

Meanings

fake

person who helps by giving money, information or ideas

skeptical

something which annoys because it continues for too long

contributor

name or nickname

moniker

something that seems genuine but is not

surface (v)

cause a strong response

ad nauseum

questioning the truth of something

‘strike a chord’

to come to people’s attention

When you have finished, get your teacher to check your answers, then teach your words to your partner.

E: Comprehension Use the information in today’s article (Parts One and Two) and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F). 1. Thousands of people around the world received e-mails stating that the predictions of Nostradamus are a hoax. 2. The second quatrain, mentioned in the article, was clearly written by Nostradamus. 3. Many people, particularly in Singapore, appear to believe the predictions attributed to Nostradamus. 4. Nostradamus made predictions about every major world event which has occurred since the 16th Century, and which are yet to occur. 5. New York’s latitude is 45 degrees.

F: Language Work with a partner. Find and correct the mistakes in these sentences from the articles. Do NOT look back at the articles until you have completed this activity. 1. Thousands of people have received e-mails contained in this prophecy. 2. Text corresponds roughly to a verse in Nostradamus’s Century (section) Six, Quatrain 97. 3. Before to forward the message to her contacts, she posted a copy on Usenetnewsgroupalt.prophecies.nostradamus. 4. One of the newsgroup contributors who is going by the e-mail moniker of “Justaguy” said this was a fake. 5. Bookstore salespeople told Reuters there had strong demand for books on Nostradamus from Tuesday’s attacks. When you have finished, find the sentences in today’s articles and check your answers.

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Post-Reading Activities You may do one or more of these.

A: Interpretations Many of Nostradamus’ verses are so vague that it is not certain what he may be writing about. Here is a verse, and four interpretations. Which interpretation or interpretations do you think an expert on Nostradamus has said matches the verse? Choose from the possible interpretations below.

Century 1, verse XXII That which shall live shall leave no direction, Its destruction and death will come by stratagem, Autun, Chalons, Langres, and from both sides, The war and ice shall do great harm. Possible Interpretations: 1. Captain Scott of Britain and his team get lost and die while trying to reach the South Pole. 2. The use of supersonic weapons traveling in the near absolute zero temperatures above the stratosphere. 3. The Long March in China when Mao Tse Tung led around 100,000 people over 10,000 kilometers to northwest China to escape the Nationalist army. Only around 8,000 people survived. 4. The invention and development of germ warfare and its use as part of a winter war in Europe. 5. None of the above. 6. All of the above. Now write your own interpretation of the verses. Try and tie it in with something that happened in recent history.

B: Extra Reading / Summarizing 1. Work in groups of three. Each student should read a different part of the article below. Part One

Rumors, Legends Swirl as U.S. Looks for Meaning BY JILL SERJEANT

Monday October 1 10:09 AM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It started with the story about a Nostradamus prophecy on the fall of “two brothers” predicting the start of World War Three, and was quickly followed by the face of Satan “revealed” in the smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. Was it true that 4,000 Jews working in the twin towers had advance warning of the deadly attack and stayed home? Or that a United Airlines pilot asked passengers on a flight in the days following the disaster to overpower hijackers? Rumors, urban legends, conspiracy theories — some of the strangest proving true and some of the seemingly irrefutable proving false — have flooded the Internet in the two weeks since the audacious attacks in New York and Washington as Americans have tried to grasp a horror no one dreamed of before Sept. 11. “We have never seen anything like this. We are receiving hundreds and hundreds of e-mails every day. We are talking about in the region of 1 million people viewing our pages every day,” said Barbara Mikkelson, who with her husband David runs the Urban Legends Reference Pages at http://www.snopes.com.

“It is just incredible the numbers of people who are engaged in spreading rumors, or who are interested in hearing the truth behind stories, or trying to debunk them,” Los Angeles-based Mikkelson said. The Mikkelsons have been running their Web site since 1995, attempting to sort out fact from fiction in urban legends ranging from the business world to giving birth. The Sept. 11 attacks have provided the biggest challenge to Web sites such as theirs as a maelstrom of disbelief, hope and despair has overwhelmed the nation. “It is a time right now where the mainstream media is distrusted. There is a sense of so much going on that there is a sensation that the press might somehow be being controlled or that the real story is being kept from us,” Mikkelson said. “Additionally, this is a time of crisis. People wish to reach out and touch others. They repeat rumors because it is a way of saying, ‘I’m frightened by things, are you frightened too?’’’ (Continued.../)

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ARTICLE © 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON © 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

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Part Two (Continued.../)The prophecy widely attributed to Nostradamus in re-

cent days originated in a Canadian student’s essay from the 1990s, Mikkelson said. The advance warnings said to have been received by Jews is false, as is the miraculous tale of the man who rode falling debris from the World Trade Center 82 floors down to safety. But a United Airlines pilot on Sept. 15 did make scathing remarks about security and urged passengers to overpower any hijackers that might get onboard. And President Bush did tell senators in an Oval Office meeting on Sept. 13: “I’m not gonna fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.’’ Andy Warriner, a software engineer who helps run the Web

site http://www.urbanlegends.com in his spare time, said the amount of e-mail his site is receiving is “still piling on.” “They are getting more, and worse. One of the things I was heartened by originally was that there were not a lot of conspiracy theories floating around. But now we are starting to see more and more creative conspiracy theories,’’ Warriner said. Urbanlegends.com also hunts down facts to substantiate or debunk the tales. But as the conspiracy theories involving CIA activity or supposed links between the United States and prime suspect Osama bin Laden become more lurid, the harder they are to check out. (Continued.../) ARTICLE (C) 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON (C) 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

Part Three

Jump In E-Mail (Continued.../)“What

I find fascinating, particularly now, is the social aspect of what people believe,” said Warriner, who is receiving more than 150 e-mails a day compared to a usual 40. “I personally find it depressing because the events themselves are depressing without every day getting e-mails from... people casting around to try to divine some kind of meaning or consolation.’’ Both urbanlegends.com and snopes.com have concluded the pictures, widely seen on CNN and in many newspapers, of an evil face in the smoke of the World Trade Center collapse were 2.

not doctored or faked. Snopes.com said the images fall into its “undetermined or ambiguous veracity” category, while urbanlegends.com said if viewers are not convinced by lighting, billowing smoke and camera angles as an explanation, they should turn to theologians and philosophers. But the question of whether an unburned Bible was found amid the wreckage of the Pentagon is still undetermined. ARTICLE (C) 2001 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON (C) 2001 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

4.

When you have finished, and when you are sure you understand the extra information your part of the article supplies, make written notes of the main points. Be brief, you do not need to write complete sentences. Now memorize the information as best you can, and in your own words, explain the content of your part of the article to the others in your group. Ask and answer questions of each other until everyone is sure they have understood all the main points.

5.

Now read the other parts of the article.

3.

C: Research and Oral Presentation 1.

If you have access to the Internet, visit the site http://www.urbanlegends.com mentioned in the extra reading activity above. 2. Find the definition of an ‘urban myth’ as given on this site. In your own words, explain what an ‘urban myth’ is. 3. Now choose a topic on the site and read about one urban ‘myth’ related to that topic. 4. Prepare a five minute oral presentation to give to the class about the topic you researched. 5. Use an audio or visual aid, if you can, to introduce your topic and capture audience attention. Outline the myth without explaining its origins, then get the class to speculate as to how this myth came about. List the suggestions your classmates make on the whiteboard. 6. Finally tell the class the true origins of your ‘urban myth’. Extension activity: You may like to collate all your stories about ‘urban myths’ into booklet form for others to read, and as a permanent record of your classwork.

D: Discussion In small groups, discuss your opinions about the predictions made by Nostradamus. Then discuss the following questions. 1. Have you ever heard of him before? 2. Have you already heard about these predictions? 3. Has anyone sent you an e-mail about this subject already? 4. How did you react when you originally read or heard about these ‘predictions’? 5. Do you know about any other sources predicting future events? If you do, do you believe these sources? Why or why not?

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TEACHERS' NOTES AND ANSWER KEY Pre-Reading Activities A: Discussion - Notes Allow students to give their opinions freely. Reading Activities A: Predicting - Notes 1. Be sensitive to the fact that students may have very subjective accounts to relate, which are nevertheless very real to them. It is important that this discussion should take place in an atmosphere of mutual respect, even if some of the ideas students venture sound strange and unlikely to other class members. A: Predicting - Answer 2. Answers will vary. B: Scanning - Answers 1. E-mail messages are claiming that Nostradamus predicted the start of World War Three. 2. This claim is made on the basis of some predictions contained in writings attributed to Nostradamus. 3. According to the article, it is doubtful that Nostradamus wrote the material in the second quatrain. (The words “which seems harder to link to Nostradamus”, seem to indicate the writer’s opinion here.) C: Headlines - Answers 1. d 2. A ‘hoax’ is a trick which is intended to deceive people. The title “Hoaxtradamus?” is an obvious play on the name Nostradamus, and raises the question as to whether the prophecies attributed to him were actually written by someone else to deliberately deceive people.

E: Comprehension - Answers 1. F, 2. F, 3. T, 4. F, 5. F F: Language - Answers 1. Thousands of people have received e-mails containing this prophecy. 2. The text corresponds roughly to a verse in Nostradamus’s Century (section) Six, Quatrain 97. 3. Before forwarding the message to her contacts, she posted a copy on Usenet newsgroup alt.prophecies.nostradamus. 4. One of the newsgroup contributors who goes by the e-mail moniker of “Justaguy” said this was a fake. 5. Bookstore salespeople told Reuters there had been strong demand for books on Nostradamus since Tuesday’s attacks. Post-Reading Activities A: Interpretations - Answers Allow students to discuss their opinions at length. Number 2 is an interpretation from a Nostradamus author (as quoted in How To Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn - Pgs 59-60). B: Extra Reading / Summarizing - Notes Monitor each group as they report about their article. Make sure all the main ideas of each article are covered in the discussion. C: Research and Oral Presentation - Notes You may like to visit the website yourself before students complete this activity and locate and present an ‘urban myth’ as a model for your students.

D: Vocabulary - Notes Students form pairs and do either Task A or Task B, working alone to do this. They then teach their partner the words. (You may like to ask them to decide how they will teach the words and give them a time limit. An effective way to then check whether their partners have understood their explanations, and also to add an incentive for participating, would be to then do a quick quiz. Say a few sentences: in each sentence use one of the words from Tasks A and B but replace the actual word with the sound ‘beep’. While this quiz would interrupt the flow of the Reading Activities, it will give students a chance to reinforce their understanding of the words. They can then use their knowledge of them to give the article closer scrutiny in Reading Activity E.) D: Vocabulary - Answers Task A Words prophecy (n) ‘doing the rounds’ correspond speculated latitude contrary to succumb

Meanings a statement which predicts what will happen in the future to be passed from one person to another match guessed / thought / formed an opinion without all the facts distance north or south of the equator opposite to to yield or give in to something / someone

Task B Words fake skeptical contributor moniker surface (v) ad nauseum ‘strike a chord’

Meanings something that seems genuine but is not questioning the truth of something person who helps by giving money, information or ideas name or nickname to come to people’s attention something which annoys because it continues for too long cause a strong response

© 2001 English To Go Ltd. All rights reserved. News article © 2001 Reuters, used with permission. Not to be reproduced or stored in any way without the permission of English To Go Ltd. http://www.english-to-go.com English To Go and Instant Lessons are the registered trade marks of English To Go Ltd. email: [email protected] 010913socsc

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