Daniel Cassany

PORTFOLIO EUROPEO DE LAS LENGUAS

Ya está disponible el PEL en formato electrónico.

Henry VIII and his six wives

This novel deals with the King´s six wives. After the King´s death his sixth wife finds a box with old letters wich tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

1^st wife: Katherine of Aragon

She was from Spain and she first went to England to marry Henry´s brother Arthur, but he died and then she married Henry and was his wife and Queen for 24 years.

Henry divorced Katherin because he wanted a son, and she only gave him a daughter, Princess Mary. Years before, she had a son Henry, Prince of Wales, but he died when he was only seven weeks old. Henry divorced her although he broke with the Pope and the Catholic Church and that´s how the Church of England began.

2^nd wife: Anne Boleyn

Henry was in love with her for about seven years before they married. They were married less than three and a half years, because Henry soon became tired of her. He wanted a son and she only gave him a daughter, Princess Elisabeth. There were rumours about Anne´s lovers and Henry believed the stories because he wanted another wife. Finally he sent her to the Tower of London to be beheaded.

3^rd wife: Jane Saymour

She married the King just ten days after Anne´s death. She was quite and careful. She didn´t try to tell him what to do. She also gave him a baby boy, King Edward, but she died soon after Edward was born (twelve days later)

She was buried at Winsor, and Henry is now buried next to her.

4^th wife: Anne of Cleves

She was very ugly and was a German Princess. Henry couldn´t go to Germany to see her and he sent an artist to paint a picture of her. Henry fell in love with the beatiful woman in the picture and decided to marry her. She was really ugly but he couldn´t change the arrangements for the wedding. After six months he divorced her without any problems.

5^th wife: Katherine Howard

Henry still wanted to have another son. She was one of the ladies at Queen Anne´s Palace, although he was 30 years older than her. But Katherine wasn´t very clever and she had a lover about six months after Katherine married Henry. When Henry found out about this he sent her lover to prison and soon after he sent Katherine to the Tower. She would be beheaded in a few days.

6^th wife: Catherine Parr

She was very different to the Henry´s other wives because she was 31 years old and Henry was her third husband. Henry met her at a party at Hampton Court Palace.

They didn´t have any children. Catherine married a few months after Henry´s death and she had a baby girl called Mary.

In short, the only obssesion of Henry was to have a son and he was always looking for a wife who gave him a strong son to be the future King of England. But the lifes of almost all his wives were sad and dangerous.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (William Shakespeare)

Much Ado about nothing is a very popular love comedy of William Shakespeare. It´s happened in Messina, a town on the Mediterranean island of Sicily about hundred years ago. When the play begins, Don Pedro, the Spanish prince, and his friend are coming to Messina at the hause of Leonato, lord of Messina, because the war has finished.

The play is written in five acts with two or three scenes and is very important know the characters in order to understand the plot of the story.

The characters are:

• Leonato: lord of Messina

• Hero: Leonato´s daughter

• Beatriz: Hero´s cousin

• Margaret and Ursula: hero´s servants

• Don Pedro: Prince of Aragon

• Benedick: a young gentleman and friend of Don Pedro´s

• Claudio: a young gentleman and friend of Don Pedro´s

• Don Jhon: Don Pedro´s brother

• Borachio and Conrade: Don Jhon´s servants

• Father Francis: a Priest

• Dogberry: the head of the police

• Verges: a policeman

Much ado about nothing is a play in which the writer tells the story with dialogues between the characters.

The story tells two love histories between Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedice. One of the characters, Don Jhon try to break these loves, but at the end ,the love succeed and the couples will get married and will be happy for the end of the days.

Rafael Domínguez González

Martin Luther King

In 1963, Martin Luther King made a speech in Washington DC: “I have a dream”, he said. He dreamed of all the people of America, black and white, living together in peace and freedom. He thought that all men and women should be equal.

This speech was shown in TV all over the world and Martin Luther King became a hero to millions of people around the world. But there were many people who hated this man and his ideas. Five years later, in 1968, when he was only 39 years old, a white man shot him dead in Memphis. Many people cried when they heard of his death and others were very angry; there were riots in the big cities of USA. Martin Luther King had been a man who fought for freedom and the world lost a big man, a man who was a symbol of freedom and peace.

In 1929, when he was born in Atlanta (Georgia), most black people in America lived in the South. Slavery in America was ended in 1865, when the civil war ended, but black people in the South did not have the same rights as white people and they were poorer and they lived in worse houses than white people. Blacks and whites lived in different worlds. Black people had to sit at the back of the buses and they could not sit beside whites. They couldn't eat in most restaurants and there were different schools for black children and white children. Blacks and whites lived in the same places but they were kept away from each other. This was called segregation.

Martin grew in this world and he saw how white people treated black people. He thouhgt that segregation was not fair. His father said: “Segregation is wrong but things will get better in time. We should be patient and wait. Change will come”; but young Martin did not agree with his father.”If you want to change this, you have to act”, Martin said. He often spoke in churh and at school about the need for changes.

Martin was an excellent student and when he finished his studies in Atlanta he decided to become a minister, like his father, but a teacher too. He went to Crozer, a college for ministers in Pennsylvania. There were white students at the college but Martin was happy to find that they were friendly toward him and he realized that black people and white people did not have to hate each other. In his last year at Crozer, Martin went to hear a talk about Gandhi, who had fought against the British in India using no-violence, no guns.Ghandi thought than love was more powerful than hate and Martin was excited by Ghandi's words. Could black people in the south end segregation without violence? He began to think seriously about this.

Martin continued his studies at Boston University and soon he was Dr. Martin Luther King. He fell in love with Coretta Scott, a young woman from the South, and got married to her. But he knew that his work was in the South so the Kings moved back there to fight together against segregation and to lead black people toward freedom. Martin Luther believed that no-violence was the only way to win the fight for black's rights and soon his policy of non-violent protest was becoming more popular. But most white people in the South still did not want to change and they were ready to fight to keep their way of life. There were organizations to fight against black rights (like the Ku Klux Klan) that used violence to frighten black people and stop then from fighting.

Martin Luther King work continued and he finally got that black people had some rights than white people. His dream became real. He would have been happy if he had seen Obama as president of USA.

Land of my childhood (stories from South Asia)

The book is based on stories about people from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, who reached turning points in their lives. Some of these stories are the following:

• Carapace.

  This story is about a young woman who chooses a husband leaving her childhood behind. She has to choose between two men. The first one is Vijay, her true love. He is older than her and works as a cook at the Beach Hut. He is always smiling and never eats. He'd rather see his food eaten by other people. He is very good at cooking prawns in front of the ocean. However, he is not able to commit to her. The second one is Anura Parera. He is from Australia.He earns a lot of money and has a house in Sydney. He is interested on her and he has serious marriage intentions. He can provide her with a good live with a modern house, a big car, designer clothes, expensive things and also his lifelong respect.

• The inspector of schools.

  This story is about a inspector who visits schools in dirty, smelly and distant villages and towns. Moreover every school has not enough books, local people do not care, lazy students and masters expect free meals and presents. The inspector wants to do his best making recommendations but they are refused by the Planning and Development Department which plan little and develop less. However, one day he visits one school set in the middle of a sugarcane field. Students are sitting on the ground and there are different levels. They have no rooms however. Local people don't want a school because they think children waste their time having fun when they have to help their fathers in the field or look after the cattle. Besides they are the best students he has found in three years on his job and it is worth providing them with a room, what can he do? He knows that his recommendation is going to be refused.

• The Kite-maker.

  It is about a man who wishes for peace in his village because of the war. For that reason, he makes a kite shaped like a dove with silver bells on it legs for “utraan”. It is a Hindu festival where kites are flown.

• The Stepmother.

  This story is about a boy who fights with his new stepmother. He hates her. He starts to do nasty things so that she punishes him and his father gets rid of her. Nevertheless somehow he begins to accept her.

• The Night Rain at Deoli.

  This story is about a young man who remembers a girl at a railway station. He meets her there when she tries to sell him a basket. But when he starts to show some interest on her, he has to get on the train because it is leaving. They meet twice. After that, he wants to find her to take her with him. However, she is not at the railway station any more.

• A Devoted Son.

  This story is about a parents who work very hard to give their son the best education and start in life. The son is pretty grateful and takes care of them making their last years comfortable and peaceful. Nevertheless, the end is not as peaceful as his father wants to.

• For a Horse Nail.

  This story is about a boy who needs money and sells his kidney to get it. However the person who receives it dies. He does not tell anybody he is ill.

CHEMICAL SECRET Tim Vicary

John Duncan is a biologist in his forties who starts working in a chemical factory after the death of his wife in an accident. He was living since then with his children in a small flat; Money was short at that moment since they had begun a new life because of his new job.
The main thing that the company produced was paint; one day John spilt some of the waste products on his legs damaging his skin and he discovers the pain these products can produce. Then he carried out some experiments in rats putting a small quantity of product in the water and the rat´s babies were born with some problems: no eyes, no ears, six legs…John made a report and went to the headmaster of the company, a businessman, who convinced him not to say anything. It was very expensive to put new machines to clean up the waste products before they go into the river and the factory was very important for people in town and for him and his family now. Finally nothing was done.
Some years later, Duncan’s daughter got married to a journalist worried about the environment who began to investigate about some problems with a strange disease in the river’s seals. Some months later, his daughter was pregnant and while John was in a trip his daughter and her husband sailed along the river one night to protest in front of the chemical factory where the waste products were being spilt. His daughter fell into the water and almost drown, however she could save her life. Some days later John came back to a Public Enquiry to talk about the damage of the factory in people health. Although he tried to defend his position, when he was told about his daughter news, he had to tell the truth.
After six months, John Duncan is living in a small flat alone. He´s very worried awaiting for the birth of his daughter´s child.
At the end of the story the child is born and he´s going to the hospital to see the baby for himself.

María Alonso Vacas