Eastern Mennonite University

Level I

Chapter 5
Writing

IC3 Section

English | Vietnamese
IC3 | IT | TOEFL | Best Answer
Assessment

Personal Stories
Xoá đói giảm nghèo

Skills:

In this chapter you will do these things:

IC3 Skills:

Defining Poverty—MCC’s City of Hope, City of Dreams

IT

Using the Internet for Reference

  • Dictionaries
  • Grammar and Usage
  • Computer Terminology

Intercultural Communicative Competence

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The Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines poverty as:

pov·er·ty 'pä-v&r-tE nounMiddle English poverte, from Old French poverté, from Latin paupertat-, paupertas, from pauper poor -- more at POOR

1 a : the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions b : renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property 2 : SCARCITY, DEARTH 3 a : debility due to malnutrition b : lack of fertility

synonymsPOVERTY, INDIGENCE, PENURY, WANT, DESTITUTION mean the state of one with insufficient resources. POVERTY may cover a range from extreme want of necessities to an absence of material comforts <the extreme poverty of the slum dwellers>. INDIGENCE implies seriously straitened circumstances <the indigence of her years as a graduate student>. PENURY suggests a cramping or oppressive lack of money <a catastrophic illness that condemned them to years of penury>. WANT and DESTITUTION imply extreme poverty that threatens life itself through starvation or exposure <lived in a perpetual state of want> <the widespread destitution in countries beset by famine>.

What this tells us, perhaps, is that there are many different degrees of poverty and to be impoverished can mean different things. Countries and international organizations delineate “poverty lines” meaning above the line people are expected to survive on their own, below the line, they need assistance. In the United States, American children are taught that they have the right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Does this mean, then, that if denied the right, they are impoverished?

Does one live in poverty if one cannot realize their full human potential? Read the following article—a continuation from the Level I Listening and Speaking Chapter 5 and an earlier reading in the English section of this chapter. Then, answer the questions that follow.

City of Hope, City of Dreams

Surrounded by a herd of origami dinosaurs and the robots he has drawn onto draft paper, Phong holds a rocket he fashioned from an old calendar, dates showing around curves he copied from a picture in a book.

The 12-year-old dreams of being an architect, of designing the three or four story houses that are mansions in the district of Ho Chi Minh City where he lives.

Education, ideally including study in the United States, will pave the way.

When Phong’s mother, Hanh, a producer for Mai [Handicrafts, an indigenous NGO], warns him that money may not always be available for his schooling, he answers swiftly: “I will eat rice with salt alone.”

This is the menu of want, of hunger. That Phong would choose it attests to his determination.

The son of a cyclo (bicycle-taxi) driver, Phong has received awards from the district and a scholarship from Mai to help offset the cost of his education. If that money continues, if the family’s fortunes do not worsen, he may well make it. It is an uncertain equation.

Even as his skills grow, the prosperity and changes that allow him to dream of education and a career are undermining his father’s business so rapidly it seems the cyclo may soon be an anachronism.

As families can better afford their own transportation, they don’t need cyclo drivers. As motorbikes multiply, buses run and traffic in general increases, there is less and less room for the pedal-driven vehicles.

Cyclos are forbidden during the late afternoon and early evening rush hour on several major streets.

Phong’s father, Minh, began pedaling a cyclo when his son was born because it provided a more stable income than the construction jobs he had before.

At times, the work remains a joy. The passenger in the front will joke with him; they’ll banter back and forth.

Occasionally passengers argue over the fare or ask him to wait at a location and leave without paying him. Two years ago his cyclo was hit by a motorbike. The cyclo overturned, striking a car. The motorbike driver fled, and Minh was asked to pay the driver of the car 200,000 dong—a little over $13 U.S., a fifth of what the family makes in a month. Minh pulls up his pant leg to show a leg withered by polio when he was 15 months old. Even though pedaling the cyclo has strengthened it, he still cannot make as much money as some other drivers. Sometimes he is sidelined with a chronic throat problem that flares up in the polluted air of the city.

When asked what he wants most for his life, it is that he remain healthy enough to raise his son. While he hopes the country will be rich and strong, that the times of killing will never return, Minh’s dreams for Vietnam hit the bottom line: That every family have enough to eat. “Enough things to live,” he adds. “Not short. Not short of food to eat or clothes to put on.”

Minh left school after grade 4. He cut firewood and cleaned floors, gradually working his way into the construction trade. As he mixed mortar, he picked up the skills and eventually materials that built the house he shares with his mother, his wife and Phong.

“I do wish to become a rich family,” he says. “I started working when I was a small boy. I’m not afraid of doing the hard jobs now.”

His wife, Hanh, began working for Mai (Handcrafts) nine years ago to supplement the family income. By working at home, she can take care of her son while saving money for his schooling.

It is asked of Hanh if they’ll have more children. They could not care for another one, she replies quickly.

Their efforts are concentrated on Phong.

Hanh talks about Phong’s good grades and how the family gives him one present for each award he wins from the district.

She pulls from a neat stack on the bookshelf his workbooks from art class, filled with paintings of schoolmates and teachers, a soldier, a vase. She proudly presents the robot drawings and the growing collection of dinosaurs he crafted by reading an origami instruction book he picked out at the bookstore. “It looks simple,” his mother says, “but it’s impossible.”

This is what he does, taking bits and pieces from the house, fashioning them into the fantastic creatures and things he reads about.

It is the way, with luck, he will build a life—boosted by his mother’s doll-making, his father’s toil on the streets.

But in the fast-moving, quickly-changing city, the tool he likely must rely on most is his own determination, the perseverance his parents hoped for when they gave him a name that means “strong.”

(from City of Hope, City of Dreams, Mennonite Central Committee’s Family Stories: Volume 2, 2003)

Discuss the following questions in class OR take time to freewrite and answer to these questions. Ultimately, it would be interesting to share your ideas online or in class discussion.

  1. Is it your opinion that Phong’s family lives in poverty? Why or why not?
  2. Is it Phong’s right to live out his human potential? If he does not have the opportunity, then is he living in poverty?
  3. If, indeed, Phong’s family is impoverished, whose responsibility is it to get them out of poverty? Or is no one responsible?

Vietnamese Translation of IC3

Thành phố của hi vọng và ước mơ

Giữa một bầy khủng long xếp bằng giấy và những người máy vẽ trên giấy nháp, Phong cầm một quả rốc két giấy em xếp bằng tờ lịch cũ có ngày tháng hiện trên những nếp gấp em mô phỏng theo hình vẽ trong sách.

Cậu bé 12 tuổi này mơ trở thành kiến trúc sư và thiết kế những ngôi nhà ba bốn tầng như những ngôi nhà ở quận em đang sống ở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh.

Học hành, và lí tưởng là sau này du học ở Mỹ nữa, sẽ giúp em biến ước mơ đó thành hiện thực.

Khi mẹ của em, bà Hạnh, làm việc cho Cơ sở sản xuất đồ thủ công mĩ nghệ Mai (thuộc một tổ chức phi chính phủ Việt Nam), cảnh báo rằng sẽ không có đủ tiền cho em đi học, Phong trả lời ngay: “Con sẽ chỉ ăn cơm với muối thôi.”

Đó là thực đơn của sự nghèo đói mà Phong đưa ra để chứng thực quyết tâm của mình.

Là con của một người đạp xe xích lô, Phong được trợ cấp của Quận và học bổng của cơ sở Mai để hỗ trợ một phần chi phí học tập. Nếu vẫn tiếp tục nhận được các khoản trợ cấp đó, nếu gia cảnh không kém đi, em có thể đi hết con đường học vấn. Điều này thật bấp bênh.

Thậm chí cả khi em học ngày càng tiến bộ, những đổi thay lạc quan của cuộc sống vốn cho phép em mơ ước về học hành và sự nghiệp lại đang hạn chế công việc của ba em, cái công việc mà chẳng bao lâu nữa sẽ trở thành lỗi thời.

Khi các gia đình có khả năng mua xe cộ làm phương tiện đi lại riêng, họ không cần đến xích lô nữa. Khi có nhiều xe máy, xe buýt và giao thông nói chung tấp nập hơn, ngày càng có ít chỗ cho các loại xe thô sơ.

Xe xích lô bị cấm ở nhiều trục đường chính trong giờ cao điểm lúc sáng sớm và chiều tối.

Ba của Phong, ông Minh, bắt đầu đạp xích lô khi mới sinh con vì nghề này thu nhập ổn định hơn các công việc phu hồ trước đó của ông.

Có những lúc việc đạp xích lô lại là niềm vui. Hành khách ngồi phía trước cười đùa với ông và họ nói tới nói lui những chuyện giỡn vui.

Có lúc hành khách tranh cãi về giá đi xe hoặc đòi dừng lại ở một chỗ nào đó và đi luôn không trả tiền. Hai năm trước, xe của ông bị một xe máy đâm vào. Chiếc xe xích lô lật nhào và đâm vào một chiếc xe hơi. Người lái xe máy bỏ trốn, ông Minh phải trả cho chủ xe hơi 200 000 đồng – hơn 13 đô la Mỹ, 1/5 thu nhập của gia đình trong một tháng. Ông Minh kéo ống quần lên để lộ ra cái chân bị bại liệt khi ông được 15 tháng tuổi. Mặc dù đạp xích lô làm chân ông khoẻ ra, ông không thể đạp khoẻ và kiếm nhiều tiền bằng những người đạp xích lô khác. Có lúc ông phải ở nhà làm việc phụ khác vì bệnh đường hô hấp lại tái phát vì không khí ô nhiễm của thành phố.

Khi được hỏi mong muốn nhất điều gì trong cuộc sống, ông trả lời là có đủ sức khoẻ để nuôi con trai nên người. Trong khi hi vọng đất nước sẽ giàu mạnh, chiến tranh không bao giờ xảy ra nữa, mơ ước của ông Minh thật là giản dị: mọi gia đình đều đủ ăn. Ông nói thêm, đủ sống, có đủ đồ để ăn và có đủ quần áo để mặc.

Ông Minh đi học đến lớp 4. Rồi đi chặt củi, lau sàn nhà, rồi tiến đến đi làm phu hồ. Khi trộn vữa ông đã học được kinh nghiệm và cuối cùng kiếm đủ nguyên vật liệu để xây ngôi nhà ông đang sống cùng với mẹ, vợ và con ông.

Ông nói, “Tôi thật sự mong gia đình tôi trở nên giàu có. Tôi đi làm từ khi còn là một đứa bé. Giờ đây tôi không còn ngại làm những công việc nặng nhọc”.

Vợ ông, bà Hạnh, bắt đầu làm cho cơ sở Mai (thủ công mĩ nghệ) 9 năm trước để phụ giúp gia đình. Làm việc ở nhà, bà có điều kiện chăm sóc con trai và tiết kiệm tiền cho nó đi học.

Hỏi bà Hạnh có muốn có thêm con nữa không thì bà trả lời ngay là không thể nuôi nổi thêm một đứa nào nữa.

Các cố gắng của họ dồn hết vào việc nuôi Phong.

Bà Hạnh nói về các điểm số tốt của Phong và kể chuyện gia đình bà thưởng cho em mỗi khi em được Quận khen thưởng.

Bà rút từ trên giá sách xếp gọn gàng ra một cuốn tập học vẽ của Phong trong đầy những hình vẽ về bạn cùng trường, thầy cô giáo, một anh bộ đội, một bình bông. Bà tự hào khoe những bức vẽ người máy và bộ sưu tập ngày càng nhiều những con khủng long xếp bằng giấy cậu con trai làm theo hướng dẫn trong một quyển sách mua ở hiệu. Bà nói, “Trông thì đơn giản, nhưng mà khó không tưởng tượng được.”

Phong thường lấy các mẩu mảnh trong nhà, làm thành những con vật và những thứ kì lạ em đọc trong truyện.

Đó là cách, với sự may mắn, em xây dựng cuộc đời của mình - với hậu thuẫn của nghề làm búp bê của mẹ em, công việc vất vả trên đường phố của ba em.

Nhưng trong thành phố hỗn độn và thay đổi nhanh chóng này, điều mà em phải dựa vào nhiều nhất là nghị lực của chính em, sự bền chí mà ba mẹ em đã mong đợi khi đặt cho em một cái tên có nghĩa là “mạnh mẽ”.

(Trích từ “Thành phố của mơ ước và hi vọng”, Các câu chuyện gia đình của Uỷ ban Trung tâm Đạo Mennonite: số 2, 2003)

Taking it Further

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Chapter 5 – Who are the Experts?

Just as the Foreign Film Series and the IC3 Profile are online ways of applying beyond your classroom aspects of your learning, so too, you can walk beyond the grounds of your campus and apply your learning in creative and relational ways.

So far, you have read in the context of your own culture and then examined inter-culturally topics of identity, water and food security, primary and reproductive health, education, and now poverty reduction. In the community that surrounds your campus, as well as the community in which you have been raised, can you identify the “experts” of water, food, health, education, and wellness. These experts might be people who unconsciously “know” a great deal about these topics. As a class, discern some of these experts and share your knowledge even as you learn the wisdom of those around you.

Pick one of the topics your IC3 learning platform has introduced this semester. Identify those in the community who could tell you more about this topic. As a class, create a survey of several key questions that groups of students could pose to your broader community members? Practice asking these questions of one another in class. Be prepared to explain why you are taking this “extraordinary” step of asking “experts” beyond the campus gates for their lifelong learning and wisdom.

Design a clean, clear, and concise strategy for posing your questions, bringing this “data” back to class, collating the information from classmates, analyzing the content, summarizing this learning, and then amending your IC3 profiles with new information.

Information Technology

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Using the Internet for Reference

The internet may serve as a quick way to look up information on language. Instead of leafing through the pages of a dictionary or a book on grammar to search for answers, you can find information and answers online. As you familiarize yourself with what is available online, you should keep record of those sites that are most suited to your personal style of finding information.

Dictionaries

  1. Open the Internet.
  2. In the web-address bar at the top of the page enter www.google.com . This should bring up Google, one of the world’s most used search engines.

    Search engines are websites that allow you to search the entire World Wide Web quickly by entering a few key words or phrases.
  3. In the search box enter the words “English Dictionary” and click on the “Google Search” button below the box.
  4. A page full of links to other websites should appear on the screen. The first websites listed (above the line) are Sponsored Links, which means they advertise things you can buy that is related to your keyword. (In “English Dictionary” sponsored links you usually find ways of buying computer software or books) Below the line, you will find links to websites containing your keywords.
  5. As you skim the descriptions of these websites, look for words like “free on-line dictionary” that would indicate that you can freely look up information. Most likely, some of the English online dictionaries that appear are Mirriam-Webster Online (www.m-w.com ), Cambridge (www.dictionary.cambridge.org ), and Oxford English Dictionary (www.oed.com ). For example, the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary’s descriptions says: “A free, searchable on-line dictionary and thesaurus. . .” where as Oxford English Dictionary says: “Oxford University Press's dictionary described with ordering information.” This indicates that it may not be free and you would have to subscribe—some subscriptions are free and others are not.
  6. Click on the Mirriam-Webster Online link. When the website opens, you will see in the center box “Mirriam-Webster Online dictionary” with a box in which to write a word to look up in the dictionary and a button with “Go” on it. Below is the “Mirriam-Webster Online Thesaurus, also with a box and “Go” button.
  7. Write “cyberspace” in the dictionary box and click the “Go” button. You will then see a dictionary entry for the word and other features such as syllables and pronunciation. You may also click the sound key to hear the word pronounced.
  8. Also featured on this definition page are ways to link to Britannica.com – an encyclopedia link that also lists articles on the word—located underneath the definition. Click the link if you want more information. To the right on the sidebar, you see where you can write another word for a definition or go to the Thesaurus. The thesaurus will give synonyms of the word typed in the space provided.
  9. Go back to the Google listing of Dictionary links, and this time click the “ Cambridge” link. This online dictionary features a clear simple page in which you type the word you want a definition for in the box. Notice that you may also explore the definitions found in other dictionaries by clicking the “Select Another Dictionary” which produces a list of dictionaries you can choose from by clicking on the dictionary name of your choice.
  10. This time, type the word “cybrary” in the box. This is a relatively new word in the English language created by computer technology terminology. Does Cambridge have this new word? If not, you may want to check other dictionaries by going to the “Select Another Dictionary” box.
  11. Go back to the Google listing of Dictionary links, and this time click the “Oxford English Dictionary” link. On this site, you will find that you cannot search for a word’s definition without subscribing.

Vietnamese-English Dictionaries can also be found on the internet. Use keywords such as “Vietnamese-English Dictionary” to get a list of links. The “Từ điển tiếng Việt” sponsored by VietNet is a good resource. This site can be found at: http://www.saigon.com/~vietdict/ . Another site is the KSVN English-Vietnamese Dictionary found at www.dsvn.com .

English Usage/Grammar

You may also look up English usage, grammar and writing skill information on the internet. Typing “Grammar Usage” or “English Usage” or “Writing Skills” as keywords into the search engine will results in hundreds of links because most university and college websites include these areas in “Help Center” sections available to all of their students. Some good websites are: The American Heritage Book of English Usage found at: www.bartleby.com/64/ and the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University called OWL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/index.html . At Rutgers University, the website, http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/writing/ is helpful. Other helpful websites are specifically for English Language Learners such as the TESL website: http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Grammar_and_English_Usage/ . Go into this website and explore how you are able to get the information you need.

Computer Terminology Glossaries

As we explain information technology in this curriculum, you may find it helpful, also, to have ways of quickly looking up computer terminology to further understand some explanations. Computer technology terminology is continually changing the English language. New words are entering the English vocabulary to describe new technology and equipment, new processes, and new ideas. And as certain things become obsolete, the terminology also disappears. Often, dictionaries cannot keep pace with such changes or are waiting to assess if and when terms become a part of the English language. Therefore, computer glossaries online can be helpful. Because computer terminology is rapidly changing, keeping up with these terms is easier and less expensive than buying a book that becomes out-dated very quickly.

There are a number of good websites that provide glossaries for computer terms. http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/ as one example.

  1. Open the Internet.
  2. In the web-address bar at the top of the page enter www.google.com . This should bring up Google, one of the world’s most used search engines.
  3. In the search box enter the words “Computer Glossary” and click on the “Google Search” button below the box.
  4. A page full of links to other websites should appear on the screen. The first websites listed (above the line) are Sponsored Links, which means they advertise things you can buy that is related to your keyword. (In “Computer Glossary” sponsored links you usually find ways of buying computer software or books) Below the line, you will find links to websites containing your keywords.
  5. As you skim the descriptions of these websites, look for words like “free on-line.”
  6. One good example of a Computer Glossary website is: “Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms -- A glossary of computer and Internet terms with definitions that are easy to understand. http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/ . If you see this link, click on it. If not, type this website by typing the address in the box that is labeled “Address” at the top of the search engine page. In this website, you will find an alphabetical listing of the computer words. Click on the word for a definition.

TOEFL Exercises

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These exercises draw from “Poverty and the Environment: Reversing the Downward Spiral” by Alan D. Durning, “Worldwatch Paper 92”, November 1989 (40-43)

Questions 1-10 are incomplete sentences. Beneath each sentence are four words or phrases marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the one word or phrase that best completes the sentence. Look at the following example.

Example:

Neither hired workers, nor hired managers, nor tenant farmers care for land ___________ .

  1. as well than owners
  2. as well as owners
  3. as well as owner
  4. as owners does

The correct answer is B. If you are ready to respond to the following questions, note the time and begin.

1. For the have-nots, food comes ________ the soil, water from the stream and fuel from the woods.

  1. by
  2. with
  3. from
  4. to

2. Traction comes from the ox, fodder from the pasture, reeds to make mats from the stream bank, and fruit from the trees ________ the hut.

  1. around
  2. within
  3. before
  4. without

3. Poor people know that to endanger any of these things is to imperil___________, and the lives of their offspring.

  1. theirselves
  2. yourselves
  3. himself
  4. themselves

4. The economy of the rural poor is measured in the fertility and productivity of _______environment.

  1. his
  2. their
  3. your
  4. her

5. Most villagers have a reverence for nature and __________ habitat and ancestral ways.

  1. within
  2. before
  3. after
  4. toward

6. Poor farmers ______ secure rights to a piece of land tend to care for it meticulously.

  1. with
  2. before
  3. between
  4. among

7. They ______ a long-term view and forgo current benefits for dependable future gains..

  1. takes
  2. took
  3. take
  4. taking

8. The poor knowingly harm their environment mainly _______ under duress.

  1. why
  2. when
  3. where
  4. how

9. Pushed to the brink of starvation , they lack access to sufficient quantities of land, water, or capital to provide themselves _______ a sustainable livelihood.

  1. for
  2. with
  3. by
  4. between

10.______, the central pole around which the downward spiral turns is the lack of resources – the first element of the local poverty trap.

  1. if
  2. because
  3. for
  4. thus

"Best Answer"

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After you have completed the Reading, Listening/Speaking, and Writing chapters 5, how would you answer the following question?

Who is expert in the quest to reduce poverty?
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn:
Ai là chuyên gia trong công cuộc xoá đói giảm nghèo?

Blackboard instructions

FORUM

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