TRANSCRIPT	 			Reading

Student Sample: Stage S4 Standard Video 1  

Transcription:

What I’d like you to do now is have a look at some of the examples that I’ve written out of events that happened in Abel’s life.  What I’d like you to do with these events, and I’ll show you from here, is put them in order, not of what order they happened in the story, but in order of the importance you think they are to Abel and the changes that happen in his life.  So at the top of your list will be the event you think is most important in Abel’s character development, in the way that he changes as a character.  Does that make sense?

Can you explain the first one in your list and why you think that’s important?

Abel finds out that Longboat Bay has been declared a sanctuary:  it’s really important for him because Longboat Bay was in his family for a really long time and they live the same way for hundreds of years, or a hundred years.  And since he found out there is, it is a sanctuary he was happy because this land is, would be, not fishermen would come any more, they won’t destroy endangered species in the sea, and yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Could you please present what you’ve come up with? 

Okay, so event description:  I chose, “Abel finds out that Longboat Bay has been declared a sanctuary.”  Why is it important?  Abel is, was happy because his ancestors lived there for 100 years or more.  It is a scared land for him and his family.  He loves it even though it is hard for him to live at Longboat Bay because there’s no running water, no electricity, and if I would live there it would be really hard for me because I’m just used to modern life society here.  Supporting quotes:  I chose, I forgot what page it was, but, “The message said that Longboat Bay had been declared a sanctuary, a marine park where everything that grew and swum was protected by law.”

Did you want to talk a little more about the point you raised earlier about how the sanctuary being declared made Abel think about himself?

Well usually Abel was a marine biologist, and like marine, I think marine biologists try to save the world in studying, like marine creatures.  And he was wondering, “Why did I save this Longboat Bay?  Why, my frail mother who’s sick and old, why did she save it?  Why didn’t I?”  And well, he was a little bit, like upset because his mother wrote tonnes of letters and he didn’t help her.  And that got me thinking why didn’t he save the world, because his mother was a very good woman and yeah.

That’s good, thanks.  

Abel started through the book being independent of himself, and Brian started being independent of his mother and father.  And then through the middle, through the book Brian started being independent, so he took care of himself because he started turn, like man, and he thought like, “Wait a second:  getting angry doesn’t bring me anywhere.”  And Abel, well he had a few problems with Costello, but he, he still, when he had like in, when he was angry at Costello he at least, his mother just calmed him down and said, “Calm yourself down.  Costello’s just, the sea is not ours:  it’s for everyone and we have to share it.”  So Abel understood that and one thing, one point I like to raise is that anger doesn’t bring anyone in the book anywhere.  So they had to manage to, to stay calm and wait until everything just left.

Mm.