Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
Answers
1 Cultures of Scotland
Student Book pages 84–85
Activity 1
Scottish Standard English
Standard English
I need to get some messages.
I have some shopping to do.
I have a sore pinkie.
My little finger hurts.
The kettle needs filled.
The kettle needs fillings.
I stay in Edinburgh.
I live in Edinburgh.
Special uplifts.
Special collections.
I’ll get you home.
I’ll take you home.
They’ll not come.
They won’t come.
Activity 2
1
Three words which are not Scots words:
xcited - excited
slebrity - celebrity
parlymint – parliament
2
Ken, boof, prade, marchtay, nextay, barandlounge, weepolitevoice
2 Scots language in the north east
Student Book pages 86–87
Activity 1
1
Verse 1 = D
Verse 2 = G
Verse 3 = C
Verse 4 = F
Verse 5 = B
Verse 6 = H
Verse 7 = A
Verse 8 = E
Activity 2
Word from poem
Definition
toddy
whisky
greetin’
crying
heelster gowdy
head over heels
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
ashet
dish
girnin’
groaning
skirlin
screeching
rummelin’
rumbling
tatties
potatoes
3 Shetlandic Scots
Student Book pages 88–89
Activity 1
2
Word from Ice Floe online
Glossary definition
scrit
write
eence
once
dirl
zing
uncans
news
vaege
journey
birl
dance
starns
stars
Mirry-dancers
aurora borealis
lift
sky
sheeksin
blethering
rummel
topple
bigg
build
Activity 2
1 Across the sea by boat.
2 Email or msn messenger because she says ‘our words dance off satellites and stars’ which
could refer to the internet. She is not thinking of the telephone because the poem says ‘We
write our words’ rather than speak them.
3 dance, leap and twirl, crackle like aurora borealis / birl, dirlin’, loup an tirl, crackle like mirrydancers
4 Identifying main ideas
Student Book pages 90–91
Activity 1
a The boy had been kicking him in class.
b An older boy shouted at them to stop fighting.
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
c Ralph’s father was sad that he had been fighting; he asked him not to get into any more
trouble.
Agree or diagree
Evidence
1 Ralph won the fight
disagree
‘I had lost the battle’
2 Ralph was right to
fight the bully
agree
‘I was never attacked again…I
had done something to
weaken the myth’
3 Some of those
watching the fight
supported Ralph
agree
‘Someone had picked up my
glasses and now gave them to
me’
4 Ralph’s father was
angry that his son had
been fighting
disagree
‘father spoke more in sadness
than to chide me’
Knowledge about language: Parts of a sentence
1

A boy (subject) at the school bullied (verb) Ralph (object) for being (verb) Jewish.

Ralph (subject) fought (verb) the boy (object) who had picked (verb) on him.
5 Narrative techniques
Student Book page 92-93
Activity 1
1 He uses first person – ‘I thought I could not stand up much longer’.
2 It makes it clear that it is a true story and shows how he was feeling at the time.
3 He is talking to Ralph and it is not in the first person, He also uses more standard English.
He uses the word ‘Goy’ whereas Ralph says ‘none of them Jews’.
4 The difference in the language chosen is because Ralph was brought up in Glasgow but his
father was from Lithuania.
Activity 3
1 Building sites had signs saying ‘No Irish Need Apply’ and adverts for maids in London said
‘No Catholics.’
2 She gets angry when her customers assume that she supports Celtic football team just
because she is Irish.
3 No because he says ‘Those days are gone, Mother’.
4 She stills thinks there is discrimination today because when Joe’s father says ‘It’s the past
now’, she replies ‘Is it?’
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
Activity 4
1 The author can show the story from different viewpoints and what the characters are
thinking by writing in the third person.
2 ‘It really gets to me the way some people feel free to make remarks about the size of your
family and actually believe you might sympathize with child-murdering terrorists,’ I had heard
my Aunt Kathleen ranting on to my father one day.
3 He’d know straight away that I wasn’t a Catholic.’
6 Organising ideas
Student Book page 94
Activity 1
2 A, E, C, B, D
3
Assessment task: Reading Activity: Close reading
From Greenland to Scotland
Student Book pages 95–97
1 ‘bore long furrows as if a giant tiger had raked it with its claws’ – this helps the reader to
picture the shape and appearance of the rock.
2 This means the mountains and rocks which are bare and don’t have any plants or trees on
them.
3



Reverend James Wallace says a fin-man was seen rowing by the Orkney Islands in
1682.
In 1760, Francis Gatrell saw a canoe in the River Don in Aberdeen with a man in it
‘who was all over hairy and spoke a language which no person could interpret’.
The kayak can be seen today in the Anthropological Museum of Aberdeen University.
The last point is the most convincing as it is evidence that can be compared to other kayaks
from Greenland and it does not rely on word-of-mouth evidence.
4



‘Speculated’ means they considered the options. You can tell this because they give
different possibilities of how someone could get all the way from Greenland in a
kayak.
‘This’ refers to how someone could paddle all the way from Greenland.
The rest of the paragraph follows from the topic sentence by going on to show the
different speculations they made about how Eskimo’s might have arrived (or not) in
Scotland.
5 That the Inuits that reached Scotland made it back to Greenland. In the paragraph reasons
are given as to why it is unlikely that they didn’t make it back.
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
6 She finds it surprising because she says that she needs a break from paddling after two or
three hours – therefore, how could anyone paddle all the way from Greenland?
7



They could have drifted off course and then rested on icebergs in mid ocean.
Dutch and Scandinavian whalers and traders may have kidnapped them – so the
sightings may have been of Eskimo’s trying to escape their kidnappers.
It is most likely that they drifted off track because if they had been kidnapped we
would probably have records from the whalers saying that they had seen the
Eskimos.
8 ‘oral tradition’ means stories and records that have been passed on from generation to
generation by word of mouth. You can tell this because the text says ‘there are no tales of this
kind.’
9 They would be weak from the journey there, and they would be paddling back against the
wind and current.
7 Giving your views
Student Book pages 98-99
Activity 1
2 To show that she has a Scottish accent.
4 She is saying that she doesn’t care because she likes both teams so doesn’t mind who
wins.
Activity 3
Cricket
Knowledge about language: Connectives
Connectives for comparing
Connectives for contrasting
Equally
Whereas
Similarly
Alternatively
Likewise
Unlike
In the same way
On the other hand
As with
Instead of
Like
However
Although
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
8 Considering others’ views
Student Book pages 100–101
Activity 1
2 She did not stop being Scottish because she was born in Scotland. You can tell that she still
feels Scottish because she misses her old accent.
Activity 2
A variety of answers are possible and must be backed up by clear explanation.
9 Describing places
Student Book pages 102–103
Activity 1
1 wild, raging, surging, helter-skelter, breaking, awash with continuous rain
2 Pacific means peace or tranquillity. You can tell this because it is contrasted with the storm
that is raging now.
3
a
b Halcyon means calm.
How I can tell: because the halcyon interlude is described as ‘a sequence of mild, sun-filled
days’.
4 In the poem on page 88, ‘merry dancers’ are referring to the aurora borealis or northern
lights so Brown could be talking about this too.
Knowledge about language: Simile, metaphor and personification
1 ‘the trees are surging, and but for their roots would be up and off, helter-skelter!’
2 ‘yelling of winds’ and ‘a moan and a snarl in the wrecking harbour waves.’
3 The sun is skipping on the pavement; the breeze fanned the bathers below.
10 Imagery
Student Book pages 104–105
Activity 1
2
Quotation
Refers to
What this suggests
‘voice of a kindly god’
The sound of water dripping
Suggests that the sound of
water is like having your
prayers answered
‘rush of fortune’
A water pipe bursting
‘fortune’ suggests both that it
is worth a lot to them and they
are lucky this has happened
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
‘silver crashes from the
ground’
Water pouring from the burst
pipe onto the ground
Suggests both the colour of
the water and how valuable it
is
‘congregation’
A procession of people going to
get water
Suggests that fetching water is
a religious act
‘blessing’
The water they are collecting
Suggests that the water is as
precious to them as a holy
blessing
11 Fact and opinion
Student Book pages 106-107
Activity 1
2 the cinema is call La Scala, it has a nineteenth-century sandstone castle on a hill and there
is a joke shop
3 ‘It is never going to win any beauty contests’, it ‘has an especially fine river’ and the entire
town is ‘ruined by two inanimate structures’.
4 the cinema, the market arcade, the castle, the river and the joke shop
5 He doesn’t like the two big buildings that are by the central bridge because they are ugly
and waste the space by the river which would have had a good view otherwise.
Answers
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Text for Scotland S1 Teacher Guide
Unit 4 Our world
4
Our world
Further reading/ideas: Unit 4 Our world
Websites
The Scots Language centre is a good starting point for reading recommendations of books in
the Scots language: http://www.scotslanguage.com/tags/view/36/Publishing
The Poetry Association of Scotland - http://www.poetryassociationofscotland.org.uk/ .
Chrstine de Luca’s website http://www.christinedeluca.co.uk/ includes a number of poems,
including some audio recordings available for download. Similarly,
http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/search/label/Christine%20De%20Luca includes several of de
Luca’s poems.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5682 – Jackie Kay’s page
on the Poetry Archive website. Includes readings by the poet available for purchase.
http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Features/Reading-Guides/Memoirs includes a number of
suggestions for autobiographies by Scottish authors.
www.theresebreslin.co.uk – webpage of Carnegie Medal winning Scottish author Theresa
Breslin. Possible books for further reading might include Saskia’s Journey, Remembrance,
Whispers in the Graveyard, and Divided City.
http://www.georgemackaybrown.co.uk/siteindex.htm - includes a complete list of works,
biography, extracts, photographs and information on Mackay’s collaborations.
Books
Title Deeds: Growing up in Macbeth’s Castle (Liza Campbell; Doubleday)
From the Allegheines to the Hebrides: An Autobiography (Margaret Fay Shaw; Birlinn)
Night Song of the last Tram (Robert Douglas; Hodder)
Jessie’s Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl (Jess Smith; Mercat)
Notes on a Small Island (Bill Bryson, Random House)
The New Windmill Book of Scottish Short Stories (Heinemann New Windmills)
The Flamingo Book of New Scottish Writing 1998 (Flamingo)
Scottish Short Stories 1986 (William Collins)
Answers
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