Contents
=> “Ghost Ship” — text
=> “Take the Ghost Word Test!”
=> “Ghostly Gerunds and Infinitives”– class activity
=> In the Next Issue

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Ghost Ship
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Check out the vocabulary first!

SHORTCUT = a route that’s faster and more direct than the route usually taken. Do you know shortcuts to your school or work?

ICED IN = locked in winter ice. (You can also be “snowed in”–so much snow that you can’t even leave your home. Mr. Poosheesty is from California and has NEVER been snowed in). Have you ever been snowed in?

GHOST SHIP

For a long time, the only way to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific was south, around the tip of South America. That’s a long trip–especially if you live in
New York and want to sail to San Francisco. So queens, captains, and merchants dreamed of finding a SHORTCUT through the northern part of Canada. They called this dream route the Northwest Passage.

The first ship to make the voyage through the Northwest Passage was the Octavius. It was a strange journey. Here’s why:

In 1762, the Octavius and her crew got ICED IN off the northern coast of Alaska. They were stuck, and no one heard from them or saw them until 1775, when the ship was spotted off the coast of Greenland by a whaling boat.

How could the Octavius have sailed for 13 summers and 13 freezing winters, from the Pacific to the Atlantic?

No one knows. What we do know is that the entire crew was dead. They had frozen or starved that first winter, in 1762, and the ship had drifted for 13 years
on its own–with a crew of the dead.

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Take the Ghost Word Quiz
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What does it mean…

1. … when someone GIVES UP THE GHOST?
2. … when someone GHOSTWRITES a book?
3. … if you don’t have a GHOST OF A CHANCE?
4. … if you find yourself in a GHOST TOWN?

<> Give students these questions, and ask them to invent/guess answers. The team who comes closest wins.

You non-teachers can look for the answers after the ghostly gerund activity.

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Ghostly Gerunds & Infinitives
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Students, in pairs or groups, can finish the sentences below. There’s really no wrong answer. Just make sure to use a verb, after the ellipses (…). Use your imagination.

Compare the sentences when finished. Maybe award prizes to the most creative or funniest.

Examples:
Ghosts enjoy… walking through the halls at night.
Ghosts know how to… eat pizza in the dark.
Ghosts avoid… listening to Brittany Spears.

1. Ghosts enjoy…
2. Ghosts know how to…
3. Ghosts avoid…
4. Ghosts look forward to
5. Ghosts don’t mind…
6. Ghosts will often offer to…
7. Ghosts sometimes forget to…

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Answers to the Ghost Word Quizz
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1. When someone GIVES UP THE GHOST, he dies.

2. When someone GHOSTWRITES a book, he writes FOR and in the name of someone else. For instance, a president might employ a ghostwriter because he can’t write well himself. But the book will use the president’s name as the author.

3. If you don’t have a GHOST OF A CHANCE, you have very little chance to succeed.

4. If you find yourself in a GHOST TOWN, you’re in a town that was once prosperous and is now deserted and empty. Eerie.

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in the next issue (October 20th, 2002)
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Halloween stuff, of course. We like pumpkins, and ghosts, and especially witches.

Copyright 2002 Kevin McCaughey & I.M. Poosheesty
poosheesty@yahoo.com