Contents
=> “A Fat Turkey Named Slim” — text and fact/fiction activity by Aaron Carlson
=> “2 Acronym Quizzes”! — instant no-prepartion classroom activities
=> In the Next Issue

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“A Fat Turkey Named Slim” text
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This text comes from Aaron Carlson, English Language Fellow in Saratov, Russia. After the text you’ll find directions for in-class usage.

“A FAT TURKEY NAMED SLIM”

When I was six years old, I used to visit my grandfather on his farm. He had a lot of animals, but I was particularly fond of a big, fat, old turkey named ‘Slim’. One day I asked him how in the world someone could call that big, fat, old turkey Slim. He chuckled and told me there was a very good reason for this.

“Long ago,” he said, “the wild turkey was much different than the domesticated turkey we know today. Wild turkeys, in general, are cunning and speedy. When they are frightened they can fly 80 kilometers per hour and run 40 kilometers per hour. During the time of the Pilgrims, turkeys were all over North America. The animals that preyed on them had difficulty finding them because they like to hide in bushes.

“But why is our big, fat, old turkey named ‘Slim’?” I asked.

“Every year a turkey is delivered to the White House so that the President and his family can have the best turkey dinner in the country. One year, right before Thanksgiving, I got a telephone call that I did not expect. A woman said that she wanted the best turkey we had. She was the First Lady of the United States, wife of the President. So we sent a turkey to Washington, although we
didn’t have any really fat turkeys left.

“On Thanksgiving Day while sitting around the TV watching football games with the family the news came on. The President of the United States declared an amnesty for our turkey. He said, “This turkey is not meaty enough for us so we will not eat it.” From that year on, it became a kind of tradition, and the
president would set free one turkey in the name of Thanksgiving.

So you see, if the President of the United States says that your turkey is slim, even if he’s big and fat, then you should probably call him “Slim.”

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DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHERS: After reading the story and making sure that all the details are understood, go through it and determine what is fact and what is fiction. For example, “Boris Yeltsin was the first president of Russia. That is a verifiable fact. “Boris Yeltsin was the world’s most powerful man during his
reign as president.” There is no way to verify this statement and few people would say it was true. This is not a fact. Let the students explore and question the points in the story. It leads into a fun discussion.

VARIATION: Divide the class into teams, set a time limit and see which team can come up with the most factual/fictive items.

ACTUAL FACTS: The President of the United States is expected to pardon a turkey on the eve of Thanksgiving at a White House ceremony. The tradition dates back fifty years to Harry Truman and has been compassionately enforced ever since. The turkey is given to Kidwell Farm, a zoo in Virginia.

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Acronym Quizzes
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An acronym is an abbreviation. For example, UK = the United Kingdom.

Below are two quizzes. The first is basic, the second advanced.

Write one or both of the lists on the board, or dictate them to your students. Then give them time to guess what the acronyms stand for. The group with the most correct wins.

If they don’t know, encourage them to guess. So if they didn’t know that NRA stands for National Rifle Association, they might suggest No Rats Allowed. That way, even if students don’t know, they’re still putting together English words in a useful way.

BASIC LEVEL QUIZ

1. USA
2. CIA
3. FBI
4. BBC
5. UFO
6. GB
7. UN
8. IMF
9. USSR
10. PRC (Hint: Think China!)

ADVANCED LEVEL QUIZ
1. DVD
2. IRS
3. MADD (hint: “Mothers Against…”)
4. NATO
5. GPS
6. P.O.W. (hint: “Prisoner…”)
7. R & R
8. WHO
9. IRA (hint: “Irish…”)
10. MP (hint: a person)

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Answers to Acronym Quizzes
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