Story Of A Steamboat On The Mississippi River

Conversation, gap-filling and listening activity

Have you heard of the Mississippi River? How much do you know about it? Take a quiz and discuss your choices in small groups or with a partner.     1)The length of the Mississippi River is approximately: 2,730 km - 3,730 km  - 4,730 km.     2)It lies in: four – six - ten  US states.     3)Many famous books are related to or take place near the Mississippi River, such as the ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. Who wrote this classic? Mark Twain  - Ernest Hemingway – Edgar Allan Poe

Complete the missing terms in the text with a word from the list below. Then, listen and check your work.

people   - movies  -  true   -  sails   -  boats  -  country   -  right   -  of  -  captain  -  towns   -  Big  -  reason   -  showing   - build   -  live   -  down   - played   - dance -  current   - way -  half  - went  - transported  -  days

During the 1800s, the Mississippi River was crowded with steamboats. The river divided the United States in (1)......................, separating the older, more populated eastern states from the West. Steamboats (2)......................... goods and people up and down the waterway. But only a few such (3)............................. can be seen there today. This month marks the 40th year one of them has been operating on the mighty Mississippi. Steamboat Natchez was built in 1975. The Natchez is made mostly (4)....................... steel. Its steam engines came from a boat that was built in 1925. Today, the Natchez carries (5)................................. who want to learn what life was like in the 1800s on the Mississippi River. In those (6)......................... , the arrival of a steamboat was announced by a steam-powered organ, called a calliope. Clarke Hawley is 79 years old. He is known as “Doc.” He was the first (7)............................ of the Natchez. “In the days before mass communication, a lot of these little river (8)............................ didn’t have a weekly newspaper, let alone a daily newspaper, but when you (9)............................... the calliope, everybody in town knew the boat was there.” Doc Hawley is now retired. But he still (10).............................. on the boat as the calliope player. “There were steamboats that carried people, steamboats that pushed barges, there were sawmill steamboats that (11).................................. from farm to farm, plantation to plantation, sawing up wood. Farmer Brown wants to (12)................................... a new barn, he’s got to go 40-50 miles (60-80 kilometers) to get to the closest sawmill, boat comes (13).......................... to the front yard and grinds it. There were showboats that put on shows and melodramas before (14)............................. There were gospel boats, believe it or not, that went from town to town, taking up collections.” Donald Houghton is the (15)........................... captain of the Natchez. He says he is honored to be one of the few steamboat captains in the (16)............................ “This is a one-of-a-kind thing, you know, running a (17).............................. teamboat in the Port of New Orleans, in a busy harbor, (18)............................ people the Mississippi River and where the Battle of New Orleans was fought, and the whole (19).......................... the city is here is because of the Mississippi river and steamboats.” Passengers can (20)....................... and listen to jazz music. Jazz was born in the city of New Orleans, which is often called “The (21).......................... Easy.” Doc Hawley says this is how life was when many steamboats sailed up and (22)......................... the river. “It was a (23)........................... of life, and it’s still, it’s still amazingly a way of life, for people who (24).......................... along the river, you know.” Because the Natchez is so well cared for, it could keep paddling up and down the Mississippi for many years to come.

Story narrated by Christopher Jones-Cruise. Source VOA http://learningenglish.voanews.com

POP-OUT PLAYER HERE!

Glossary

Steamboat: n. a boat that is powered by steam

Waterway: n. a course of water, like a river.

Mighty: adj. having or showing great strength or power

Barn: n. a rustic construction in a farm used for keeping animals, grains, storing tools, etc.

Saw: v. to cut or shape (wood, metal, etc.).

Sawmill: n. a mill or factory where logs are sawed to make boards

Grind: v. to reduce to powder or small fragments by friction.

Harbor: n. port.

Barge: n. a large vessel that has a flat bottom and that is used to carry goods in harbors and on rivers and canals

Answers here!