Level Two. Manoeuvers.

Level Two – Manoeuvres.

By Michelle Lloyd.

It was strange to think that reading could widen his horizons. That was what his parents had told him. New One was sure that the advice was correct and he knew this because past experience of listening to his parents had not seen him go too wrong in life. It had not always been easy to listen and follow, but it had been a successful decision to do so on many an occasion.

At school New One had been encouraged to read both physical and electronic books. There was a difference. When New One wanted that feeling of being actually able to hold on to what he read then he opted for the physical type of book and when he had a shorter length of time then the ebooks would have a place in his heart.

Always careful to watch for new words, New One found that Manoeuvres was a piece of vocabulary that he had not come across before. Usually he would go up to the teacher or ask whoever was nearby to help explain a word to him but this time, as he looked around his class, everybody looked busy.

New One ran through a quick option list in his mind, he could wait and ask, but that seemed not too enticing to him. Then he thought about maybe trying to come up with a definition of the word on his own, but then he remembered that it had not worked out too well for him the last time he tried that…it had been a cause for much hilarity and none of it on his part!

Finally the last option seemed the most appropriate and he decided to ignore the not understood word altogether. After all, it was only one word in amongst so many others, granted it did come up rather a few times but what significance to his comprehension of the text really could it have?

It was at the end of their allotted reading time that New One listened with a little trepidation to the teacher. Everybody was asked to write a summary of what they had read in their notebooks.

Faced with the challenge of writing about what he had read New One felt pretty confident but that nagging word that he had not understood did worry him. Having successfully ignored it and the mystery word several times, New One chose to continue and went on with his writing task.

When it came to reading out their evaluations New One was more than a little startled that his sounded rather different to the rest of the class. Not having understood that one word had meant that the outcome of his story was not at all what everybody else had thought it to be and New One knew why. He felt his cheeks blush red as he loudly introduced the class to an extremely interesting but inaccurate version of the text.

In New One’s summary the word which looked like it had some illusive meaning, took him and everybody else down a rather different route of mystery.

The teacher explained how the word manoeuvres could mean to move out of or alter direction, to apply skill or care, to gently guide, manipulate or even associate itself to a military form of action. There were many meanings to the word and none of which New One had known about and if he had asked about it then he would not have come to a different conclusion to the rest of the class.

New One thought that the definition of manoeuvres applied to his situation well. If only he had used his own reading skills and taken the care to enhance his understanding, moving himself skilfully out of a predicament, he would have gained a far better insight about what he had read.