Reading & Writing Assignment (1) – The Pursuit of Happyness

Once you build a strong foundation of grammar and vocabulary, it is time to practice. The best way to improve your English is to read and write, a lot. And to do so regularly. While doing these assignments, some of you will also fall in love with the beautiful habit of reading and writing. You can thank us later :). For now, let’s get started!

What will you do in this assignment? – The theme of these assignments is ‘Read a page, write a paragraph’. You would read about an interesting situation or a story, maybe watch a clip on it, and then answer a question based on what you read and saw. Excited?

Today’s situation (source)

‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ (if you haven’t seen it already, I strongly recommend you do) is one of the most inspiring movies of our generation based on the entrepreneur Chris Gardner’s nearly one-year struggle with being homeless.

In 1981, San Francisco salesman Chris Gardner (role played by Will Smith) invests his entire life savings in portable bone-density scanners, which he demonstrates to doctors and pitches as a handy quantum leap over standard X-rays. The scanners play a vital role in Chris’ life. While he is able to sell most of them, the time lag between the sales and his growing financial demands enrage his already bitter and alienated wife Linda, who works as a hotel maid. The financial instability increasingly erodes their marriage, in spite of them caring for their five-year-old son, Christopher Jr.

While downtown trying to sell one of the scanners, Gardner meets Jay Twistle, a manager for Dean Witter Reynolds and impresses him by solving a Rubik’s Cube during a taxi ride. After Jay leaves, Gardner lacks money to pay the fare, and chooses to run, resulting in the driver chasing him into a BART station. Gardner boards a train but loses one of his scanners in the process. His new relationship with Jay earns him the chance to become an intern stockbroker. The day before the interview, Gardner grudgingly agrees to paint his apartment so as to postpone being evicted due to his difficulty in paying the rent. While painting, Gardner is greeted by two policemen at his doorstep, who take him to the station, stating he has to pay for his numerous parking tickets he has accumulated. As part of the sanction, Gardner is ordered to spend the night in jail, complicating his schedule for the interview the next morning. He manages to arrive at Dean Witter’s office on time, albeit still in his shabby clothes. Despite his appearance, he impresses the interviewers. How? Watch the clip below –

However, at the end of the interview, he finds out that this is an unpaid internship, something that his current financial situation makes impossible for him to accept. But this internship could also be his only chance to break the cycle of poverty as he may get hired as a paid broker at the end of the internship.  He thinks about it and calls up the hiring manager, Jay, and conveys his decision (we’ll let that be suspense for now for those who haven’t watched the movie).

Question for you– Imagine yourself to be in Chris’s situation and you have to communicate your decision to Jay (the hiring manager) by writing an email to him. What would your decision be and how would you communicate. Please write your answer (in an email format) below in the comments section. Your answer should be minimum 150 words long.

You can also read fellow students’ answers in comments (but do so only after you have submitted your own answer so that you don’t get influenced by what others wrote). We also encourage you to share your feedback, appreciation, and thoughts against others’ answers. Remember, it is a community effort and we are all in it together :). Only when you participate, you can expect others to participate and share feedback on what you wrote. Deal?

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