full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kakenya Ntaiya: A girl who demanded school

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I worked hard in scohol, but when I was in eighth grade, it was a determining factor. In our tradition, there is a ceremony that girls have to undergo to become women, and it's a rite of passage to wnmooahod. And then I was just finishing my ehigth grade, and that was a transition for me to go to high school. This was the crossroad. Once I go through this tradition, I was going to become a wife. Well, my dream of becoming a taheecr will not come to pass. So I telkad — I had to come up with a plan to figure these things out. I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done. I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony if you let me go back to school." The reason why, if I ran away, my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony. It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life. So he figured out. "Well," he said, "okay, you'll go to school after the cnoeermy."

Open Cloze

I worked hard in ______, but when I was in eighth grade, it was a determining factor. In our tradition, there is a ceremony that girls have to undergo to become women, and it's a rite of passage to _________. And then I was just finishing my ______ grade, and that was a transition for me to go to high school. This was the crossroad. Once I go through this tradition, I was going to become a wife. Well, my dream of becoming a _______ will not come to pass. So I ______ — I had to come up with a plan to figure these things out. I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done. I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony if you let me go back to school." The reason why, if I ran away, my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony. It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life. So he figured out. "Well," he said, "okay, you'll go to school after the ________."

Solution

  1. womanhood
  2. eighth
  3. school
  4. teacher
  5. talked
  6. ceremony

Original Text

I worked hard in school, but when I was in eighth grade, it was a determining factor. In our tradition, there is a ceremony that girls have to undergo to become women, and it's a rite of passage to womanhood. And then I was just finishing my eighth grade, and that was a transition for me to go to high school. This was the crossroad. Once I go through this tradition, I was going to become a wife. Well, my dream of becoming a teacher will not come to pass. So I talked — I had to come up with a plan to figure these things out. I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done. I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony if you let me go back to school." The reason why, if I ran away, my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony. It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life. So he figured out. "Well," he said, "okay, you'll go to school after the ceremony."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
high school 3
constantly reminded 2
worked hard 2
white sneakers 2
good news 2
fourth grade 2

Important Words

  1. calling
  2. carry
  3. ceremony
  4. crossroad
  5. determining
  6. dream
  7. eighth
  8. factor
  9. father
  10. figure
  11. figured
  12. finishing
  13. girl
  14. girls
  15. grade
  16. hard
  17. high
  18. life
  19. pass
  20. passage
  21. people
  22. plan
  23. ran
  24. reason
  25. rest
  26. rite
  27. school
  28. shameful
  29. stigma
  30. talked
  31. teacher
  32. told
  33. tradition
  34. transition
  35. undergo
  36. wife
  37. womanhood
  38. women
  39. worked