Reading The Curse of the Mummy
Teaching Aims:
1.
Help students improve their reading abilities and master the reading strategy: predicting information
2.
Learn and master the some useful words and phrases
Teaching Important Points:
1.
Improve the students’ reading ability.
2.
Enable the students understand the text better.
3.
Get the students to master the tenses used in the passage.
4.
Develop the students’ creative, comprehensive and consolidating abilities.
Teaching Difficult Point:
1.
How to improve the students’ reading ability.
2.
The use of some useful expressions.
Teaching Aids:
The multimedia, the blackboard
Step 1 Revision and lead-in
Show some pictures of pyramids and ask the students say something about Egypt and the pyramids.
Step 2 Brainstorming
1.
What might be the connections between the curse of the mummy and the famous explorer?
2.
What might be dealt with in the following article?
Step 3 Reading strategy
Ask the students go through the reading strategy as quickly as possible and then answer the question.
Q: How do you predict information in an article?
A: The first paragraph usually tells you what the passage will be about. Look for the key words when you read it. These may help you prepare for and predict what will come next.
Step 4 Fast reading
Read the first paragraph and try to answer the questions
Q1: What is the first paragraph about?
A1: The introduction of Howard Carter.
Q2: What does the writer tell us about the explorer in the first paragraph?
A2: He is a famous explorer and loves to visit new places. Also he is brave and adventurous.
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Q3: What words do you think are useful for you to predict the ideas included in the passage?
A3: famous, brave, adventurous and amazing.
Step 5 Detailed reading
Listen to the record and try to divide the whole passage into several parts. Then find out the main idea of each part.
Part 1 (Para 1) The i__________ of Howard Carter. (introduction)
Q: According to Para 1, what will the next paragraph talk about?
A. The places he had visited
B. How brave and adventurous he was
C. How famous he was
D. The experiences he had
Part 2 (Para 2) the experiences he had
Time What did he do? childhood
1891 taught to draw by his father set sail for Alexandria, Egypt
1920s became an explorer, searching for the kings’ tombs in Egypt.
Part 3 (Para 3) _________________________________
(The most amazing discovery he made.)
Part 4 (Para 4-5) ______________________________
(People in Carter’s team began to fall ill and die strangely.)
When Who/What What happened upon entering a few months later at the moment of his death lucky pet bird
Lord Carnarvon lights eaten by a snake fell ill with a fever died went out in Cairo at the same time the following day
12hours later
4 months later his dog
George Gould shortly after the discovery Arthur Mace died had a high fever died
Carter’s secretary died of heart trouble died
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Part 5 (Para 6-8) _________________________________
(People’s different ideas about the deaths.)
Read Para 6-8 and write down people’s opinions towards the deaths
1. ______________ (coincidence)
2. ______________ (the result of the mummy’s curse)
3. ______________ (scientific explanation: viruses)
Step 6 Exercises
True or false questions:
1. Howard Carter was shy. (F)
2. His father taught him to write. (F)
3. Howard Carter worked in Egypt in the 1920s. (T)
4. He discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun when he was 17. (F)
5. The explorers decided to leave the treasure in the tomb. (F)
6. Carter’s pet bird usually brought him good luck. (T)
7. Howard Carter died when he was young. (F)
8. It is believed that the mummy’s curse makes those who enter Egypt ill. (F)
Fill in the blanks
There are many mysteries we cannot understand. One of them is the curse of the mummy. A man called Carter was brave and adventurous. He discovered many amazing things during his Lifetime. One was the discovery of the tomb of King
Tutankhamun. However, his good luck didn't last long. People in his team began to fall ill and die strangely.
Some people say the deaths were just coincidence. Others believe that they were the result of the mummy’s curse. But the scientific explanation is that the deaths were caused by many viruses.
Step 7 Post-reading activities
1. Do you think Howard Carter is an amazing explorer? Why/Why not?
2. Who do you think is the most amazing person in the history? What did he or she do?
Step 8 Homework
1. Retell the passage.
2. Write a summary about Howard Carter.
3. Read Part A in Reading on Page 106 in Workbook.
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