Lesson Plans
for
Comprehensive English 4
Lesson 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Lesson 2 .......................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Lesson 3 .......................................................................................................................................... 22
Lesson 4 .......................................................................................................................................... 33
Lesson 5 .......................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Lesson 6 .......................................................................................................................................... 46
Lesson 7 .......................................................................................................................................... 66
Lesson 8 .......................................................................................................................................... 75
Lesson 9 ........................................................................................................................................ 111
Lesson 10 ...................................................................................................................................... 122
Lesson 11 ...................................................................................................................................... 143
Lesson 12 ...................................................................................................................................... 153
Lesson 13 ...................................................................................................................................... 160
Lesson 14 ...................................................................................................................................... 167
Lesson 15 ...................................................................................................................................... 190
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Lesson 1
I. Objectives
1. To make a clear understanding toward the thinking habits being divided and the
nature of it.
2. To learn some conversational words and some useful sentence structures.
3. To learn the neat writing arrangement of the author.
4. Grammatically, to master 1) Parallel constructions; 2)Subject complement
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. Background introduction and doing the warming exercises (1.5 hours)
2. Detailed study of the text (1.5 hours)
3. Make the discussion and related exercises (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
1. grade
2. nothing but…
3. lest
4. (not) to be in a position to do sth.
5. next to
6. integrated
7. to contemplate
8. to reach up
9. to aspire to sth.
IV. Suggested Class Activities
1. Pre-class reading comprehension (on the teaching notes)
2. Group discussion of the text on topics (on the teaching notes)
V. Assignment(s)
1. Exercises relating to word-building( word formation, anonyms, synonyms)
2. Exercises on key grammatical points.
3. Translation exercises on the key sentence patterns or phrases.
2
Teaching Notes for Lesson 1
Text A: Thinking as a Hobby
I.
Morning Report
A. Extensive reading for reference
Comment 1
William Golding presents three levels of thinking in his essay, "Thinking as a Hobby."
The lowest and most immature level of thinking is the grade three thinking that Golding
notices as a child. Grade- two thinking, considered a little higher than grade-three
thinking, is the mediocre thinking level of humans. The highest and most mature level
of all the thinking states is the grade-one thinking, obtained only by a rare group of
people. These different levels of thinking build on top of each other like a pyramid; the
lowest level is grade-three, right on top of that is grade-two, and at the pinnacle is
grade-one. Humans in each of these levels of thinking possess certain characteristics
that portray the thought pattern for that thinking state. All humans embody one of these
three levels and their lives are based on their own particular level.
Grade-three thinking is "feeling, rather than thought." Golding's first experience with
grade-three thinkers came when he realized the contradiction in a pious woman's life.
The holy woman would preach on loving their enemies, yet she hated the Germans. The
irony in this lady's life disgusted Golding. She obviously was uncommitted to her
statement of the Golden Rule. She acted and thought on an emotion. The Golden Rule
was not her belief; it was an emotion that was only displayed when it was convenient
for her. Grade-three thinking is shallow, and it drives a person to act on a feeling.
When Golding came in contact with grade-two thinking, he was embarking on
adolescence. "Grade-two thinking is the detection of contradictions." When a person
realizes that a belief or statement is contradictory, their first inclination is to question it.
Why? Doubt runs rampant in a mind that wavers in grade-two thinking. A person
questions religion, life, and traditional beliefs. "Grade-two thinking destroys without
having the power to create." Many thinkers on the second level question, but they fail to
search out answers. This level is not intended to be a stopping point between
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grade-three and grade-one thinking. It is place where a person can detect that something
is wrong, ask why, and then look for the truth. Golding expresses this distress as a
swimmer left in the middle of the ocean, and the only way back is to swim by himself.
The grade-two thinker, in order to get back to life and reality, has to search for those
answers. It is imperative that he takes hold of these life-saving truths so that he will not
drown in the depressing state of doubt.
Grade-one thinking involves the whole being searching and believing in the truth.
Golding states that grade-one thinkers are rare. The quintessence of a grade-one thinker
is Albert Einstein. His life was in search for the scientific truth in the world. He only
accepted the truth, and he would work hard and think until he procured the truth.
Grade-one thinking produces the answers that the grade-two thinkers long for. Golding's
ideal of a grade-one thinker is one who asks "What is the truth?" and then "sets out to
find it." A person is required to be mature in his thoughts, thinking, and actions in order
to be a grade-one thinker. It takes courage to ask the big question `WHY?' and
perseverance to actually pursue the TRUTH of that question. For a person to aspire to
the high level of grade-one thinking, he is required to trudge through grade-three
thinking and to live through grade-two thinking. It is a journey for truth. (by Kate
Rankin)
(Source: http://www.aug.edu/writing center/oldsite/readingresponse.html)
Comment 2
One of the central points in the book is the importance of questioning. It is the author's
opinions that the questions we ask say much more about us than anything else we say or
think. The namesake of the book, and his philosophy groups, is of course Socrates, the
ultimate questioner. I would agree that questioning is vital to intellectual growth, and I
also agree with the assertion that an unexamined life isn't worth living.
But I'm reminded of the essay "Thinking as a Hobby" by William Golding, and I think
Golding's three levels of thinking could easily be restated in terms of questioning. That
is, there are three types of people: 1) Those who do not question 2) Those who question
3) Those who try to answer.
Thus, what Golding calls "Grade Three Thinking" includes those people who do not
question the world around them. This doesn't mean that they don't ask questions, or that
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they are extremely trusting, simply that they take for granted basic assumptions and
ideals they have been instilled with. They haven't really scrutinized their most
deeply-held beliefs, for fear that it might undermine them. They are dogmatic, or worse
perhaps, completely apathetic. And as Golding points out, they are in the majority.
Those who question, the critics, are one step up. They question the fundamentals. They
ask why we're here, what we're doing, where we're going. They question everything.
And Socrates is their patron saint. We see a lot of this from the anti-war crowd, and
much of it is useful. Critical examination is vital, the tearing down of established
orthodoxy. But, it is ultimately a destructive mode of thought, not a constructive one.
Once one has demonstrated that totalitarianism, communism, and democracy are all
ineffective modes of governance, what is to take their place? Because we still have to
function. If you demonstrate that altruism and selfishness are flawed ways to live, how
do you decide how to live? Because you still have to make decisions on a daily basis.
Hard, critical questioning often lays waste to flimsy ideas, and sometimes acts as a
crucible to reinforce those ideas that stand up to relentless criticism. But the act of
questioning itself is deconstructive.
Which leads to the third group, those that try to answer. They take questions like "What
is the meaning of life?", "What is good?", "What is the best way to govern?" and so on,
and try to answer them. Their role is constructive building up a framework of ideals,
that in turn the questioners try to tear down. So it's always much more difficult to
provide answers to fundamental questions. It takes strong, cohesive rationale to stand up
to scrutiny. Unfortunately, most of the answerers have been religious, their answers
finding foundation in supernaturalism. Though for governance, the Founding Fathers
are a prime example of thinkers who didn't just endlessly debate questions of political
philosophy. They wrote up the best answer and implemented it as a functioning
government.
So while I agree with the fundamental premise that questioning is important, I don't
agree with the author of Socrates Cafe (or with Socrates himself for that matter), that it
is the most important thing. While the questions we ask define us, whether or not we try
to answer, and how we answer defines us further still.
(Source: http://journalscape.com/derekjames/2003-03-03-11:00#top)
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B. About the author and statues
1. William Golding
British novelist and essayist, William Golding (1911-1994)
is best known as the author of the international best seller
Lord of the Flies (《蝇王》)(1945). Praised for his highly
imaginative and original writings, Golding was basically
concerned with the eternal nature of man. In Lord of the
Flies, he described the nightmarish adventures of a group of
English schoolboys stranded on an island and traced their
degeneration from a state of innocence to blood lust and
savagery. His later works include The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free
Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), The Pyramid (1967), The Scorpion God (1971),
Darkness Visible (1979), and a maritime trilogy: Rites of Passage (1980), Close
Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989). Golding received the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1983 "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art
and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world
of today.” He was knighted in 1988.
2. Venus of Milo
Venus de Milo (about 150-100 BC) is considered by many art historians to be the ideal
of Hellenistic beauty. It was carved out of marble and stands approximately 205 cm (6
ft 10 in) high.
3. Rodin’s Thinker
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The
bronze
sculpture
The
Thinker,
by
French
artist
Auguste Rodin,
was originally
intended
crown
to
the
Gates of Hell, a monumental entrance to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.
Inspired by the Inferno of Italian poet Dante Alighieri and the volume Flowers of Evil
by French poet Charles Baudelaire, the sculptural program for the Gates of Hell
reflected a deeply pessimistic view of human life and happiness. The Gates were never
completed, and the pieces created for them including Rodin’s The Thinker and The Kiss
are now exhibited separately as independent works.
II.
In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
1. As indicate if each statement is True (T) or False (F) according to your understanding
of the text. Do not refer to the text as you make the choice.
1) Young Golding was a dull boy who couldn’t think at all.
2) To the headmaster, the three statuettes meant love, nature and thought respectively.
3) The author’s grade-three thinking is mainly shown in his ignorance when he was a
child.
4) The author was glad that the pious lady personally taught him a great truth in
thinking.
5) The author thought that grade-three thinkers were numerous and mustn’t be
overlooked.
6) Grade-two thinking brought the author satisfaction because it gave him the power to
solve problems.
7) Because of grade-two thinking, the author became separated from other people who
were grade-three thinkers.
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8) A grade-two thinker tended to be considered a moral person.
9) The author was determined to be a grade-one thinker like Einstein.
10) Grade-one thinkers are persons of reason and logic.
11) When the author grew up, he did not have the hobby of thinking any more.
12) To the author, the three statuettes meant three levels of thinking.
Answer: F T T T T F T T T T F T (for your reference)
2. Group discussion
1) What do you think grade-three thinking is?
2) What is embodied in each of the three statuettes? Do their meanings change from
appearance to appearance in the essay? And how do they help the author structure the
essay?
3) Is the essay a sketch of the author’s biography? Why or why not?
4) What does the author mean when he say “… I dropped my hobby ad turned
professional”?
5) Why is the author much more conclusive and informative about grade-three and
grade-two thinking than about grade-one? What do you think grade-one thinking is?
Have you got any indication from the essay?
6) Give examples of Golding’s wit. Does his sense of humor help him achieve his
purpose in this essay? Give one or two examples.
B. In-class Tasks
 Type: exposition—categorizing three types of people in terms of thinking
 Title meaning: “hobby” is an activity which one enjoys doing in one’s free time. By
using the word, the author means that thinking is not just for professional thinkers
like philosophers; it is something all educated people should enjoy doing. (TB)
 Style: formal but humorous by using devices such as exaggeration, irony, metonymy,
etc.
 Key information: qualities and features of thinkers of each category
 Detailed study of the language points in the unit
1. I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking…
The collocations of “conclusion”: to come to a ~; to come to a ~; to reach a~; to arrive
at a~; to draw a ~; to jump to a ~, etc
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grade: degree; level; stage in a process, e.g. low-grade steel , high-grade alloy
2. grammar school
In Britain, it refers to a school for children over 11 who are academically bright. Today,
there are few grammar schools. Most secondary schools are called “ comprehensive”
and take in all children over 11 whatever their abilities. In the United States, a grammar
school used to mean an elementary school, but it is now considered old-fashioned.
3. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel.
nothing but: nothing except; only, e.g.
e.g. The doctor told her that it was nothing but a cold.
e.g. He cared for nothing but his name and position.
4. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any
farther…
lest: (fml) for fear that; to make sure that sth would not happen, e. g.
e.g. We ran as fast as we could lest we miss the train.
the subjunctive mood is used in the clause lest introduces.
farther & further: the former refers to physical distance whereas the latter to degree,
time and all other figurative uses, e.g.
The next village turned out to be much farther than we had thought.
5. …she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again.
(not) to be in a position to do it: (not) to be able to do sth because you (do not) have the
ability, money or power to do it, e.g.
e.g. I’m sorry, but I am not in a position to answer that question.
6. Next to her, crouched the statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the
top drawer of a filing cabinet.
next to: situated very close to sb/ sth
7. Beyond the leopard was a naked, muscular gentleman.
Pay attention to the following words in which “ –ed” is pronounced as /-id/: a naked
man a learned professor that blessed morning a wicked boy; the wretched life; our
beloved country; ragged pants; my aged parents (But not in “a man aged 45”); rugged
individualism; dogged efforts
8. delinquent children
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delinquent: failing to do what is required by law or obligation, e.g.
delinquent behavior; delinquent students; young delinquents; juvenile delinquency
In the original text (The present text is an abridged version.), the author mentioned
some of his “delinquent” behavior for which he was punished: breaking a window,
failing to remember Boyle’s Law and being late for school. But he said, “I had broken
the window because I had tried to hit Jack Arney with a cricket ball and missed him; I
could not remember Boyle’s Law because I had never bothered to learn it; and I was late
for school because I preferred looking over the bridge into the river.”
9. …because they symbolized to him the whole of life.
…because they represented/stood for the whole of life to him.(The leopard stood for all
animal needs or desires; Venus stood for love and the Thinker stood for thinking as a
uniquely human feature.)
10. The naked lady was Venus.
Venus: (Roman mythology) the goddess of love and beauty, identified with the Greek
goddess Aphrodite
11. She was just busy being beautiful.
to be busy doing sth: In this pattern, what follows the word “busy” is usually an action
verb. This sentence means that from the boy’s point of view, the Goddess of Love was
simply trying to remain beautiful.
12. Rodin’s Thinker
This is the most famous piece of art by the French sculptor August Rodin. It is said to be
the statue that most clearly shows the abstract idea of thinking. The thinker is pondering
so intensely that his toes are tightly clutching the ground.
13. I was not integrated. I was, if anything, disintegrated.
integrated: forming a part of a harmonious group
disintegrated: Here, it is used by the author to mean the direct opposite of “integrated”,
and therefore means some kind of a trouble-maker.
Note: This is not the way the word is normally used.
if anything: on the contrary, e.g.
e.g. He is not known for his generosity. He is, if anything, quite miserly.
The weather forecast says that it will not be warmer this winter. It will, if anything,
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even colder than last year.
14. “What are we going to do with you?"
Well, what were they going to do with me?
When the school headmaster asked, "What are we going to do with you?" he meant
"How can we make you mend your ways and become a nice boy?" But when the boy
mused, "Well, what were they going to do with me?" he was wondering how the school
authorities
were
going
to
time.
punish
him
this
.
15. the muscular gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in
endless gloom
to contemplate: to think for a long time in order to understand better
the hindquarters: the rump; the back part of an animal
For more, please consult the teachers’ book.
III. Homework
1.
Review the text and the vocabulary.
2.
Summarize this text orally with partners.
3.
Prepare the new lesson.
Text B: The Pleasures of Learning
1. About the author:
Gilbert Highet (1906—1978) was born in Scotland but
spent most of his life in the United States. He was a
classical scholar, critic, author, and for many years
professor of the Latin language and of Latin literature at
Columbia University. Highet’s 14 books include The
Power of Poetry (1960), Explorations (1971), and The
Immortal Profession: The Joys of Teaching and Learning (1976). This text is a
condensation from the last book, which first appeared in Reader’s Digest, September,
1976.
2. About the writing
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In “The Pleasure of Learning”, the author does a good job describing what adult
educators in the 1980’s and 1990’s call “life-long learning”. There is an extensive
literature on this subject, which includes many facets. Formal schooling is only one
such facet, often the least successful one.
Highet presents a convincing and effective argument for his view that of all human
activities which can be pursued at the individual level, learning is the most gratifying
and fulfilling. Because learning can expand our experience, horizons and productivity, it
is cumulative. Because the body decays, learning is the only human pleasure that is
lasting; it remains with us for a lifetime.
3. About the text
An outline of the text:
A mistaken idea about learning—learning appears to be a surrender of our will to
external direction, a sort of enslavement.
Learning, in fact, is a natural pleasure, one of the essential pleasures of the human race.
What in the author’s opinion produces dull and incurious people.
The aspects of learning:
Learning includes learning from textbooks but it is not confined to books.
Learning means keeping the mind open and active to receive all kinds of experience.
Learning also means learning to practice, or at least to appreciate an art.
Two different pleasures you get from reading books:
the pleasure of apprehending the unexpected;
the pleasure of deepening one’s knowledge of a special field
Learning extends our lives into new dimensions.
It is necessary and important to make one into a whole and harmonious personality,
which is to be achieved by one’s own efforts.
The chief danger confronting us is not age, but laziness, sloth, routine and stupidity
which prevent us from learning.
Detailed study of the text:
As most schools are set up today, learning is compulsory. It is an Ought, even worse, a
Must, enforced by regular hours and rigid discipline.
Learning is enforced; students have to go to school and learn whether they like it or not;
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they don’t have a choice.
Here, “ought” and “must” are both nouns. “Must” suggests that learning is very
necessary and very important for students to have or experience. “Ought” suggests that
you think it is morally right, a good idea and important for students to learn.
set up—establish. Here it means the way most schools are run.
compulsory—(from “to compel”) required, demanded, obligatory
compulsory courses—required courses (considered as the core of the curriculum) cf.
elective courses
“Ought” and “must” are used as nouns here. In given context, almost any word can be
used as a noun. More examples:
There is no But in this case. Do it. It’s an order. (conjunction as a noun)
I don’t want to hear any more of your Ifs. Just one word. Yes or No? (conjunction
as a noun)
You are trying to do the impossible.
I have no say in this.
Put “the” before this noun, “a” is wrong.
There have been a lot of ups and downs.
Do you get along with your in-laws?
Don’t waste time thinking about your “could have beens”.
enforce—compel, impose, make effective
Compare: to enforce a regulation/ law/ discipline
some delightful films… of dedicated scientists:
the late (Dr. Arnold Gesell)—(Dr. Arnold Gesell) who is not dead/ who has recently
died
passion and absorption—urge/ desire/ thirst/ hunger/ obsession and concentration
eureka/juEr `i:kE/—(Greek: heureka) The European space plan is also called this.
ephemeral—brief, temporary, passing, fleeting, transitory, transient, short-lived
…but minds alive on the shelves:
mind—a person who thinks, esp. one with a good brain and the ability to lead, to control,
etc.
one can call into range a voice: …one can make a voice come within the hearing
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distance.
range—limit, reach, bounds, radius
Not a mountain, not a canyon which had not much to tell him: Not a change in the
weather that he could not interpret.—Call the students’ attention to the use of double
negatives.
To square off the paper and the boards—to make the paper and the boards square
As for reading books…apprehending the unexpected…: The author here suddenly goes
back to books. From the point of view of the structure of the essay, it does not seem to
be a smart arrangement.
To apprehend the unexpected—to understand something new.
Way station—a station between major stops on a route
Tradition says…: the word “tradition” here means legend or folk tale.
Returns—profits, benefits, gains, rewards
Many people played themselves to death…thought themselves to death:
To play oneself to death—to play until one dies, to die of overplaying (“to” here means
“to the extent of” Starve to death; to be beaten to death)
forcing their way in like wind: entering by force
Compare: make one’s way in/ out of some place; fight one’s way in / out of a place;
Dance one’s way in/ out of some place; bow one’s way out of a place
Weekly Quiz
1. Spelling (two parts)
A.
anguish
compulsive
conversion
detestation
exalted
hideous
impediment
irreverent
acquaintance
muscular
Methodist
draught
prominent
spectacles
stampede
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writhe
statuette
restively
pious
hypocrisy
B. to suddenly disappear (vanish)
badly decayed as of fruit (rotten)
love of one’s country and readiness to define it (patriotism)
not too big or strong (modest)
someone who leads an immoral life (libertine)
having very high moral standards or principles (high-minded)
a feeling of great sadness (gloom)
scorn (contempt)
2. Word-building
A. Buddhist / -dism, compulse / -sive, delinquent / -quency, integrated / disintegrated,
interested / disinterested, resistible / irresistible, reverent / irreverent, solitary / solidarity,
accustomed / unaccustomed, deserved / undeserved
B. satisfy-satisfying-satisfactory-satisfaction-unsatisfied-dissatisfied
integrate-integration-integrated-integral-disintegrate-disintegration-integrity
just-unjust-justice-justify-justified-justification-justifiable
resist-resistance-resistant-irresistible (请参见教材“pre-class work”部分)
3. Translation （可以换译）
A. 永恒的真理 the eternal truth
纯属无稽之谈
常客
utter nonsense
a frequent visitor
违规行为
唱高调
delinquent behavior
be high-minded
身体障碍
a physical impediment
言语障碍
a speech impediment
条理清晰的文章
a coherent article
不可阻挡的趋势
an irresistible trend
点头之交
a nodding acquaintance
根据事实写成的
获得一种名声
literally inspired
to gain a reputation
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满足一个人的虚荣
严刑逼供
to satisfy one’s ego
to give sb. the third degree
B. 中国的书面文字一直是国家完整统一的一个重要因素。
The Chinese written system has been a major factor for integrating our nation.
真理一开始总是掌握在极少数人手里。这是一般的规律。
The truth is always in the hands of a small minority at first. That’s the rule.
这些胡同是构成老北京的完整的一部分。
These hutongs are in integral part of old Beijing.
学习文学不仅能帮助了解他人，还有助于你了解自己。
The study of literature can help you understand not only other people but also
yourself.
爱能够改善人们的心灵——无论是那些给与爱的人还是得到爱的人。
Love cures people—both those who give it and those who receive it.
4. Dictation
The concept of family life has changed considerably over the years. / In earliest times,
several generations lived together in clans, / which consisted of all living descendents
and their husbands or wives. / These clans were almost totally self-sufficient, / every
member contributing in some way toward the survival of the group. / The men hunted
and fished for food or sometimes maintained flocks of sheep or goats. / The women
baked bread and roasted the meat their men provided. / Special members of the
community were selected to make products like pottery, baskets and home weapons. /
But with the development of greater varieties of food, clothing and shelter, / a single
clan could no longer develop all the individual skills the group required. / Clans merged
into larger societies and at the same time broke into smaller units consisting of married
couples and their children. / Later the Industrial Revolution brought about even more
important changes in family life. / New inventions brought shorter working hours for
men and easier housekeeping routines for women. / Today a productive family life
suggests not the group’s cooperative efforts of working together, / but the pleasant and
meaningful sharing of its leisure./
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Lesson 2
I. Objectives
1. Helping students understand the basic qualities of a mystery story.
2. Making the students understand that true literature doesn’t necessarily contain
significant message or moral for the readers in the story.
3. Consolidating grammar points or structures in this lesson.
4. The learning and using of new words and vocabulary relating to describing people’s
appearance, manners, actions, etc.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the first
part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
2. The study of the second part & the vocabulary exercises. (1.5 hours)
3. The study of the last part of the text & the rest of the exercises. (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
1. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the teaching notes
2. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
3. Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
IV. Suggested class activities
1. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions about
the text orally.
2. Try the selected oral work on P. 48 in the exercise.
3. Ask students to retell and/or turn the text into a little play and acting it out.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
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Teaching Notes for Lesson 2
Text A: Waiting for the Police
I. Morning Report
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found to the
class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
B. In-class Tasks
1. Group discussion


















What can be said about the setting of the story? (time & place)
Who is Mrs. Mayton?
What is a boarding-house? How does it differ from a hotel?
How many boarders does she have?
What kind of a landlady is Mrs. Mayton?
What is the life like for the boarders in this boarding-house?
What was everybody doing at about ten past nine that evening?
Were they having a good time?
What did Mrs. Mayton feel obliged to do as the landlady?
Did she succeed in whipping up a little interest? How?
What do we know about all the boarders?
Who seems to be the oldest? What is she doing all the time?
Who seems to be the youngest? What is meant when she is introduced to us as
the boarding-house lovely? Is there any gentleman who is really interested in
her yet?
Who seems to have the best brain among them? Does that make him
particularly popular?
Who is the man “as polite as he is pale”? What is special about him?
What did Mr. Penbury say that got everybody’s attention?
What was everybody’s alibi?
What was the ending of the story? Is it a surprising ending for you? How do
you feel when you know the ending?
2. Introduction to detective story.
18
What is the difference between the detective story and the crime novel? (for
teacher’s reference)
I see the detective story as a subspecies of the crime novel. The crime novel can
include a remarkable variety of works from the cosy certainties of Agatha Christie,
through Anthony Trollope and Graham Greene, to the great Russians. The detective
story may be considered more limited in scope and potential. The reader can expect to
find a central mysterious death, a closed circle of suspects each with credible motive,
means and opportunity for the crime, a detective, either amateur or professional, who
comes in like an avenging deity to solve it, and a solution at the end of the book which
the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues presented by the
writer with deceptive cunning but essential fairness. What interests me is the
extraordinary variety of talents which this so-called formula is able to accommodate.
3. The Analysis of the Story
A. Style: narration—setting, plot, characters. The language is precise and humorous. It
has the suspense of a detective story.
B. Some Elements of the Story
a. Characters
Mrs. Mayton (the landlady); Miss Wicks ( the oldest lady); Miss Bella ( the
young lovely); Mr. Calthrop ( the middle-aged man); Mr. Penbury (the most
intelligent)
b. Setting
Place: a boarding-house where life, especially evening life, is dull for people who
live there.
Time: at night
c. Plot
One of the tenant was said to be killed in his room, then other people in the house
are trying to find out the criminal.
d. Detailed study of the text (please also refer to the reference book)
Part I: An idle discussion about where Mr. Wainwright has gone and it serves to
introduce the characters (par. 1-12)
Language Points (also see TB)
Para. 2
…notoriously dull in her boarding-house…
notoriously: Generally known and talked of by the public; universally
believed to be true; manifest to the world; evident; -usually in an unfavorable sense; as, a notorious thief; a
notorious crime or vice.
A notoriously inefficient company 一家人人都知道是效率奇低的公司
Banks: a notoriously inhospitable industry
The tuition of that university is notoriously high.
boarding-house: a house whose owner provides people with meals and accommodation
in return for payment on a weekly or monthly basis
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…try to whip up a little interest…to stir up interest, to try to arouse interest.
whip up: to make people feel excited, enthusiastic, etc., 激起；激励
to whip up interest 激发起兴趣
They went all out but they didn’t succeed in whipping up much support for their
candidate.
Para. 4.
…but he was as polite as he was pale: his politeness and paleness were of the same
degree; he was pale and he was very polite, implying humorously that he was polite
because he was pale.
e.g.
He is as wise as he is old.
She is as vain as she is beautiful.
At that time we were as enthusiastic as we were young.
He was as naïve as he was young.
to keep any ball rolling: to keep any conversation (activity or event)going once it has
been started.
get the ball rolling 使（活动、讨论等）不中断 (= keep the ball rolling)
Similar expressions: to set/start the ball rolling 开始活动
Para. 6
She had knitted for seventy years, and looked good for another seventy.
to look /be good for…: to be still in good condition to do sth; to be able to last.
e.g.
This car is good for many more miles.
This house was built in 1935. It looks good for another 30 years.
Para. 7.
a lovely: a beautiful and attractive woman
Para. 11
Popping in and out: to make a brief visit and then leave suddenly
Pay attention to the structure: be always doing something. This structure implies that
certain repeated actions are causing annoyance and irritation.
Part II: Mr. Penbury walks into the room and announces that Mr. Wainwright is
dead. (par. 13-31)
Para. 13
Penbury always had a chilling effect.
When Penbury arrived, the boarders stopped talking immediately. It seemed that his
presence always cast a chill on the other boarders.
chilling: causing a chill; making people frightened or nervous
Para.13
the allotted span: the time given for a particular purpose.
e.g.
They managed to get the work done within the allotted span.
Para. 21
instantaneous: happening or done immediately.
give a tiny shriek: give a sudden shout in a weak and frightened voice.
Para. 23/24/25/30
20
Pay attention to the expressions which show the deep shock in the boarders, such
as:
To gasp: to say sth while breathing hard
To gulp: to make a swallowing motion (to prevent the expression of emotion by
swallowing)
To stammer: to speak with sudden pauses and a tendency to repeat the same sound or
word rapidly, either because of having a speech problem or form fear, nervousness, etc.
Para. 31
To clear up a little ground: to get the facts clear
Part III: Mr. Penbury directs a general rehearsal of their alibis while they are
waiting for the police to arrive.
Para. 34
To accept our word for it: to accept what we say about it as it is.
Para. 40
With nervous aggression: in a nervous and aggressive manner, ready to quarrel or
attack.
Para. 42-52
To show the anger of all the other boarders with Mr. Penbury, the author uses verbs such
as: ejaculate glare, challenge, demand and exclaim.
Para. 48:
It found the spot all right.
The weapon went through his heart.
all right: used to emphasize that one is sure of sth; there is no doubt that sth is true,
e.g. Don’t worry. You will get the money back all right.
That’s the man I saw in the car all right.
Para. 59:
Would you oblige next, Mr. Calthrop? We all know you walk in your sleep.
oblige: (fml)to do sth for sb as a favor or a small service
Para. 62:
“Has Mr. Calthrop dozed during the past hour?” pressed Penbury.
press: （与 for 连用）敦促，力劝
She pressed her guests to stay a little longer. 她极力劝说客人们再呆一会儿。
Para. 63:
What damned rubbish.
Rubbish: foolish talk, nonsense
Para. 65:
I should be the last person to refute such an emphatic statement.
The last person/thing: used to emphasize theat one definitely does not want to do sth,
that sb/sth is the least likely or suitable to do sth.
e.g.
She is the last person to tell a lie.
He’d be the last person to support this plan.
That is the last thing I would like to do in all my life.
She is the last person to be suspected.
Para. 67:
21
landing window: 楼梯平台的窗户。
Para. 76
as a matter of form/formality: sth which has to be done even though it has no practical
importance or effect(even thought we all trust you have nothing to do with the murder)
Para. 84
Turn on sb.: to become suddenly hostile to sb. 袭击；攻击 (= turn upon
The dog went mad and turned on its owner.
Why did she turn on him like that? He must have said something to offend her.
4.Useful words and expressions: (Please make a selection of the following and refer to
the exercises for more or other ones.)
 not… in the least
 board and lodging
 whip up a little interest
 to keep the ball rolling
 take advantage of
 to have a brain
 go by
 in a split second= in an instant
 lie on one’s back
 stab sb. through the heart
 all right
 turn up
 blow one’s nose
 powder one’s nose
 to walk in one’s sleep
 come off: to fall from sth.
 put sth out of one’s mind: to make one forget sth.
 get on one’s nerves
 send sb. mad
 tense atmosphere
 moisten one’s lips
IV. Exercises
A. Vocabulary: word study
B. Grammar: Parenthetical elements
Text B: The Hitch-hiker
I. About the author:
Francis Greig is a screenwriter
II. About the text:
Paragraph1:
22
1. It had been touch and go whether…..
in a touch-and-go situation, there is a serious risk that something bad could happen.
It was touch-and-go whether the doctor would get there on time.
Paragraph 2:
1. She made the train with seconds to spare…
She got on the train just a few seconds earlier.
2. upholstery:
the thick soft material used to cover chairs, car seats, etc.
Paragraph 3: phrases:
Peer out of
Blow into
Stir in
Lit along
Paragraph 6
1. She was the only passenger to alight.
Alight(from sth): to get off a bus, train, etc.
2. ….cutting things fine is a characteristic of the practiced commuter.
Having a good sense of time is the characteristic of a practical commuter.
Notice how the author built up the tension in the following paragraphs.
III. Group discussion:
Do you think that the “old woman” is a bloody killer? Why?
Weekly quiz
1. Spelling
aggression, ascend, assumption, cushion, eccentric, ejaculate, emphatic, inconvenient,
instantaneous, mess, moisten, shriek, tense, viciously, inquiringly
2. Word-building Give the corresponding noun forms of the following verbs.
erupt-eruption 爆发，喷出, deform-deformation 变形, perform-performance,
emit-emission 发出，放射, inscribe-inscription 题字, 碑铭
3. Translation （可以换译）
1．作不在犯罪现场的证明 to give one’s alibi
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2． 瞬息之间 in a split second
3．让谈话继续下去 keep the ball rolling
4． 引起兴趣 to whip up an interest
5．对某人的话信以为真 accept one’s word for it
6．很聪明 to have a brain
7．紧张的氛围 tense atmosphere
8. 食宿 board and lodging
9. 伸出一只手 to stretch out a hand
10．梦游 to walk in the sleep
4. Dictation
Amount of Sleep
Generally speaking, the younger you are, the more you sleep and the deeper your sleep
is likely to be./
Newborn infants sleep about 16 hours each day-night cycle./ During the first year of life,
the amount of sleep an infant needs decreases by two hours or more./By age two, the
child sleeps about 12 hours a day,/ including about 90 minutes of daytime naps./
By adolescence and early adulthood, the amount of daily sleep has dropped to about 8
hours./ According to a study students averaged about 7 hours and 40 minutes of sleep at
night./ In addition, they napped about 25 minutes per day./ During the two-week period
the students were studied, / 84 percent of them took at least one nap/ and about 42
percent napped daily or almost every day./
Other people tend to sleep less deeply than do infants or young adults./ By 40 or 50
years of age, people wake up more frequently during the night./ And by age 60, almost
everyone naps on a regular basis./
These data, however, are for people who live in more-or-less normal circumstances./
persons who are sick or experiencing other unusual situations/ will often show quite
different sleep patterns no matter what their age.
Lesson 3
I. Objectives
1. To make sure the students grasp the basic facts and the logic of exposition.
2. To make the students realize the difference in style.
3. To stimulate discussion.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the
first part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
2. The study of the second part & the exercise from P.85-91 (1.5 hours)
24
3. The study of the last part of the text & the exercise from P.80-85 (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
10. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the TB
11. Key grammar:
Transitional words or phrases; the uses of “one”; three ways of defining;
prepositions; important sentences as is indicated in the teaching notes
12. Important sentence as is indicated in the TB
IV. Suggested Class Activities
1. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions
about the text orally.
2. Try the selected oral work on P. 78-79 in the exercise.
3. Ask students to have group discussion about the writing techniques of a good
exposition and the definition of history & the role of historians.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners and write an article on “How Should
History be Taught”.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Lesson 3
Text A: Why Historians Disagree
I. Morning Report
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
A. Check Pre-class Task
1. Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found to
25
the class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
2. Since students have prepared the lesson before class, check their understanding of
the text:
Indicate if each statement is True (T) or False (F) according to your understanding of
the text. Do not refer to the text as you make the choice.
1. According to the author, most people have a right understanding of history, the
study of history and the roles of historians.
2. Although historians use much the same data, they come to different conclusions
about an event because they view the past from a different perspective.
3. Historians can only approximate history at best because they have no access to
all events or all happenings in the past.
4. Historians not only select those records they consider most significant, but also
re-create parts of the past. (or: Historians never re-create parts of the past to fill
in the gaps in the available records.)
5. Historians are able to select and create evidence only by means of their
imagination.
6. The reason why historians disagree may be that they make different choices
about the important facts.
7. The basic reason for the sharp disagreement among historians is that they have
different judgment about the point at which causes are both necessary and
sufficient.
8. The well-used phrase “let the facts speak for themselves” can be applied to the
work of historians.
9. Historians often disagree with others but they never disagree with themselves.
10. Just because of the possibility of eliminating all disagreement among historians,
the study of history seems to be a significant, exhilarating and useful part of our
education.
(Suggested keys: 1-5 F.T T T(F) F 6-10 TTFFF )
B. In-class Tasks
1. Group discussion on the following questions:
26

Text study

What is the genre of this text? Exposition—illustrates the definition of history,
the role of the historians and the reasons why they disagree.

What is the writing purpose? To emphasize the importance of understanding
the historians’ approach, perspective and philosophy rather than the facts they
have used or left out. (TB)

What are the unique features of the writing style? Formal and logical; thesis
is well supported (Students can be suggested to draw an outline of the text to
follow the writers’ train of thought.)

What is the key information the author wants to communicate to us?
People’s misunderstanding of history, the study of history, and the role of
historians; the reasons why historians disagree with others and themselves; the
beauty and necessity of studying history.

In-class group activity:
Students are suggested to have an interview with their group members on
the following topics:
1. Before you study this text, what’s your view of the study of history? With
the help of the writers of this text, we realize that we have misunderstood
the study of this subject. Yet, what may be the reasons for this
misunderstanding?
2. What is a historian supposed to do? What would you say are the most
important characteristics of a good historian?
3. What is history? (For the possible implications, you may consult the
discussion exercise of Oral Work.)
C. For more language study and paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
IV. Homework
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Write an article on “How Should History be Taught”.
(Students are required to begin their writings by giving a definition of history.)
4. Prepare the new lesson.
27
Text B: The Third Man (Excerpts)
1. About the author—Graham Greene (1904-1991)
English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and journalist, whose novels treat moral
issues in the context of political settings. Greene is one of the most widely read novelist
of the 20th-century, a superb storyteller. Adventure and suspense are constant elements
in his novels and many of his books have been made into successful films. Although
Greene was a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times, he never
received the award.
"The main characters in a novel must necessarily have some kinship to the author,
they come out of his body as a child comes from the womb, then the umbilical cord
is cut, and they grow into independence. The more the author knows of his own
character the more he can distance himself from his invented characters and the
more room they have to grow in." (Graham Greene in Ways of Escape, 1980)
Graham Greene was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, as the son of Charles Greene
and Marion Raymond Greene, a first cousin of the author Robert Louis Stevenson.
Greene's father had a poor academic record but became the headmaster of Berkhamsted
School, following Dr. Thomas Fry. Charles Greene had a brilliant intellect. Originally
he had intended to become a barrister. However, he found that he had liking for
teaching and he decided to stay at Berkhamsted. Often his history lessons were less
lessons than comments on the crack-up of Liberalism. His brother Graham ended his
career as Permanent Secretary at the Admiralty.
Greene was educated at Berkhamstead School and Balliol College, Oxford. He had a
natural talent for writing, and during his three years at Balliol, he published more than
sixty poems, stories, articles and reviews, most of which appeared in the student
magazine Oxford Outlook and in the Weekly Westminster Gazette. In 1926 he converted
to Roman Catholicism, later explaining that "I hand to find a religion... to measure my
28
evil against." When critics started to study the religious faith in his work, Greene
complained that he hated the term 'Catholic novelist'.
In 1926 Geene moved to London. He worked for the Times of London (1926-30), and
for the Spectator, where he was a film critic and a literary editor until 1940. In 1927 he
married Vivien Dayrell-Browning. Greene was not a good family man. Although
Greene wrote four children's books, he once stated in a letter: ''How I dislike children."
After the collapse of his marriage, he had several relationships, among others in the
1950s with the Swedish actress Anita Björk, whose husband writer Stig Dagerman had
committed suicide. Greene's mistresses were often married women living in different
countries. During the 1920s and 1930s Greene had, according to his own private list,
some sort of of relationship with no less than forty-seven prostitutes. In 1938 Greene
began an affair with Dorothy Glover, a theatre costume designer; they were closely
involved with each other until the late 1940s. She started a career as a book illustrator
under the name 'Dorothy Craigie' and wrote children's books of her own, among them
Nicky and Nigger and the Pirate (1960).
During World War II Greene worked "in a silly useless job" as he later said, in an
intelligence capacity for the Foreign Office in London, directly under Kim Philby, a
future defector to the Soviet Union. One mission took Greene to West Africa, but he did
not find much excitement in his remote posting - "This is not a government house, and
there is no larder: there is also a plague of house-flies which come from the African
bush lavatories round the house," he wrote to London. Greene returned to England in
1942. After the war he travelled widely as a free-lance journalist, and lived long periods
in Nice, on the French Riviera, partly for tax reasons. With his anti-American comments,
Greene gained access to such Communist leaders as Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, but
the English writer Evelyn Waugh, who knew Greene well, assured in a letter to his
friend that the author "is a secret agent on our side and all his buttering up of the
Russians is 'cover'."
Greene's agent novels were partly based on his own experiences in the British foreign
office in the 1940s and his lifelong ties with SIS. As an agent and a writer Greene is a
link in the long tradition from Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and Daniel Defoe to
the modern day writers John Le Carré, John Dickson Carr, Somerset Maugham, Alec
29
Waugh and Ted Allbeury. Greene's uncle Sir William Graham Greene helped to
establish the Naval Intelligence Department, and his oldest brother, Herbert, served as a
spy for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the 1930s. Graham's younger sister, Elisabeth,
joined MI6, and recruited his Graham into the regular ranks of the service. His old
friend, Philby, Greene met again in the late 1980s in Moscow.
Greene received numerous honours from around the world, and published two volumes
of autobiography, A SORT OF LIFE (1971), WAYS OF ESCAPE (1980), and the story
of his friendship with Panamanian dictator General Omar Torrijos. - Greene died in
Vevey, Switzerland, on April 3, 1991. In the service the priest declared, "My faith tells
me that he is now with God, or on the way there." Two days before his death Greene
signed a note that gave his approval to Norman Sherry to complete an authorized
biography. The first part of the book appeared in 1989.
As a writer Greene was very prolific and versatile. He wrote five dramas and
screenplays for several films based on his novels. The Third Man (1949) was developed
from a single sentence: "I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago, when his
coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was incredulity that I saw
him pass by, without a sign of recognition, among the host of strangers in the Strand."
To do research for the film, Greene went to Vienna, where a reported told him about the
black market trade in watered-down penicillin. With the £9,000 he had received from
Alexander Korda, he bough a yacht and a villa in Anacapri. Later he portryed Korda in
LOSER TAKES ALL (1955) - he was Dreuther, the business tycoon.
In the 1930s and early 1940s he wrote over five hundred reviews of books, films, and
plays, mainly for The Spectator. Greene's film reviews are still worth reading and often
better than the films he praised or slashed. Hitchcock's "inadequate sense of reality"
irritated Greene, he compared Greta Garbo to a beautiful Arab mare, and gave a warm
welcome to a new star, Ingrid Bergman. When Hitchcock had troubles with the
screenplay of I Confess (1953), Greene refused to help the director, saying he was
interested in adapting only his own stories for the screen. In the story a priest is
wrongfully accused of a murder. Although Greene knew that some critics considered his
novels entertainment, his own models were Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford
Madox Ford. In his personal library was a large collection of James's work.
30
Greene's first published book was BABBLING APRIL (1925), a collection of poetry. It
was followed by two novels in the style of Joseph Conrad. The title for THE MAN
WITHIN (1929) was taken from Sir Thomas Browne's (1605-1682) "There's another
man within me that's angry with me." Greene started to write it after an operation for
appending on his sick leave from The Times. The film version of the book, starring
Michael Redgrave and Richard Attenborough, was made in 1947. Greene received a
letter from Istanbul in which the film was praised for its daring homosexuality.
"In Stamboul Train for the first and last time in my life I deliberately set out to
write a book to please, one which with luck might be made into a film. The devil
looks after his own and I succeeded in both aims, though the film rights seemed at
the time an unlikely dream, for before I had completed the book, Marlene Dietrich
had appeared in Shanghai Express, the English had made Rome Express, and even
the Russians had produced their railway film, Turksib. My film came last and was
far and away the worst, though not so bad as a later television production by the
BBC." (from Introduction, in Stamboul Train, 1974)
After the unsuccessful attempts as a novelist, Greene was about to abandon writing. His
first popular success was STAMBOUL TRAIN (1932), a thriller with a topical and
political flavour. Greene wrote it deliberately to please his readers and to attract
filmmakers. One of its characters, Quin Savory, was said to be a parody of J.B. Priestley
- Greene depicted nastily the writer as a sex offender. Priestley had just published a
novel, which led some reviewers to compare him with Dickens. In Greene's story
Savory was a popular novelist in the manner of Dickens. Next year he attacked another
well-loved writer, Beatric Potter, in an article called 'Beatrix Potter: A Critical Estimate'.
Also the American actress, Shirley Temple, aged nine, got her share when Greene wrote
in the magazine Night and Day that "her admirers - middle-aged men and clergymen respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body,
packed with enormous vitality..." This time Greene had to pay for his remark.
THE CONFIDENTIAL AGENT (1939) is a problematic work. In it the mysterious
Forbes/Furstein, a rich Jew, plans to destroy traditional English culture from within.
However, in 1981 the author was invited to Israel and awarded the Jerusalem Prize. He
had visited Israel in 1967 for the first time, and spent some of the time lying against a
31
sand dune under Egyptian fire, and thinking that the Six Day War "was a bit of
misnomer. The war was too evidently still in progress." Greene's religious convictions
did not become overtly apparent in his fiction until THE BRIGHTON ROCK (1938),
which depicted a teenage gangster Pinkie with a kind of demonic spirituality. Religious
themes were explicit in the novels THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1940), THE
HEART OF THE MATTER (1948), which Greene characterized as "a success in the
great vulgar sense of that term," and THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1951), which
established Greene's international reputation. The story, partly based on Greene's own
experiences, was about a lover, who is afraid of loving and being loved. These novels
were compared with the works of such French Catholic writers as Georges Bernanos
and François Mauriac. "At a stroke I found myself regarded as a Catholic author in
England, Europe and America - the last title to which I had ever aspired," Greene later
complained.
Greene returned constantly to the problem of grace. In his review of The Heart of the
Matter George Orwell attacked Greene's concept of 'the sanctified sinner': "He appears
to share the idea, which has been floating around ever since Baudelaire, that there is
something rather distingué in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub, entry
to which is reserved for Catholics only." The novel was set in Sierra Leone where the
author had spent a miserable period during the war. Major Scobie, the hero of the story,
dies saying: 'Dear God, I love...' The rest is silence.
The End of the Affair was drew partly on Greene's affair with Catherine Walston, whom
he had met in 1946. She was married to one of the richest men in England, Henry
Walston, a prominent supporter of the Labour Party. Catherine was the mother of five
children. Greene's relationship with Walston continued over ten years and produced
another book, AFTER TWO YEARS (1949), which was printed 25 copies. Most of
them were later destroyed. In The End of the Affair Catherine was 'Sarah Miles' and the
writer himself the popular novelist 'Maurice Bendix', who narrates the story and tries to
understand why Sarah left him. Maurice discovers that when he was injured in a bomb
blast during the war, Sarah promised God that she would end the affair if Maurice is
saved. Sarah dies of a pneumonia. Maurice's response to his divine rival is: "I hate you
as though You existed.'
32
The Third Man is among Greene's most popular books. The story about corruption and
betrayal gave basis for the film classic under the same title. Successful partners on The
Fallen Idol (1948) and Our Man in Havanna (1960), Graham Greene and the director
Carol Reed achieved the peak of their collaboration on this film. "I am getting terribly
bored with... everybody except Carol who gets nicer and nicer on acquaintance," Greene
wrote to Catherine Walston from Vienna in 1948. In The Third Man Holly Martin
(Joseph Cotten) arrives in Vienna to discover that his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles)
has died in a car accident. It turns out that Lime was involved in criminal activities, and
Lime's girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) suspects that his death may not have been
accidental. A porter recalls a mysterious third man at the scene of the death. One
evening Martins sees a man obscured by the shadows, who suddenly disappears - he is
Lime. The meet and Lime rationalizes his villainy in a speech at a fairground Ferris
wheel: "In Italy for 30 years the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed.
They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland
they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that
produce. The cuckoo clock." Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) threatens to deport
Anna and Martins betrays Lime to secure her freedom. In a chase through the sewers
Martins kills Lime, and Anna leaves him after the funeral. - Music, composed by Anton
Karas, became highly popular. "The reader will notice many differences between the
story and the film, and he should not imagine these changes were forced on an
unwilling author : as likely as not they were suggested by the author. The film in fact is
better than the story because it is in this case the finished state of the story." (Greene in
Ways of Escape) The character of Harry Lime inspired later a series on American radio,
performed by Welles, short stories published by the News of the World, and the TV
series of The Third Man, starring Michael Rennie. And in Peter Jackson's Heavenly
Creatures (1994) Kate Winslet fantasized about Harry.
Greene's ability to create debate and his practical jokes brought him often into headlines.
He recommended Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as his 'Book of the Year' in the Sunday
Times and praised the men involved in the Great Train Robbery. In a letter to the
Spectator he proposed a scheme to bankrupt the British postal system. In the 1950s
Greene's emphasis switched from religion to politics. He lived at the Majestic hotel in
33
Saigon and made trips to Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1953 he was in Kenya,
reporting the Mau Mau upraising, and in 1956 he spent a few weeks in Stalinist Poland,
and tried to help a musician to escape to the West. In Ways of Escape Greene told a
story about the Other, who called himself Graham Greene, but whose real name was
perhaps John Skinner or Meredith de Varg. In the 1950s the Other lost his passport in
India, and was sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment. A decade later he was
photographed in a Jamaican paper with "Missus drink", an attractive woman. "Some
years ago in Chile, after I had been entertained at lunch by President Allende, a
right-wing paper in Santiago announced to its readers that the President had been
deceived by an impostor. I found myself shaken by a metaphysical doubt. Had I been
the impostor all the time? Was I the other? Was I Skinner? Was it even possible that I
might be Meredith de Varg?"
The Asian setting stimulated Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN (1955), which was
about American involvement in Indochina. The story focuses on the murder of Alden
Pyle (the American of the title). The narrator, Thomas Fowler, a tough-minded,
opium-smoking journalist, arranges to have Pyle killed by the local rebels. Pyle has
stolen Fowler's girl friend, Phuong, and he is connected to a terrorist act, a bomb
explosion in a local café. The Quit American was considered sympathetic to
Communism in the Soviet Union and a play version of the novel was produced in
Moscow. OUR MAN IN HAVANNA (1958) was born after a journey to Cuba, but
Greene had the story sketched already much earlier. On one trip he asked a taxi driver to
buy him a little cocaine and got boracic powder. The novel was made into a film in
1959, directed by Carol Reed. During the filming Greene met Ernest Hemingway, and
was invited to his house for drinks. THE COMEDIANS (1966) depicted Papa Doc
Duvalier's repressive rule in Haiti, and THE HONORARY CONSUL (1973) was a
hostage drama set in Paraguay. THE HUMAN FACTOR (1978) stayed on the New
York Times bestseller list for six months. In the story an agent falls in love with a black
woman during an assignment in South Africa. The book did not satisfy Greene and he
planned to leave it in a drawer - it hung "like a dead albatross" around his neck.
Interested to hear what his friend Kim Philby thought of it he sent a copy to Moscow,
but denied that his double agent Maurice Castle was based on Philby. TRAVELS WITH
34
MY AUNT (1969), which was filmed by George Cukor, took the reader on on journey
round the world with an odd couple, a retired short-sighted bank manager and his
temperamental Aunt Augusta, whose two big front teeth gives her "a vital Neanderthal
air."
2. About the writing
The Third Man (1949) is a British film noir directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay
was written by novelist Graham Greene. Greene wrote a novella of the same name in
preparation for the screenplay, and this was published in 1950.
The story is set in the post-war Austrian city of Vienna, just after the Second World War,
when it was divided between the Allied powers of Britain, France, the USA and the
USSR. The central character is pulp western author, Holly Martins, who is searching for
an old friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him the opportunity to work for him in
Vienna.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man for more information
3. About the text
deprecate: to belittle; depreciate
scoundrel: a villain; a rogue
rascality: behavior or character typical of a rascal
conspiratorial: Of, relating to, or characteristic of conspirators or a conspiracy
Weekly Quiz
1. Spelling (two parts)
A. admittedly
alliance
belligerent
interception
premise
presumably submarine
Carolina
propaganda
historian
subtlety
diametrically
garrison
validity
sophistication
immersed
whereby
admittedly
South
crude
assumption
B. settled; prepared and arranged in advance; routine (cut-and-dried)
Out of proportion (disproportionate)
Not capable of going wrong; reliable (foolproof)
The ability to look into the true nature of sth; the sudden perception or
35
understanding of the true nature of sth (insight)
convincingly (persuasively)
to investigate, explore, or examine closely (probe)
(fml) act of seeking; search; pursuit
(quest)
to derive from; to originate from; to develop from
(stem from)
2. Translation （可以换译）
A. 专业的历史工作者
基于常识的反应
professional historians
a common-sense reaction
意见不一的历史学家
民间故事
contending historians
folk tales
过去的遗留物
the remains of the past
好战的行为；战争行为
belligerent acts
（事物的近因）
a proximate cause
不会出错的解释
a foolproof explanation
获得新的深刻认识
to gain new insights
从这前提出发
to begin from this premise
破坏实力平衡
to destroy the balance of power
组成同盟
to form an alliance
消灭差别
to eliminate difference
淹没在大海之中
沉船
to be immersed in a vast sea
to sink a boat
将证据凑在一起
to piece together evidence
B. 他使用了一种原始但却有效的方法。他要求学生每周读一本厚厚的书。
He used a crude but effective method. He required the students to read one fat
book every week.
你认为国际恐怖主义的高涨是什么造成的？
What do you think caused the upsurge of international terrorism?
任何进步和改革都会遭到反对。
There is always opposition to any progress and reform.
他们一结束调查，就向安理会报告。
As soon as they concluded the investigation, they were to report to the Security
36
Council.
名流是因媒体炒作而出名的人们。
Celebrities are people who become famous because of publicity through the
media.
Lesson 4
I. Objectives
1. Helping students learn the history of Apartheid South Africa.
2. Consolidating grammar points or structures in this lesson.
3. The learning and use of the words and expressions about the description of
psychology.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the first
part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
2. The study of the second part & the vocabulary exercises. (1.5 hours)
37
3. The study of the last part of the text & the rest of the exercises. (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
1. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the teaching notes
2. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
3. Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
IV. Suggested class activities
1. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions about
the text orally.
2. Try the selected oral work on P. 75 in the exercise.
3. Ask students to have group discussion on the topic about “racism” and other forms
of prejudice.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Lesson 4
Text A: A Drink in the Passage
I. Morning Report
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
38
A. Check Pre-class Task
Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found to the
class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
B. In-class Tasks
1. Presentation on what students have found about the writer Alan Paton and the racial
segregation in South Africa .
2. Group discussion:

Has racism been a serious problem in human history? Is the problem solved?

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate
—Edward R. Murrow
prejudices—just recognize them.
Do you agree with Murrow? Try to use examples to justify your opinion.
3. Interview. (One student acts as a TV host and another one as the writer)
4. Introduction to the background information.
About the author:
Alan Stewart Paton (1903-1988) was born and educated in Pietermaritzburg,
KwaZulu-Natal. He started his career by teaching at a school in Ixopo where he met and
married his first wife. The dramatic career change to director of a reformatory for black
youths at Diepkloof, near Johannesburg, had a profound effect on his thinking. The
publication of Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) made him one of South Africa's best
known writers. It is a searing account of the inhumanity of apartheid told in a lyrical
voice which emphasizes Paton’s love for the land and people of South Africa, and his
hope for a change in the future. It remains a world bestseller and probably one of the
most recognizable titles from this country. Paton became a fulltime writer after this
novel, producing novels (Too late the Phalarope 1953, Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful
1981), two volumes of his autobiography (Towards the Mountain 1980, Journey
Continued 1988), short stories and biographies of J.H. Hofmeyr and Bishop Geoffrey
Clayton among other writings. Following his non-racial ideals, he helped to found the
South African Liberal Party and became its president. He remarried after the death of
his first wife and remained living in Durban until he died.
39
About the social conditions of South Africa in Paton’s time:
Alan Paton’s most successful novel is Cry, the Beloved Country. Undoubtedly
much of the power of the novel comes from its depiction of the particular social
conditions in its contemporary South Africa. The novel takes place in the time
immediately before the institution of apartheid in the nation (the character Msimangu
even discusses the possibility of apartheid), which occurred within a year of the novel's
1948 publication. Therefore, although the novel does not discuss the state of South
Africa during the apartheid years, Cry, the Beloved Country is often used as a proxy for
lessons concerning apartheid-era South Africa.
Even before the apartheid years, as Paton makes clear in his novel, discrimination
against blacks in South Africa was significant. Blacks were forbidden from holding
political office, had no viable unions, and certain positions were closed to them. The
1913 Native Lands Act prevented blacks outside of the Cape Province from buying land
not part of certain reserves. In 1948, the National Party enshrined apartheid (the
political separation of black and white people in South Africa 种族隔离) into law with
such legislation as the Group Areas Act, which specified that separate areas be reserved
for the four main racial groups (whites, blacks, Coloreds, and Asians). The African
National Congress, a group of black leaders under the leadership of Albert Luthuli and
Nelson Mandela, emerged as the principal opposition to apartheid and the National
Party's reforms. The African National Congress became increasingly militant, even
using terrorist tactics that led to the government banning the ANC in 1960.
After several decades, the end of apartheid was a slow one that began with the
election of F.W. de Klerk as leader of the National Party and President of South Africa.
De Klerk began to permit multiracial crowds to protest against apartheid and met with
blacks leaders such as Bishop Desmond Tutu. Most importantly, he lifted the ban on the
ANC and ordered the release of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. By 1993, the National
Party and the ANC reached an agreement that pledged to institute a democratic South
Africa. The ANC won political power in April of 1994 during the first nonracial
democratic election, with 63 percent of the vote. Under the ANC, Mandela repealed all
apartheid legislation, while the South African parliament approved a new constitution in
1996.
40
★ TB also provides good background information.
4. The Analysis of the Story
A. Style: Narration (a short story)
B. Some Elements of the Story
1. Characters
Main: Edward Simelane (a black man), Van Rensburg (a white)
Minor: Some other white people
2. Setting
Place: a passage in a building inhabited by whites
Time: at night
3. Plot
A white stranger invites a black man to have a drink in the white’s building.
4. Theme
It’s common for two strangers to have a drink together, but what is so special
about this meeting?
Ask students to explore the significance of the meeting in that special situation.
5. Detailed study of the text (please also refer to the reference book)
Part I: A black man won a prize in a sculpture competition. (par. 1-6)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of the text
 In what person is the story told?
 What did the author mean when he said “the work touched the conscience of the
White South Africa”?
 How come that such an important honor was given to a black sculptor in a country of
notorious racial prejudice?
 What’s the white public’s response to this event?
 What would have happened if Simelane had attended the ceremony personally?
 Why couldn’t he drink brandy slowly?
B. Language Points (see TB)
1. Golden Jubilee:
Jubilee is the celebration of a special anniversary.
41
Silver jubilee: 25th anniversary
Golden jubilee: 50th anniversary
Diamond jubilee: 60th or 75th anniversary.
2. a nationwide sensation
nationwide: throughout the nation. –wide is an adj. or adv. suffix meaning throughout.
E.g. nationwide, worldwide, communitywide, schoolwide.
A sensation: extreme excitement or interest.
E.g. create [cause, make] a sensation 使感动, 引起轰动
three days' sensation 一时的轰动 (名声)
The press of the capitalist countries deals largely in sensation.
资本主义国家的报纸多作耸人听闻的报道。
His downfall was a great sensation of the day.他的垮台是当时耸人听闻的大事件。
3. by an oversight
oversight: a mistake that you make by not noticing sth or by forgetting to do sth.
疏忽，忽略
e.g. I didn’t mean to leave the room locked. It is just an oversight.
The oversight is not imputable to the person on the night shift.
这个疏忽不能怪值夜班的人。
Even an oversight in the design might issue in heavy losses.
设计中那怕是一点点疏忽也可能造成重大的损失。
"By an oversight, I forgot to post your letter."
我偶尔疏忽忘了把你的信寄出去。
4. a private reprimand: a private criticism, a criticism that is not made public.
reprimand: a sharp, angry and official rebuke or criticism. （当局的）申斥；谴责
5. high personage
a high-ranking official; an important person.
personage: a person of distinction. 名流, 要人
public personages 社会贤达
He is fast becoming a personage.他很快成为名人。
6. bring sth. to a close: /z/ to end or conclude sth.
e.g. The government was anxious to bring the hostage crisis to a close.
42
The surrender of General Lee’s army soon brought American Civil War to a close.
The chairman brought the meeting to a close. 主席宣布会议结束。
Cf:
at the close of: at the end of
come/draw to a close: to end
7. in certain powerful quarters: in certain politically influential circles
quarters: a usually unspecified group of people.
Longman: a place or person from which something comes or may be expected.
有可能提供某物的地方/人物；来源，出处
e.g. Help is arriving from all quarters. 援助正来自四面八方。
The best advice came from a most unexpected quarter.这项最好的建议由一个最
意想不到的人提出。
This decision is seen in some quarters(=by some people) as a change of policy.
8. outcry: a strong protest or objection. 强烈抗议[反对](against); 强烈要求(for)
e.g. There was a public outcry against police brutality.
There was an outcry for better pay among the railway workers.
9. departure from: a divergence fro a rule or traditional practice.
10. traditional policies: the racist policies which had been in effect for many years.
11. feel up to sth: to be well enough to; to be capable of
感到有力气去做, 感到能胜任
e.g. I don’t feel up to long hike.
I don’t thin Ann will feel up to it. She is not as young as she used to be.
Do you feel up to going out, or do you still have a headache?你觉得可以出去了吗，
还是仍觉得头痛？
My German is not good enough. I don’t feel up to translating that letter.
12. a throat of iron:
Brandy is an expensive drink that was usually consumed by well-to-do white folks in
Apartheid South Africa who would use a brandy glass and sip slowly.
A brandy glass is a large one with a wide bowl and narrower top. It is this shape so
that the drinker can appreciate the aroma of brandy.
When a black person ever got a chance to drink brandy, he would usually use a small
43
glass and drink it quickly for fear that he might be seen and arrested by the police for
breaking the law. When black folks in Orlando drank brandy, frequently they had to put
back their head and drink it up in one gulp in order to avoid police detection, and
because is a very strong drink, you gradually develop a very strong throat, like a throat
of iron.
Part II: Simelane had a drink with a white stranger in the passage. (par. 7-76)
Section A. Simelane accepted the invitation of a white stranger to have a drink together.
(par. 7-33)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of the text
 Why did Simelane say “if there is anything called white velvet”?
(Velvet is usually soft and smooth. But in this country of apartheid, it was hard for the
sculptor to associate the color “white” with such qualities as “softness” and
“smoothness” . )
 Can you tell the reason why Simelane could never go and look at his own work in the
window?
(He doesn’t want to be found indulging in admiring his own genius.)
 Do you think the discussion of what language to speak is an idle talk?
(Afrikaans: a Dutch dialect spoken mainly by the white people of Dutch descent in
South Africa. The fact that the sculptor had spoken the language since he was a child
showed that although he was black he was well-educated. In this passage, there was
quite a problem for the sculptor as to what language he should use, as language served
as an important social status symbol.)
 What is the symbolic meaning of Par. 22?
(a black was not the equal of white so they would never walk side by side)
B. Language Points (see TB)
1. squint at it out of the corner of my eye
squint at: to look or glance to the side. 斜眼看
out of the corner of my eye: not “my eyes”.
2. indulge: to allow oneself to do sth. that one enjoys, especially sth bad or harmful
沉迷; 放纵(感情、欲望等); 纵情享受
3. with a white stranger and all: the whole thing; including everything or everybody
44
mentioned.等等; 连...一齐都; [方]此外;的确
e.g. My boss promised to provide me with a computer and all.
He ate the whole of the fish, head, tail, bones, and all.
4. round the corner: very near.
5. Afrikaans: a Dutch dialect spoken mainly by the white people of Dutch descent in
South Africa. The fact that the sculptor had spoken the language since he was a child
showed that although he was black he was well-educated. In this passage, there was
quite a problem for the sculptor as to what language he should use, as language served
as an important social status symbol.
6. leave the question open: answer the question in such a way as to lead to further
questions.
Section B. they had a drink in the passage of the building where the white lived. (par.
34-65)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of the text
 Why was Simelane glad to see the entrance was deserted?
(to be deserted: with no one present. I was glad to see that there was no one in the wide
entrance passage because as a black, he was supposed to be out of the city by eleven.
And he was worried someone might see him at such a time of the night.)
 What does “impersonal doors” imply?
(“impersonal” means “showing no emotions or feelings.”
For one thing, they looked all the same, this being a cheap apartment building.
For another, the doors are cold and unfriendly with whites living inside. The white man
was friendly enough to invite Simelane to have a drink, but he was not ready to invite
him into his home. )
B. Paraphrase
 I wasn’t only feeling what you may be thinking… (par. 39)
(You may be thinking that it was an insult to have me drink in the passage instead of
inviting me into their apartment, to sit down and drink properly. Yes. I was feeling that
way. But there was something else. I was also afraid that one of the cold , unfriendly
doors might open at any moment and someone might see me in this whites only building,
drinking with a white man and breaking the laws on drinking.)
45
 Anger could have saved me from the whole embarrassing situation… (par. 39)
(I could have simply left then and there angrily and thus freed myself from the awkward
situation.)
C. Language Points (see TB)
1. to be at one’s ease: feeling natural and comfortable; without any embarrassment or
discomfort.
2. honest, unselfish envy: He sincerely envied me. He was not jealous of my education.
3. talk out my heart to him: tell him everything in my mind freely and fully. Pour out my
feelings to him.
4. high Afrikaans: Afrikaans spoken by educated white Africaners.
5. in a strained voice: in a worried voice.
6. come out of nowhere: happening or appearing suddenly and without warning.
e.g. A stone came from nowhere and hit him on the head.
A police car appeared out of nowhere and stopped him.
7. get beyond me: to become difficult for sb. to understand.
8. to touch me: it’s not physical touch. It means “get close to me in spirit”
9. get the hell out of that place: [口]赶快离开(某地)
the hell of a (用来加重语气)极恶劣的, 不象样的, 使人受不了的
a hell of a life 人间地狱
a hell of a noise 大骚闹
Section C. They had a talk on the way to the station. (par. 66-76)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of the text
 What actually frightened the white man in Orlando at night?
(He couldn’t be talking about it being dangerous in Orlando at night. He was saying
that it was dangerous to break the Apartheid laws by showing up in Orlando at night. )
 How do you understand Par. 67?
(I knew that the white wanted understanding and further communication. I wanted to
answer him, but I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. Clearly, the
46
long separation between the whites and blacks made it impossible for them to
communicate in depth. )
 The white man mentioned “our land is beautiful” twice in the story. What did he
mean?
(Van Rensburg wanted Simelane to know that he felt sorry about their country’s
Apartheid laws.)
 Why did the white man sit slumped in his seat, like a man with a burden of
incomprehensible, insoluble grief? Where did he stand on the issue of racial
equality?
 Why did Simelane’s wife weep when he told her the story?
B. Paraphrase
 …for his eyes had been blinded by years in the dark. (par. 70)
(he wanted to touch me, but he couldn’t, for he had been influenced by racism for so
ling that he wat now unable to see the truth and behave accordingly.)
 …but I was thinking he was like a man trying to run a race in iron shoes, and not
understanding why he cannot move. (par. 75)
(he was much like a man trying to run but couldn’t because he still not completely free
from racist prejudices which were dragging his feet like iron shoes. And the sad thing
was that he still did not know what was preventing their land, which otherwise was so
beautiful, from becoming a country that would not break his heart. The wall was in his
own heart.)
C. Language Points (see TB)
1. fall back
IV. Exercises
A. Vocabulary: word study
B. Grammar: subject-verb agreement
C. Model test (band 4)
Text B: The Bench
47
1. About the Author Richard Rive
Richard Rive was born in District Six in Cape Town. " The Bench" is taken from
his short story collection, "Advance, Retreat " influenced by events during the Defiance
of Unjust Laws Campaign from 1952 to 1953. Richard Rive was one of the first South
African writers to examine just what it means to be of mixed race in a rigidly dualistic
society. Rive, who was found brutally murdered in his home in June 1989, was a pivotal
figure in the South African literary renaissance of the early 1960's and is best known for
his stories and the anthologies he edited. His first novel, ''Emergency'' (1964), broke
new ground by exploring the forces that might lead an ordinary, decent black to become
involved in the armed struggle against apartheid - a subject since examined with even
fiercer passion by Mongane Serote (in ''To Every Birth Its Blood''), Sipho Sepamla (in
''A Ride on the Whirlwind'') and Mbulelo Mzamane (in ''The Children of Soweto'').
Spanning the three decades from the 50's to the mid-80's, ''Advance, Retreat'' contains
some of Rive's finest stories and provides a loose chronology of the mixed-race
population's evolving political consciousness.
2. About the writing
This short story was written during the apartheid system. The bench at the railway
station symbolises South African society at that time. Karlie refuses to move from the "
whites only " bench and is therefore pulled away by the police. Under apartheid even
mixed marriages were not allowed. Schools, restaurants and hotels were segregated. "
Bantu education" was enforced for black people in South Africa in 1953. The blacks
were taught that they were less intelligent than other races. Karlie`s initial confusion
while listening to the speech, can be linked to this form of brain washing. Many were
opposed to this oppressive system. Karlie is of course alone in disobeying the police,
but he represents all the black opponents of apartheid and racial discrimination. " Karlie
turned to resist, to cling to the bench, to his bench." Karlie is not only holding on to a
bench, but also to his own existence as an equal citizen of South Africa. " It was
senseless fighting any longer. Now it was his turn to smile." Although Karlie looses his
grip, he is not defeated. He smiles as he`s taken away. Karlie wins the battle with
himself and is proud of showing his victory.
3. About the Text
48
The story starts with an exert from a speech that is held in Cape Town, South
Africa. It is clearly part of a demonstration against the apartheid system. A large black
man with a rolling voice says," It is up to everyone of us to challenge the right of any
law which wilfully condemns any person to an inferior position."
The lecture is held outdoors, most of the crowd being coloured. The main
character in the story, Karlie, a black man, follows every word the speaker says. He
doesn't quite understand the full meaning of them, but realises that they are true words.
The speaker tells Karlie that he has certain rights. The picture of himself living like a
white man frightens him, but at the same time fascinates him. All he has ever been
taught is that God made the white man white, the coloured man brown and the black
man black and that they must know their place.
The people on the platform behave as if there were no difference in colour. It
makes sense, but still only in a vague way. All the time Karlie is comparing what is
happening on the platform to his own situation back home. There, people of different
colour could never offer each other a cigarette as a white woman does to a black man,
up on the stage. The idea makes him laugh, getting him noticed by a couple of people.
This shows that Karlie is not completely comfortable or at ease with all this new
information. His upbringing is strongly embedded in him. Playing with the thought of
being as good as any other man he remembers black opposers of apartheid going to
prison, smiling. It confuses him. As a white woman speaker says, " One must challenge
all discriminatory laws," Karlie grows more confident, fear and passivity are replaced
with determination to act for equality.A white woman jeopardising all her advantages to
say what she believes in. Never had he seen anything like this in his home town. A
determination starts creeping over his vagueness. Now he wants to challenge, whatever
the consequences. He wants to be in the newspaper smiling. This is a turning point in
his life.
After the meeting, on the way to the station, Karlie is on the receiving end of a
nasty, racialist comment from an approaching car. " Karlie stared dazed, momentarily
too stunned to speak." By reacting at all, it shows that he now questions this kind of
treatment. To " challenge" like the white woman speaker said, he sits on a "whites only"
bench at the railway station. Although this story spans over a limited time, Karlie has
49
gone through an extreme change in his life. He is now determined to fight for his own
freedom as a human being. He rebels against his former upbringing imprinted in him
and wants to find a new place in society for himself.
Weekly Quiz
I. Spelling
1. sculptor
2. constrained
3. renounce
4. avert
6. inarticulateness 7. testimonial
8. ceremony
9. expel
10. liquor
11. indulge
12 sensation
13. jubilee
14. squint
15. polished
16. oversight
17. statue
18. suspend
5. segregate
19. omit
20. literature
II. Word building.
1. It is ________ (dispute) that the crime rate has been rising.
indisputable
2. Some application forms can be ________ (comprehend) to ordinary people.
incomprehensible
3. She was extremely ________ (compliment) about his work.
4. They live in a ________ (luxury) furnished apartment.
5. He was dismissed for ________ (competent).
complimentary
luxuriously
incompetence
III. Translate the following phrases
1. 庆祝它的 50 华诞
to celebrate its Golden Jubilee
2. 尽情享受乐趣
to indulge in pleasures
3. 给某人斟酒
to pour sb. a drink
4. 难以解决的两难困境
an insoluble dilemma
5. 他的无可争议的权威
his indisputable authority
6. 向某人说说心里话
talk out one’s heart to sb.
IV. Translate the following sentences
1. 因为疯牛病，对新西兰的牛肉进口暂时停止了。
Import of New Zealand’s beef was suspended because of the mad cow scare.
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2. 政府的政策成功地避免了一场严重的经济衰退。
The government’s policy succeeded in averting a serious economic recession.
3. 谣传说琳达要提升了。
It is widely rumored that Linda’s getting promoted.
4. 当他被清华大学录取时他的朋友和他的父亲都不感到吃惊。
Neither his friends nor his father was surprised when he was admitted by Tsinghua
University.
V. Dictation
Nowadays, almost everyone has to compete with others for success, for good jobs,
and for better lives. Unfortunately, many people who failed a few times lost their
confidence.
Self-confidence plays an important role in competition. With self-confidence, a
weak team may defeat a strong one; common people may do their best or even
accomplish missions impossible. In contrast, without self-confidence, sports stars, smart
people, and great men may also fail. Such examples are numerous.
Since self-confidence is so important we should try hard to develop our
self-confidence by aggressively getting involved in competition and trying to win all the
time. At best, a win will make us realize our strengths; at worst, a loss will help us know
our weaknesses. Since life is an endless competition. Let’s face it with self-confidence
and succeed. (133 words)
51
Lesson 6
I. Objectives
1. Help Ss understand the sources of groundless beliefs and develop their enquiring
mind.
2. Help Ss build up their vocabulary and improve their language skills.
3. Reinforce Ss’ grasp of adverbial clauses concerning abbreviation and condition.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
4. Checking pre-class work and general understanding of Text A, answering
Questions on TEM 4 --- 1.5 hours
5. Detailed study of Text A, answering questions on TEM 4 --- 1.5 hours
6. Exercises, Text B, answering questions on TEM 4--- 1.5 hours
III. Key Points
13. Sources of groundless beliefs and the nature of these sources
14. Organization of the article in Text A
15. Key words and expressions as is indicated in the teaching notes
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16. Adverbial clauses concerning abbreviation and condition
IV. Suggested Classroom Activities
1. Task One: Organize the class into 5 groups, discussing Paragraph 2-5,
Paragraph 6-13, Paragraph 14-19, Paragraph 20-24 respectively;
And then ask each group to select one to present the result of their discussion in
THREE minutes.
Questions to cover:
 What are the sources of groundless beliefs discussed in the section?
 What examples are used to illustrate the impact of the factor(s) on people’s
beliefs?
 Can you find more examples to support the writer’s view?
2. Task Two: Organize pair work to talk about
 a groundless belief of the students,
 the source of the belief,
 how it is realized.
3. Task Three: Organize pair work to discuss questions on Text A on Page
180-181 and then ask Ss to present their puzzles that arises in the discussion for
class discussion.
4. Task Four: Pair work—Comment on the quotations on Page 181
V. Assignment(s)
1. Ask Ss to read Text A aloud at least twice and recite Paragraphs 3 and 24
2. Ask Ss to do exercises behind the text
3. Ask Ss to write an essay analyzing a groundless belief of theirs
53
Teaching Notes for Lesson 6
Text A: Groundless Beliefs
Suggested Classroom Procedures for Period 1-2
I.
News/Information Exchange
Have Ss talk in pairs sharing the latest news/information they have got in the past few
days. It is to create a real communicative situation for Ss to improve their oral English
and keep Ss informed of things about the outside world. News discussion can be of help
for them to improve their listening and speaking.
II.
Spelling check
1. agreeable
2. allowance
3. anecdote
4. antagonism
5. attribute
6. belittle
7. bungle
8. classify
9. competent
10. conceive
11. consistent
12. conversely
13. cowardice
14. dogmatic
15. energetic
16. enormous
17. established
18. fogey
19. fundamental
20. gladiatorial
21. improvident
22. infanticide
23. inheritance
24. justify
25. legitimate
26. necessitate
27. originate
28. prestige
29. prohibition
30. sentimental
31. uncritically
32. undesirable
 It is meant to check students’ preparation for the new lesson and it serves as a
preparation for the discussion of the new text.
 Suggestion: You can expand a little after spelling check. All the words listed
above are derivations or words can be derived from them. Reminding Ss of or
asking Ss to tell the different forms of the words can enlarge their vocabulary. It can
also provide some new input after mechanical spelling check.
III.
Check students’ understanding of Text A
General Questions on Text A
1. What is the author talking about in the text? -- Beliefs, esp. groundless ones.
2. What is a groundless belief? -- It is a belief which has no ground or foundation.
It is not supported with proof or evidence.
3. Why do people hold groundless beliefs according to the author? -- Because of
early environment, parroting, taking sth as obvious truth, self-interest, one’s
desire, one’s sentimental associations, or fashions.
4. What does the author mean by parroting, obvious truth, self-interest, desire,
sentimental associations, and fashions?
5. Why does the writer write such an article for us?—wants us to find out how we
come by our beliefs and know the bases or the grounds of our beliefs, to see all
sides of a question, to test our beliefs and develop our critical thinking.
IV.
Work on the Structure of Text A
Task One:
1. Organize the class into 4 groups, discussing Paragraph 2-5, Paragraph 6-13,
Paragraph 14-19, Paragraph 20-24 respectively;
54
2. Questions to cover:
1) What are the sources of groundless beliefs are discussed in the section?
2) What examples are used to illustrate the impact of the factor on people’s beliefs?
3) Can you find more examples to support the writer’s view?
3. And then ask each group to select a representative to present the result of their
discussion in THREE minutes.
Group 1---Paragraph 2-5
Source 1: Impact of early environment--- someone somewhere told us sth and we
accepted in our childhood/Roman Catholic and Presbyterian baby
exchange/Grow up in a community where polygamy or head-hunting,
infanticide, or gladiatorial fighting, or dueling/English baby adopted by
German family
Source 2: Parroting--- Influence of newspapers and advertising/Picking up ideas/
Dogmatic statement passed from one person to another and one generation
after another
Group 2---Paragraph 6-13
Source 3: Taking as obvious truth--- slavery natural, planets moving in paths,
heart—the organ of consciousness, flat earth, heavy weight falls faster
Group 3---Paragraph 14-19
Source 4: Self-interest---it pays/good for one’s life, wealth, social position, popularity,
respect and good will, …
Source 5: Desire---cowardice, lazy person
Source 6: Sentimental associations---pleasant and unpleasant memories, pleasant
recollections/bitter quarrel change one’s opinion...
Group 4---Paragraph 20-24:
Source 7: Fashion---different fashion, impact of the fashion, impact persist,
For Reference:
Introduction
1:
Impact
of
early
environment
2: Parroting
3: “Obvious” truth
Body: Sources of Groundless 4: Self-interest
Beliefs
5: Desire
6: Sentimental associations
7: Fashion
Conclusion
V.
Task Two: Organize pair work to talk about
 a groundless belief of the students,
 the source of the belief,
 how it is realized.
55
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2-4
Paragraph 4-5
Paragraph 6-13
Paragraph 14-16
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 18-19
Paragraph 20-24
Paragraph 25
VI.
Coping with puzzles in Text A
Asking Ss to raise their questions, explaining and discussing them with Ss.
VII. Coping with questions in TEM 4 preparation
Asking Ss to raise their questions, explaining and discussing them with Ss.
VIII. Assignments
1) Read Text A aloud
2) Recite Paragraphs 3 and 24
3) Learn the words by heart
4) Study Text A in detail with the help of dictionaries and reference books
Suggested Classroom Procedures for Period 3-4
I.
II.
News/Information Exchange
Spelling Check
1) bungle
2) gramophone
5) staunch
6) antagonism
9) enormous
10) gladiatorial
13) undesirable
14) anecdote
17) fundamental
18) inheritance
3) grudge
7) classify
11) justify
15) consistent
19) originate
4) improvident
8) conversely
12) prestige
16) energetic
20) uncritically
Supplementary Information on Detailed Study of Text A Besides Teacher’s
Book
Paragraph 1
1. In future we are going to follow the practice—until it becomes a habit—of
classifying propositions according to their grounds.
Note:
to follow the practice;
to take this practice as a guide;
to copy this practice;
to develop the habit of doing things in this way
to classify: to arrange things systematically in classes or groups propositions: views;
ideas; assertions
classify books by subjects
2. of every statement: about every statement
3. the number of propositions met with: the number of propositions encountered or
experienced
4. to be astonished at: Compare: to be surprised at; to be alarmed at; to be disappointed
at
He was astonished at what he found.
Everybody was astonished at his strange behavior.
5. to class (as groundless): arrange, group, or rate according to qualities or
characteristics; assign to a class; classify
Ss who are working, or who are seeking and are available for work, are classed as
economically active.
It is classed as an agricultural state.
The fees you pay depend on whether you are classed as an ‘overseas’ student for fees
purposes.
III.
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6. to rest upon/on: to be based on
That argument rests on a false assumption.
The conclusion rests on facts.
Paragraph 2
1. way back in our …
Way: by a great distance or to a great degree; far
way off the coast 远离海岸
way over budget 大大超过预算
2. develop (the power): bring from latency to or toward fulfillment:
develops the capabilities of each student
Children must develop a sense of right and wrong
Dave developed leadership qualities in his new position
develop a passion for painting
3. conviction: firm belief or opinion (Do not confuse this word with its other meaning
as in "the conviction of a person for a crime". )
Paragraph 3
1. staunch (Roman Catholic/Presbyterian): firm and dependable especially in loyalty;
steadfast:
a staunch ally
a staunch protector and defender
a staunch defender of free speech
2. Roman Catholic: The most comprehensive Christian denomination in the Western
World.
Headed by the pope appointed by cardinals in Rome. Uses icons, statues and other
artifacts in worship. Prays not only to God but to numerous saints as well. Very strict.
Doesn't allow Women as priests, or priests marrying. Rejects artificial birth control.
Very big on sin and suffering and making one's way into heaven. Practices confession of
transgressions. Resists co-worshipping with other Christian groups.
3. Presbyterian: a member of the Presbyterian Church, a Protestant denomination.
Presbyterianism is a form of church government, practiced by many (although not all)
of those Protestant churches (known as Reformed churches), which historically
subscribed to the teachings of John Calvin. Presbyterianism traces its institutional roots
back to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. There are many
separate Presbyterian Churches in different nations around the world.
when infants: (elliptical) when they were infants
4. to be consistent with: to be in agreement with…
The testimony should be consistent with the known facts.
I have decided that the course of conduct which I am following is consistent with my
sense of responsibility as president in time of war"- FDR
This practice is not consistent with government regulations.
What he is doing is consistent with his basic moral principles.
5. other than: This expression usually means "except", but here it means "apart from".
This usage, however, is not considered standard by many.
There is no way out other than the fire escape
You can't get there other than by swimming.
6. to be true of sth"
Some supermarket cheat customers. Can this be true of Wal-Mart?
My friend passed the test. Can this be true of me?
7. Polygamy, Polygyny, Polyandry. These are anthropological terms, not much used
within the poly movement. They refer respectively to multiple marriages in general,
marriages of multiple women to one man, and of multiple men to one woman. Polygyny
has been much more common among world cultures than polyandry, and many
non-anthropologists have used polygamy to refer mainly to polygyny, for example
among the Mormons. These have mainly referred to marriages recognized by the culture
57
in question. Consider these terms background info, but not very useful in today's poly
subculture.
8. head-hunting: A headhunter was a person who killed another and then took their
head. Headhunting was practiced in parts of Nigeria, the Balkan peninsula, Nurestan,
Assam, Myanmar, Borneo, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Micronesia and
Melanesia, New Zealand and the Amazon. It is a universally prohibited practice which
appears to have died out as of the mid-20th century. In ancient Europe, head-hunting
was also widespread among the Celts.
9: infanticide: practice of killing an infant. In pre-Islamic times a common practice in
Arabia of ridding the family of unwanted female children.
10. gladiatorial fighting: Gladiators (Latin gladiatores) were professional fighters in
ancient Rome who fought against each other and against wild animals, sometimes to the
death, for the entertainment of spectators. These fights took place in arenas in many
cities during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire.
11. dueling: A duel or duel of honour is a form of armed combat in which two
individuals participate. Duels represent a contrived combat situation designed to
maximize fairness of combat. They usually develop out of a desire for one party (the
challenger) to redress an insult to his honour. Typically, duels have been fought between
members of the same social class; they are regarded as especially noteworthy when
those partaking are of the upper class but occur at all social strata.
12. adopt (a child): take into one's family through legal means and raise as one's own
child. Pay attention to other meanings and the collocations
adopt a new technique
adopted an air of importance
adopt a resolution
Paragraph 4
1. cease to adopt new beliefs on mere suggestion.
It ceased to rain [raining]
The great man ceased to think.
2. . what passes as such: what people take as thinking
The expression “as such” has to refer to some status mentioned earlier. “The CEO was a
former drill sergeant, and as such expected everyone to obey his orders instantly.” In
this case “such” refers back to “former drill sergeant.” But often people only imply that
which is referred to, as in “The CEO had a high opinion of himself and as such expected
everyone to obey his orders instantly.” Here the “such” cannot logically refer back to
“opinion.” Replace “as such” with “therefore.”
3. Pay attention to the collocations with ideas. Ask Ss to tell as many as possible.
Pick up/adopt/abandon/give up/absorb/acquire/advocate /borrow/cherish/combat/
communicate/ develop/dismiss/ exchange/expand/favor/form/foster/hold/impart/
import/ obtain/ produce/ put forward/ propose/ seek ideas
4. to fit in with: to say the same thing or follow the same principle; to agree with;
belong with something.
What religion do you fit in with?
We must fit new buildings in with the styles and scale of buildings that have been here
for two hundred years.
She will fit in well with those high-powered environmental lawyers.
Paragraph 5
1. Propositions that are accepted simply because "everybody says so," must be
classed under the same heading.
People often do this because group identity is a very strong psychological need. People
are afraid of being isolated. They often have a tendency to follow the crowd (to jump on
the bandwagon). It is because of this that tyrants often use group pressure to impose
their views. And it is because of this that we should learn to defy majoritarian tyranny if
we want to stick to truth.
58
2.. inheritance (from): Something inherited or to be inherited; to be inherited from the
past: to be passed on from the past
see words with the same root
A son inherits from his father.
Astronomy inherits from astrology.
3. in its favor: in its support
We are in favor of her promotion to president.
One of the biggest points in its favor is that it presents an extremely familiar and
comfortable user interface(界面).
Paragraph 6
1. on guard: vigilant
We need to be on guard against con artists.
You must remain on your guard in such a situation.
Paragraph 7
1. entertain an opinion about …: hold in mind; harbor
entertain interesting notions
entertained the notion of moving to South America
2. inquire into…: investigate, conduct an inquiry or investigation of
inquire into the disappearance of the rich old lady
Paragraph 8
1. to break down: to cease to be useful; to fail to function; to stop being acceptable
Negotiations broke down
The bus we traveled in broke down on the way to town.
The elevator broke down.
2. in the light of: in consideration of; as a result of
All this is understandable in the light of evolution theory.
I submit that all these remarkable findings make sense in the light of evolution: they are
nonsense otherwise.
It is only in the light of the ongoing crimes being committed in Lebanon that we can
come to a full understanding of the real reason for the assassination
3. beyond question: The necessity for citizen action is also clear beyond question.
4. by nature: naturally: through inherent nature:
He was lazy by nature.
Are designers romantic by nature?
Paragraph 9
1. intellects: a person possessing considerable capacity for thought and knowledge; a
person of great intellectual ability; a person who uses the mind creatively
Paragraph 10
1. Credit (the fact): believe the fact; have trust in; trust in the truth or veracity of;
believe in; trust
She refused steadfastly to credit the reports of his death.
Otherwise: in another way; differently:
She thought otherwise.
He is noisy, but otherwise a nice boy.
Paragraph 11
1. The very suggestion …
Very: mere; actual
The very thought is frightening.
caught in the very act of stealing.
2. demonstrate the contrary: to prove that the contrary is true by means of a
59
demonstration
The student may, however, rebut this presumption with facts that demonstrate the
contrary.
Evidence has eroded to the point of meaninglessness despite our repeated attempts to
demonstrate the contrary.
3. dogma: a principle, belief or a statement of an idea formerly and authoritatively
considered to be absolute truth
4. be beyond possibility or doubt: to be impossible or unquestionable
Note: the usage of beyond-The machines were damaged beyond possibility of repair.
He held out the standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt.
an evil beyond remedy
He became rich beyond his wildest dreams.
Paragraph 13
Notice the difference between consist in and consist of.
to consist of: to be made of or composed of Examples:
The company consists of five departments.
The book consists of twelve chapters.
to consist in: to have a basis in; to lie in; to be found in Examples:
Happiness consists in appreciating what you have.
Wisdom consists in learning from our own mistakes.
Paragraph 14
1. to leave no room for doubt: to make it impossible for people to doubt
"Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal Himself in a
way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would
be no room for me."
They leave no room for doubt, which as I’ve said, is a fundamental part of my
intellectual and spiritual make-up.
2. to pay sb to do sth: to bring benefit or advantage to sb to do sth Examples:
It paid us to be generous.
It pays to go through the trouble.
It pays to tell people the truth.
It pays to forgive others.
It doesn't pay to work too hard at the expense of your health.
3. as a rule: generally speaking; usually
Used when expressing routines. Examples:
I like to leave work at five as a rule.
As a rule, we try to get away every other weekend.
4. to be the last person to do sth: to be the least possible person to do sth
the last person we would have suspected
the last man they would have chosen for the job
5. to attribute to: to regard as resulting from
The delays were attributed to snow.
David attributed his company's success to the unity of all the staff and their persevering
hard work.
Paragraph 15
1. (In ordinary) sense:
Note:
in all senses (=in every sense) 在各方面, 彻头彻尾
in a broad [narrow] sense 在广[狭]义上
in a sense 在某种意义上来说
in no sense 决不是, 决非
60
in some sense 在某种意义上
in the best [true] sense of the term [word] 地地道道地, 确确实实地
in the proper [strict, literal, figurative]sense 从本来[严格,字面, 比喻]的意义上说
2. to extend the term: to extend the meaning of the word; to understand the word in a
broader sense
3. there is many a man: there are many people
many a(a): each of a large indefinite number;
many a man
many another day will come
many a day
many a long day 好久
many a time 许多次
4. to be compelled to: to be forced to
All Ss were compelled to to fill out this form.
5. to be somebody in some circle: to be an important person in a certain group of
people who know each other
6. nobody: an insignificant person; a person of no influence
7. Pay attention to the collocations in this paragraph:
earn one’s livelihood
acquire wealth
social position
popularity with sb
respect of sb/ compare: respect for sb
enjoy prestige
a valued supporter
be compelled to do…
cling to…
abandon the belief
Paragraph 16
1. Put (it broadly): express; state, frame: formulate in a particular style or language:
I put my objections bluntly.
I wouldn't put it that way.
She put her request in very polite language.
Paragraph 17
1. justify: demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid
Collocations:
justify his own nature/ position/ behaviour/cowardice/
2. to one’s satisfaction
Similar expressions:
to one’s surprise
to one’s amazement
3. the grapes are sour: The English idiom "sour grapes" - derived from this fable refers to the denial of one's desire for something that one fails to acquire or to the
person who holds such denial. Similar expressions exist in other languages.
Paragraph 18
1. associate (with): connect in the mind or imagination
associate one thing with another
We associate China with the Greet Wall.
2. prejudice: cause (someone) to judge prematurely and irrationally
Collocations:
be prejudiced against…: Studies of children indicate that people may be inherently
prejudiced against those less fortunate.
have prejudice against…: I have strong prejudice against state schools because their
61
quality in my country is very poor.
The prejudice against people stemmed from the following reasons.
Widespread hidden prejudice against the people highlights segregation concerns.
have bias against…
Paragraph 19
1. keen satisfaction: strong satisfaction
That knowledge gives us keen satisfaction. But what is more, if we have succeeded in
adding to the basic understanding of our universe and ourselves, we will have made a
contribution to the totality of human culture.
Her award is richly deserved and will be a source of keen satisfaction to her many
friends and colleagues here.”
2. to belittle: to make sth or sb seem small or unimportant
Don't belittle his influence.
Don't belittle your colleagues.
3. to be jealous of: to feel angry and unhappy because sb has sth that you do not have
jealous of his success and covetous of his possessions
4. to bear a grudge against sb: to continue to feel annoyed about sth sb did a long time
ago
'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but
you shall love your neighbor as yourself
There are signs suggesting that Americans still bear a grudge against France.
5. to dispose sb to do sth: to make sb more likely to feel or think a particular way
about … (Note; This use of the word dispose is not common. )
6. have an effect on sth/ in doing…
Her words have great effect in influencing the jury.
The drug had an immediate effect on the pain.
Paragraph 20
1. merits; good qualities that make sth/sb deserve praise and admiration
a proposal of some merit 有价值的建议
an ill-advised plan without merit 未经仔细考虑的无价值的计划
2. to dictate: to control and influence; to determine
“They are dictated by their own circumstances.
3. set; a group of people with similar interests; crowd; bunch; circle
the high-school set 中学同伴
Paragraph 22
1. to persist: to continue to exist or happen
Whatever you resist will persist. If something comes into life, there's a lesson to learn.
Paragraph 23
1. a string of: a number of (similar things) ; a series of
gave a string of interviews
a string of pearls
a string of broken promises
2. good old days: happy days in the past (One favorite subject for many people is how
everything used to be better. ); past times remembered with nostalgia
Note: Good Old Days is a cliché which refers to an idealized lifestyle in a mythological
rural United States of America. American popular culture, particularly through sound
recordings of the country music genre, has established certain traits about it
Paragraph 24
1. Old Fogey: a person who is excessively old-fashioned in attitude, ideas and manners
etc; Old fogey used to describe someone as a bit old fashioned: out of touch with
modern things.
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2. Collocations in the paragraph:
hold opinions/beliefs
take in ideas
alter thought-pattern
make up one’s minds
Paragraph 25
to make allowance for: to consider sth when making a decision
Examples:
We must make allowance for unexpected factors when we give our forecast of next
year's economic performance.
Even when full allowances were made for the unusually favorable conditions we had
last year, our achievement was still remarkable.
21) Task on language knowledge: Organize Ss into groups of four, have them
discuss and pick out the useful expressions/collocations in the text
Group 1: Paragraph 1-5
Group 2: Paragraph 6-15
Group 3: Paragraph 16-21
Group 3: Paragraph 22-25
For Reference:
Group 1: Paragraph 1-5
in future
come across
the reason for …
be based on the ground
be astonished at …
rest upon …
a shadow of proof
as a result of …
way back in our early childhood
develop the power of doing …
establish strong conviction
the staunches roman Catholic/Presbyterian
bring up
be consistent with …
hold the belief
be sure of …
the same thing is true of …
be regarded as (noun/adj.)
adopt a baby
with no knowledge that…
deeply rooted/fundamental convictions
adopt beliefs on mere suggestion
pick up ideas
without question
accept ideas
fit in with the ideas
conflicting ideas
be classed under the same heading
inheritance from …
in sb’s favor
Group 2: Paragraph 6-15
entertaining an opinion about…
enquire into …
63
in the light of
utterly beyond question
by nature
conceive the planets as …
move in paths/circles
age-long struggle
the greatest intellects
shake off the assumption
credit the fact
the very suggestion of…
take for granted
the heavy/light weight
accept … as …
by reference to …
beyond possibility/doubt
accept propositions blindly
on the grounds of mere assumption
consist in
get rid of ideas
leave sb no room for doubt on this point
cling to some beliefs
it pays sb to do…
as a rule
be highly indignant
attribute …to
potent factor
in the ordinary sense
earn one’s livelihood
acquire wealth
social position
popularity with sb
enjoy prestige
be compelled to
in some circle
Group 3: Paragraph 16-21
abandon the belief
putting it broadly
justify one’s nature/position/behavior/cowardice
adopt a philosophy
the bungling person
adopt a set of opinion
to one’s satisfaction
the grapes are sour
be associated with…
hostile to …
in after life
be prejudiced against
in the case of …
a bitter quarrel
antagonism to sb
produce antagonism to one’s opinions
keen satisfaction
belittle/attach the opinions
be jealous of
bear a grudge against
have an effect in doing…
64
take one example
many a man
be in fashion
Group 4: Paragraph 22-25
have a strong tendency to do…
think along the thought-pattern
take the course
a string of stock anecdote
start sb off
the record has run out
take in new ideas
alter the thought patterns
make up one’s minds
make full allowance for
get at the truth at all cost
22) Oral work
1. Task Three: Organize pair work to discuss question on Text A on Page 180-181 and
then ask Ss to present their puzzles that arises in the discussion for class discussion.
2. Task Four: Pair work—Comment on the quotations on Page 181
23) Answering questions concerning TEM 4
24) Assignments
1. Do exercises behind Text A
2. Read Text B
Suggested Procedures Period 5-6
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
News/Information Exchange
Check of Recitation: Paragraphs 3 and 24
Check of Useful Expressions
1) 停留在……之上/依据，根据/基于 rest upon …
2) 培养……的能力 develop the power of doing …
3) 确立坚定的信仰 establish strong conviction
4) 与……一致 be consistent with …
5) 与那些想法无抵触 fit in with the ideas
6) 被列在同样的名头之下 be classed under the same heading
7) 拥有……的看法 entertain an opinion about…
8) 鉴于；基于对…的考虑 in the light of
9) 相信这个事实 credit the fact
10) 完全没有可能/不容怀疑 beyond possibility/doubt
11) 这一点上没有可以怀疑的余地 leave sb no room for doubt on this point
12) 坚持信念 cling to some beliefs
13) 宽泛地讲 putting it broadly
14) 对某的意见产生对立 produce antagonism to one’s opinions
15) 贬低 belittle the opinions
16) 怀恨某人, 同某人过不去 bear a grudge against
17) 具有……的强烈趋向 have a strong tendency to do…
18) 改变思维模式 alter the thought patterns
19) 充分考虑到; 对...留有充分的余地[量]make full allowance for
20) 不惜代价获得真理 get at the truth at all cost
Exercises of the Lesson
See answers in teacher’s book.
Questions Concerning TEM 4
65
Text B: Corn-Pone Opinions
1. About the Author
Mark Twain (1835-1910), pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens，American
writer, journalist, and humorist, who won a worldwide audience for his stories of
youthful adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Sensitive to the sound of
language, Twain introduced colloquial speech into American fiction. Ernest
Hemingway wrote: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn..." During his long writing career, Twain also produced
a considerable number of essays.
Twain's view of the human nature had never been very optimistic, but during
final years, he become even more bitter: "I believe that our Heavenly Father invented
man because he was disappointed in the monkey." Especially hostile Twain was towards
Christianity: "If men neglected 'God's poor' and 'God's stricken and helpless ones' as He
does, what would become of them? The answer is to be found in those dark lands where
man follows His example and turns his indifference back upon them: they get no help at
all; they cry, and plead and pray in vain, they linger and suffer, and miserably die."
(from 'Thoughts of God') Twain died on April 21, 1910. His autobiography Twain
dictated to his secretary A.B. Paine; various versions of it have been published. In 1916
appeared THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, set in the 16th-century Austria, in which
Satan reveals the hypocrisies and stupidities of the village of Eseldorf. "The first man
was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the
foundation upon which all civilizations have been built." The work was composed
between 1897 and 1908 in several, quite different versions, one of which was set in
Hannibal, another in a print shop. Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's authorized
biographer, apparently added to it a concluding chapter from another version altogether.
Mark Twain's colorful life inspired the film The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944),
directed by Irving Rapper and starring Fredric March. In Philip José Farmer's
Riverworld epic Mark Twain was one of the central characters.
About the writing
Twain starts with a folksy tone and a marvelous description of a slave he used to
know, whose knack for impressions kept local boys laughing. The slave mimicked the
style and gestures of local preachers, and, when he sensed his master might be listening,
the sound of a saw working its way through a board.
Twain took the man’s homespun wisdom, and built upon it, a witty brick at a time,
until he had moved so far away from the rhetorical harlequin figure he had evoked to
begin that he was talking about the entire human race, and it all seemed just as
hypnotically right and charming. Twain repeats one line in particular from this unnamed
genius: “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions
is.”
Twain then built an extended argument about how true this is. He argued that the
average man “cannot afford views that interfere with his bread and butter” and that if
“he would prosper, he must train with the majority.” His argument is, again, classic
Twain. The insights he delivers about groupthink and economic determinism are doubly
attractive to American readers through their fusion with a frontier anti-establishment
attitude, a leavening of wit and an occasional spice of misogyny, and, always, just
enough distance so that the average man can replicate this very groupthink experience
by saying, “Yes, that’s so true. I know so many people like that.” And never see himself
in it at all.
Twain never says so directly, but his scorn for the trends that swept through his
society gave the impression that he found them stupid, and that he felt himself distant
from them.
A question to consider: Is there any flaw in Mark Twain’s view?
2. About the text
66
Corn pone is a dish, related to corn bread, made of corn meal or hominy, baked or
fried in butter, margarine, lard or bacon grease. Corn pone has been a staple of the
Southern U.S. cuisine, and has been discussed by many American writers, including
Mark Twain. Typically corn pone is formed in two to three inch oval shapes and
features a crunchy and/or chewy texture.
Paragraph 1
society: companionship; company
partake: take or have a part or share; participate
imprudent: characterized by offensive boldness; insolent or impertinent; immodest
preach sermons: a religious discourse delivered as part of a church service.
pulpit: an elevated platform, lectern, or stand used in preaching or conducting a
religious service
Paragraph 2
bucksaw: a woodcutting saw, usually set in an h-shaped frame
Paragraph 3
“you tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en i’ll tell you what his ’pinions is.”
whar: where; git: get; en: and; ’pinions: opinions
Paragraph 4
train (with): associate
feel with: have the same feeling
reason out: determine or conclude by logical thinking
Paragraph 5
in the main: chiefly: for the most part; generally
conform to: act in accordance with current customs or modes
by calculation: through careful, often cunning estimation and planning of likely
outcomes, especially to advance one's own interests
Paragraph 7
project: throw forward; hurl; send out into space; cast; cause (an image) to appear on a
surface
Paragraph 8
hoopskirt: a skirt stiffened with hoops
a person of vast consequences: an important person
bloomer: wide, loose trousers gathered at the knee and formerly worn by women and
girls as an athletic costume
in her ripe renown:
Paragraph 9:
run the course: take their course
Paragraph 11
company manners: how to behave in the workplace
Paragraph 12
repent of: feel remorse, contrition, or self-reproach for what one has done or failed to
do; feel such regret for past conduct as to change one's mind regarding it
Paragraph 13
in disfavor: regarded with disapproval.
averted face: a face which turns away
cold shoulder: deliberate coldness or disregard; a slight or a snub
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Paragraph 14
gaud: a gaudy or showy ornament or small ornament
Paragraph 15
mush: something thick, soft, and pulpy
mutilate: disfigure by damaging irreparably
canvass: an examination or discussion
Paragraph 16
aggregation: collection: several things grouped together or considered as a whole; the
act of gathering something together
boon: a benefit bestowed, especially one bestowed in response to a request
VI.
Assignments
1．Review Lesson 6, focusing on the key words and expression
2．Preview Lesson 7, and list the puzzles in TEXT A in the lesson
3．Ask Ss to write an essay analyzing a groundless belief of theirs （See Written Work
on Page 192）
VII. Further information about Text B
Comment on Corn-Pone Opinions for reference
--Quarter Pound Opinions
By Greg Beatty
In 1901 Mark Twain wrote an essay called “Corn-Pone Opinions.” It wasn’t published
in his lifetime. It’s been published since, in various collections, but I didn’t run into it
until I was flipping through the 2000 volume of the best American essays of the past
century edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan. “Corn-Pone Opinions” opened
the book.
I can see why the editors chose it. Twain starts with a folksy tone and a marvelous
description of a now-distant memory of spectacle. With an openness most would find
shocking today, Twain reminisces about the sight of a slave he used to know, some fifty
years before, whose knack for impressions kept local boys laughing. The slave
mimicked the style and gestures of local preachers, and, when he sensed his master
might be listening, the sound of a saw working its way through a board.
However much Twain clearly relished this memory of a slave would fool his master
with saw sounds, he also loved what the man had to say. In a recognizable move, Twain
took the man’s homespun wisdom, and built upon it, a witty brick at a time, until he had
moved so far away from the rhetorical harlequin figure he had evoked to begin that he
was now talking about the entire human race, and it all seemed just as hypnotically right
and charming. Twain repeats one line in particular from this unnamed genius: “You tell
me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”
Twain then built an extended argument about how true this is. He argued that the
average man “cannot afford views that interfere with his bread and butter” and that if
“he would prosper, he must train with the majority.” His argument is, again, classic
Twain. The insights he delivers about groupthink and economic determinism are doubly
attractive to American readers through their fusion with a frontier anti-establishment
attitude, a leavening of wit and an occasional spice of misogyny, and, always, just
enough distance so that the average man can replicate this very groupthink experience
by saying, “Yes, that’s so true. I know so many people like that.” And never see himself
68
in it at all.
And I’m no different. As I read it, I said, “Yes, so true,” thinking of the fads I’d seen in
my lifetime, substituting leg warmers for hoop skirts, and actresses for princess as fad
starters. And then I stopped. It’s been a full century. Is this image still accurate?
Immediately, the answer came to me. No, it isn’t. Things have changed. For one thing,
the domestic economy has changed. Corn pone is no longer the homey dish that Twain
eulogizes. In fact, it has become rather exotic, a regional dish enjoyed at bed and
breakfasts before antique runs through a series of small towns and back to the suburbs
to relax.
What then is our corn pone? Just as immediately, the answer came to me. The Quarter
Pounder. The Quarter Pounder is just as mundane to the citizen of 2002 as corn pone
was for the citizen of 1901, but what a difference is summed up in this statement! Corn
pone, a cheap form of corn bread made without eggs or milk, is a food of the poor. Like
grits or hush puppies, it is a food invented by the working rural poor, but is now
traditional. Born of necessity, corn pone is a way to get the maximum amount of food
from a minimum of ingredients and financial outlay. And, like Twain, people fond of
corn pone remember it with specificity. Their mommas made it one way, their grand
mommas another, cousin Stacy never did get it right, and if they ever found a woman
who could make real pone here in the city, they’d be happy.
But until they do find that woman, these modern, urbanized workers eat at McDonald’s,
our contemporary provider of cheap food for the worker. And where they once could
recognize if their momma had been distracted by the burned edges, or if their little
sisters were learning how to cook by the uneven texture of the pone, they relax instead
at knowing that their Quarter Pounders will be, within statistical deviation dependent on
worker distraction and slippage in training practices, exactly the same. Variations will
be minor, will mean nothing, and will be immediately forgotten.
But take the analogy further. Twain was concerned about conformity in a small and
local way; Twain was concerned with corn pone conformity. For all that he made points
about our larger society, Twain’s analysis was grounded in his original image. In
Twain’s analysis, people, especially Americans with their divided allegiances to God,
democracy, and the dollar, were likely to accept the opinions of those around them. Just
as the corn in their pone was grown in nearby fields, ground by a miller they knew,
bagged by another of the string of entertaining slaves Twain wrote about, and then
baked by those who loved them, the opinions Twain was concerned about were handed
to his fellows by the members of their church, their families, their townsmen. Just as the
seasonings that made individual batches of pone distinctive indicated the geographical
and economic limits on the cooks, the shared opinions upon which Twain heaps such
scorn were often circulating over and over because there was simply nothing else
available. And the speed with which fashions swept through his society was fed by the
same taste for spectacle that made Twain cling to those memories of a capering slave for
fifty years until they found a place in his writing. We accept Twain as one of our greats
because he is one of us. Twain is a corn pone philosopher.
And except in quaint, residual pockets, none of that is true today. In fact, you could say
I celebrate the same things that concern Twain because I am concerned with Quarter
Pound opinions, not corn pone opinions. I am concerned with conformity on a global
scale, with the way Quarter Pounder culture is driving corn pone from our plates.
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What was the first line that Twain’s dark genius preached? “You tell me whar a man gits
his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.” Well, where a man gets his Quarter
Pounder isn’t the issue. He can get it from the spotless McDonald’s with the cheerful
Pakistani manager I visited in Greensboro North Carolina. He can get it from the
incredibly filthy McDonald’s in Charlottesville Virginia. This McDonald’s was staffed
by Black, white, and Hispanic women who could barely understand one another’s words,
but who slouched behind the cash register with exactly the same lack of hope. In short,
he could get his Quarter Pounder from any of the more than 28,000 McDonald’s in
more than 120 countries, and it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it mattered whar a man got his
corn pone, but it doesn’t matter where he gets his Quarter Pounder.
In place of local meal and downhome opinions, what does today’s hungry man receive
with his food? Trends. Trends that are planned, merchandised, and promoted with cyclic
regularity. These trends do not sweep through our towns like fads. Instead, they provide
the basic fabric for them. Each year, we can judge when the summer movies come out
by the annual emergence of the latest plastic toys at McDonald’s. However, unlike
popular songs, McDonald’s promotions are not so striking that we date our lives by
them in memory. We remember the year that Vanilla Ice came out, or the year that
Brittany versus Christina was the big debate but we don’t remember which year we got
the Monopoly game pieces or Atlantis submersibles. These promotions, like the
McDonald’s wrappers, are disposable. Like the playground equipment outside so many
McD’s, they offer safe stimulation, providing just enough managed excitement to race
our psychic engines and get us through the day. Not enough to hurt or change us.
Twain never says so directly, but his scorn for the trends that swept through his society
gave the impression that he found them stupid, and that he felt himself distant from
them. Not me. I don’t find my fellow citizens stupid, and I know I’m all tangled up with
them. But I find them produced, processed, and managed like the McDonald’s workstaff.
McDonald’s is infinitely flexible. It can absorb changes in education level, age, or
ethnicity of its employees without blinking. McDonald’s don’t fundamentally care if the
beef used in quarter pound of hamburger came from disease free local cows, from cows
that were grazed on what until recently was irreplaceable rain forest land (as was the
case in Costa Rica), or if it was raised in Iowa. Beef is beef. Employees are employees.
Twain’s essay has a logical flaw. He assumes that exposing conformity matters. That if
his readers recognized that they were circulating opinions that they hadn’t produced
themselves, they would spontaneously break free, powered by a self-pride that would—
somehow!— allow them to overcome their economic positioning. This message can be
found in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” and in new family sitcoms every fall. Every
seventeen year old who figures out how the world “really works” believes that he can
get the rest of society to throw off the corn pone chains of public opinion which had
been thrust upon them through accident of birth or a biased media. And then we’ll all be
free! Hurray!
However, a funny thing has been happening in recent years. As Americans across the
political spectrum start their magazines, newsletters, television and radio talk shows,
listservs and websites, they haven’t gotten any freer. In fact, at the same time that access
to a free market of ideas has flourished, and that choices have multiplied, certain other
things have also happened. To name one, Americans have gotten fatter. They’ve gotten
fatter when information about what constitutes a healthy diet is more readily available
70
than ever. And an ever growing percentage of the American diet is made up of processed
foods— processed, packaged, measured, and in all ways regularized for ease of
consumption.
Recall, if you will, Twain’s corollaries of his slave performer’s corn pone text. He said
that the average man “cannot afford views that interfere with his bread and butter.” In
the world of the Quarter Pound opinion, it is become clear that a man, a woman, or a
transgendered individual can hold any opinion he, she or s/he wishes, so long as that
individual does not interfere with the flow of beef and bread. Oh, s/he can choose.
Choose a Whopper, over a Quarter Pounder. Choose a Vegie Burger over a Quarter
Pounder. Be daring, and choose a (vegetarian) Boca Burger over a Quarter Pounder! In
1901, a man had to “train with the majority” in order to prosper. In 2002, one can
choose from a nearly infinite menu of meals/opinions. You don’t have to think like the
majority, so long as you shop like the majority. Eat like the majority. Grow fat and
apathetic like the majority.
And relax. It won’t be unpleasant. In fact, it’ll be fun. You’ll never have to choose
between conforming like Twain’s good neighbors or laughing at subversive wit like
Twain with his slave. No matter what you choose, there will be a performer to entice
you into the checkout line with greater wit and originality than Twain’s old friend. Like
a retro feel? McD’s offers Ronald McDonald, the classic clown. More fond of cutting
edge humor and ethnic backlash? Try the “Yo quiero Taco Bell” dog. Masculine culture
and radio drama scripting? The Budweiser lizards. And in each case, the dancing bear/
talking dog / capering clown of the franchise will be as charming as the spectacle-loving
Twain could wish, but, rather like the slave Twain converted into a rhetorical prophet of
individual freedom, will serve to make us at ease in our servitude.
In 1901, Twain, that grand and witty prophet of clear thought, ended his essay by
reviewing a recent controversy that not one person in a hundred could now identify, the
argument over free silver. Twain suggested that not one person in ten on either side had
rational backing for his position, and suggested that we all “do no end of feeling, and
we mistake it for thinking.”
In 2002, I’d like to close by weeping for Twain’s lost innocence. I grant that not one
person in ten has rational support for his or her position in the free silver argument, but
I’m afraid that far more terrifying is the realization that we can be perfectly reasonable,
and, like Twain’s shackled Socrates, not be able to use our reason to gain freedom.
What’s worse, Twain’s cherished slave knew where his master was, when to pretend to
be working to keep punishment at bay, where his shackles ended and his flesh began,
and where he could run if he wanted to risk it all for freedom. I don’t. I don’t really
know where my Quarter Pounder comes from. I don’t know where the processing of the
Quarter Pounder ends and I begin. I don’t know if boycotting McDonald’s will free my
mind (though admittedly, it might shrink my ass), or simply serve to nudge McDonald’s
into a better market position. I don’t know if publishing this will be taken as evidence
that the press is freer than ever, or if my despair will convince others that there are no
options, and that conformity is the best option available.
I do know one thing. What corn pone was in 1901, the Quarter Pounder is in 2002.
Greg Beatty was most of the way through a PhD in English at the University of Iowa
when his advisors agreed that letting him go to Clarion West 2000 would be a good idea.
71
Bad idea. He finished his dissertation on serial killer novels, then gave up on traditional
academia and returned to his original dream of writing fiction. He's had over two dozen
stories accepted September 2001, with acceptances by SCI FICTION, 3SF, Palace of
Reason, The Fortean Bureau, Ideomancer Would That It Were, deathlings.com, and
several anthologies. Greg's non-fiction has appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer,
Future Orbits, Audiofile, Science-Fiction Studies, Strange Horizons, the New York
Review of Science Fiction and numerous other venues.
Groundless Beliefs
One thing we all do every day is express our views, state our beliefs or discuss our ideas.
We say to one another: I think, I believe, I'm convinced, I'm sure, It goes without saying,
It's crystal clear, It's as simple as ABC, No doubt ... , etc, every day and often many
times a day. We may not be professional thinkers. But we all do thinking as a habit. We
may not have reached the level of grade-one thinking. But we cannot avoid thinking,
rightly or wrongly.
Do we really know what we are doing though? Do we really know what it means when
we say we are thinking? Do we really think for ourselves? Are our beliefs and ideas
really well-grounded? Are we sure that all the beliefs we hold with intense conviction
and accept without question are really true? What constitutes adequate grounds for
beliefs? These are just some of the blunt, embarrassing questions Mander, an English
psychologist, asks in this passage taken from his book, Logic for the Millions.
However, this text is not chosen primarily for the purpose of shaking our be-liefs.
Rather it is meant to serve as a suggestive example of a curious, inquiring mind at work.
Mander does not say all beliefs are unreliable and silly. He does not say that we should
not have beliefs. He simply wants us to find out how we came by our beliefs. He wants
us to know their bases or their grounds. He wants us to see all sides of a question.
Above all, he wants us to test our beliefs.
Mander lists five sources for many of our groundless beliefs: 1) Result of early
environment; 2) Parroting; 3) Self-interest; 4) Sentimental associations; 5) Fashion. It
might be a good idea for students to provide as many examples as they can of such
beliefs as stem from these sources to show their understanding of the nature of these
sources.
It is no disgrace to admit that we are" all heavily influenced by prejudices. And this is
precisely the reason why we all need education. Education, according to one definition,
is just the progressive discovery of our ignorance and prejudices which are hidden in
our mind like computer virus jn a computer. And unless we stay alert and check our
computer constantly and wipe out all the viruses, we will be in serious trouble some day.
We will not know when and where they will hit us with serious consequences.
Weekly Quiz
I. Spelling
1. attribute
5. competent
9. cowardice
13. established
17. improvident
2. belittle
6. conceive
10. dogmatic
14. fogey
18. infanticide
3. bungle
7. consistent
11. energetic
15. fundamental
19. inheritance
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4. classify
8. conversely
12. enormous
16. gladiatorial
20. justify
II. Word Derivation
1. I find her a very
woman. (agree)
2. An
can be a great way to teach your child money management skills.
(allow)
3. An
record is "a written record kept in a positive tone of a child's
progress based on milestones particular to that child's social, emotional, physical,
aesthetic, and cognitive development. (anecdote)
4. In literature, the principal opponent or foil of the main character is referred to as
the
in a drama or narrative. The word is from the Greek antagnistes,
“opponent or rival. (antagonism)
5. The Marxian tradition discusses issues concerning the
of entire
political-economic systems (such as capitalism). (legitimate)
6.
is the mother of inventions. (necessitate)
7. Shenzhen is expected to top this year’s national honor roll with the most
brands, followed by Shanghai. (prestige)
8. Laws
smoking around children. (prohibition)
9. The
novel failed because it could not sustain a coherent critique of
American society.(sentiment)
10. It sounds like a nice, easy way to keep your mailbox free of
literature.(desire)
(Key: agreeable, Allowance, anecdotal, protagonist, legitimacy, Necessity, prestigious,
prohibits, sentimental, undesirable)
III. Sentence translation
1. 当今使我们头疼的一个问题是如何处理城市垃圾。（One headache today is how
to dispose of city garbage.）
2. 那里的人给予我们代表团热烈的欢迎。（The people there extended a warm
welcome to our delegation.）
3. 我们目前的很多问题在一定意义上讲都来自我们巨大的人口。
（Many of present
problems in a way result from large population.）
4. 要是没有正确的政策，许多中国农民不会这么快就富起来。（But for the correct
policy, many Chinese farmers wouldn’t have become well-off so soon.）
5. 没有顽强的意志，就是健康的人在两个小时内也爬不到山顶。
（Without a strong
will, even a healthy man wouldn’t have reached the top of the mountain in two
hours.）
IV. Dictation
Linda Hanson has a beautiful house, a loving husband and two adorable daughters.
Her life is perfect, until the day she receives the devastating news that her husband Jim
has died in a car accident. When she wakes up the next morning to find him alive and
well, she assumes it was all a dream, but is shaken by how vivid it felt. She soon
realizes it wasn't a dream, and her world is turned upside down as the surreal
circumstances lead her to discover that her perfect life may not have been all that it
appeared. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race against time and
fate to try and preserve everything that she and Jim have built together. This is not
something in a new movie, a thriller which runs an hour and 37 minutes. The language
is brief, but it has some violent content and disturbing images. (153 words)
73
Lesson 7
I. Objectives
1. To help students better appreciate a descriptive writing.
2. To make students understand the symbolic meaning of description
3. To stimulate discussion about values and moral principles which are being idealized
in the story.
4. To help students relate the story to farming in China (or compare the two countries
in this respect)
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the first
part of the text ---1.5 hours
2. Detailed study of Text A, answering questions on TEM 4 --- 1.5 hours
3. Exercises, Text B, answering questions on TEM 4--- 1.5 hours
III. Key Points
1. Background information of the story and the author
2. The description of planting
3. The description of characters, their mental activities and the physical environment,
etc.
4. Key vocabulary and key grammar as is indicated in the TB
IV. Suggested Class Activities
1. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions about
the text orally.
2. Ask students to report planting in China.
3. Ask students to compare farming in China and Ireland or some other countries.
4. Ask students to find out the technical terms in planting and report (or retell) the
74
sowing in the story.
5. Ask students to discuss the couple’s mental activities.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Ask students to read the text fluently and recite beautiful descriptive paragraphs
like par 1, 3 ,13.
2. Relate the story to farming in China and living conditions of Chinese farmers.
3. Write an essay about students’ own ideas of the most important qualities in their
spouse.
4. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Lesson 7
Text A: Spring Sowing
I. Morning Report and News/Information Exchange
Have Ss talk in pairs sharing the latest news/information they have got in the past few
days. It is to create a real communicative situation for Ss to improve their oral English
and keep Ss informed of things about the outside world. News discussion can be of help
for them to improve their listening and speaking.
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found to the
class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
B. In-class Tasks
1. Group discussion

What do you make out the background of the story?

When and where is the story set?
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
What kind of clothes do they wear?

What kind of tools do you use?

Is there any machinery or home electronics or modern conveniences?

What do you know about the young couple?

Are they typical or exceptional?

Is there anything symbolic about this day?

Can you describe the technical details of their planting step by step?

What values and moral principles are being idealized here?
2. general review of descriptive writings ( for students already learned something in
writing class)
Descriptive writing portrays people, places, things, moments and theories
with enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what
is being written about.
Conventions of Descriptive Essays Illustrated by Sample Paragraphs
Appealing-to-the-Senses Description: Let the reader see, smell, hear, taste, and feel
what you write in your essay.
Spatial-Order Description: Show the reader where things are located from your
perspective.
A Brief Guide to Writing Descriptive Essays
There are several methods writers use to describe something in an essay. They may
choose vivid, fresh language, or they may use examples, or they might take something
ordinary and by comparing it with something extraordinary, make it interesting, or they
may use their senses.
When someone asks you to describe something, the first step you might take is to jot
down the first words that come to you. If I say "egg," for instance, you might write
down the following string of associations: "round, white, brown, fresh, scrambled,
farmer, chicken, goose, over-easy." But another student might write down "ostrich,"
while yet another chooses "dinosaur." Then a medical student might chime in with
"ovulation, zygote, baby." At some point, someone else may take it a step further and
mention "fragility." The point is that the one little word "egg" can conjure up a number
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of associations, all coming at the subject in a different way. So when you are asked to
describe an event or a person, start with the obvious, but don't stay there.
Features
1. A well-focused subject can be ordinary or extraordinary, but you should strive to
make it as interesting as possible by emphasizing what makes it interesting or new and
unusual. Pick something specific, an event or a person or an animal.
2. How you treat your subject is directly related to how your reader will react to it.
Give plenty of specific descriptive detail. If you're describing an event, watch people
moving and hear them talking. Create a dominant impression for your reader.
3. Create a clear pattern of organization. Your introduction should work from general
to specific, ending in a thesis sentence. You should have several paragraphs that
develop and describe your topic, and your conclusion should restate your thesis or
conclude your event.
3. The Analysis of the Story
Part I: before sowing , the general description of the physical environment, the
couple and their mental activities(par. 1-5)
Language Points (also see TB)
Para. 1
The live coals:
Live: still burning or glowing; not extinct
Also: a live spark; a live volcano
Pay attention to the different meanings of “live” in the following phrases:
A live television or radio program
A live performance
A live bomb or missile
Live wires
As it were: seemingly, in a way, so to speak. A shortening of “as if it were so”, this
idiom has been in use since Chaucer’s time.
We use this idiom to make what we are saying sound less definite. More examples:
He was living in a dream world, as it were.
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He closed his eyes, trying to relive that happy moment, as it were.
Para. 2:
Piled at the rear of her head: piled into a mass at the back of her head
Comb: it is used here to keep her hair back and for decoration.
Spanish fashion: in the way Spanish people do
Para.3:
The imminence of an event: the fact that sth (usually unpleasant) is now about to take
place. “event” here refers to the spring sowing.
Dejected: irritated, in low spirits, depressed, disheartened, sad
Para.4:
Better off: in a more favorable position or financial circumstances
This phrase is the comparative form of well of,
More examples
They would be better off flying than driving there.
They were not rich, but they were better off than most of their neighbors
Para.5.:
Rest: to place put, or lay for ease, support, etc.
She rested her mother’s head on a pillow.
He rested his legs on the desk in front of him.
He rested one of his crutches against the rail
Part II: the actual sowing with the minute details of it (par. 6-14)
Para. 9
Ridge: a line of sth (here: earth) that rises above a surface
To advance: to go forward. To move ahead
To the head: to the front
To commence: to begin, to start
Para.12
To take for: to regard as.
More examples
Do you take me for a fool?
Don’t take our silence for approval
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I think they took us for Japanese.
Soft: weak or delicate
Not strong or vigorous esp. not able to endure hardship, as because of easy living
Empty-headed: stupid, silly and ignorant, lacking sense or discretion
Para. 12
Primeval:
(feelings or emotions)belonging to the first or earliest age or ages, primitive,ancient
But: except, with the exception of, save
Europe will be represented in all but two of the seven races.
He didn’t speak anything but Greek
The ship’s crew gave them nothing but bread to eat
To assert one’s manhood:
To state strongly or behave in such a way as to show that you are already a
full-grown man, an adult, a man capable of supporting his family and able to handle all
difficulties in life
To subjugate: to bring under control, to conquer, to subdue
To subjugate the earth: to conquer the earth
Para. 13
To turn up:
To dig up
Notice that “ to turn up” here is not an idiomatic phrasal verb like the following:
Turn up the radio a little bit. I can’t hear.
I don’t know why she did not turn up at the meeting.\
You must have misled your pen somewhere. Don’t worry, it will turn up sooner or later.
Sod: a section of grass-covered surface soil held together with matted roots.
To crunch: to make a crackling sound as if you are chewing sth noisily.
Para 14:
To cock sideways: to tilt or turn to one side
He paused and cocked his head as if listening.
The young man thought about this for a moment, his head cocked to one side.
To secure:
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To get hold of, to obtain
With a tremendous effort, she managed to secure a ticket for me.
Graham’s qualifications would no doubt help secure him a job.
Part III: noon rest (para 15-18)
Part IV: sowing in the afternoon (para 19-21)
Part V: going home (para 22-26)
4.Useful words and expressions: (Please make a selection of the following and refer to
the exercises for more or other ones.)

Spit on one’s hand

Seize the spade

Measure the ground

A strip of ground

Fill one’s apron with seeds

Lay seeds in rows

Raise the sod

Cut the sod

Press the spade into the earth

Turn up the first sod

Cover the ridge with block earth

Beat the sods

Jump on one’s spade halts

Secure one’s food

Throw down one’s spade

Feed the pig

Put the fowls into their coops
IV. Exercises
A. Vocabulary: word study
B. TEM 4
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Text B: The Earth Poet
Objectives:
1.Students will know the pronunciation of –s or –es in the third person singular verbs of
the present indefinite and the reading rules of –or, -all, -ch, -tch, -ge and –dge.
2.Students will learn to use the present indefinite and two kinds of punctuation marks.
3.Students will improve their reading skills by learning Text A and Text B.
Procedure:
Stage One. The study of English Phonetics
Step One. The present indefinite
Step Two. Rules of reading: -ee, -ea
Stage Two. The study of English Grammar
Step One. The present indefinite
Step Two. Punctuation(1) — the Full-stop and the Comma
Stage three. Detailed study of Text B
Step One. Explain new words, phrases:
Luncheon, drive-in restaurants, soft drinks, cook meals, favorite, milkshake
Step Two. Practice on new words and phrases
Step Three. Practice on text B
Stage Five. Questions and answers
Students are divided into two-member groups and discuss the questions.
Question One: What is the favorite fast food in the U.S.?
Question Two: Where do most people buy hamburgers?
Question Three: What other foods are served in fast-food restaurants?
Question four: Why are fast-food restaurants popular?
Stage Six. Exercises
Step One. Oral and written work
Step Two. Phonetics, Grammar and Vocabulary Exercises
Stage Seven. Quiz for Lesson Seven
About the author:
Jesse Stuart ( 1907-
)was born in the Kentacky hills and spent most of his life in
Kentucky hill country, writing about the land and the people that he knew and loved. In
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this essay, he makes us see the unexpected genius of a poor farmer—his own father.
Weekly quiz
1. Spelling
Appetite
rheumatism
Limestone
commence
ferociously
shrewd stoop
subjugate throb
assert
draught
furrowed
freckled
glisten
triangular
imminence
primeval
yawn hearth
revel
2. Word-building
Moment---momentary a.
Triangle---triangular
Lay---laid---lain
a.
v
Present---presence
n.
Appetite---appetizer
(开胃菜)
3. Translation （可以换译）
Spring sowing
Throbbing heart
Empty-headed people
A flash of rebellion
The imminence of the event
从头脑中消失
表现自己的男人气概
压倒其他情绪
征服土地
长长地喝了一口
4. Dictation
Nowadays more and more college students are at a loss about the future and their career.
What produces those consequences are illustrated as follows. To begin with, the
government has enlarged the number of the students admitted to universities in the last
few years. As a result they have a tendency to lose their secure job as before. Secondly,
changes in economy that leaf to fewer job opportunities and rising unemployment in
general make gainful employment increasingly difficult to obtain. Another reason is that
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they suffer different kinds of stress from their parents, teachers and peers. They should
try their best to fulfill their parents" wishes and to get a satisfying result as the teacher
expected and to conquer the peer pressures. Therefore they have no time to do their own
things to project their own future and jobs.
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Lesson 8
I. Objectives
1. To discuss globalization (its origin, its development, its significance, and its power)
2. To learn to read and write argumentative essay
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. Overall discussion of the text (1.5 hours)
2. Detailed study of the language points and grammar (1.5 hours)
3. Work on the related exercises (as you see relevant for your students) (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
17. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the teaching notes
18. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
19. Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
IV. Suggested class activities
1. Students report on globalization (students should prepare beforehand, better assign
some students specific tasks so that they could do some research on the topic)
2. Students interview on globalization
3. Debate on globalization (divide the class into two groups, one for it and the other
against it; this could be done after the study of the text)
V. Assignment(s)
1.
Exercises
relating
to
word-building
(
word
formation/anonyms
antonyms/blank-filling)
2. Exercises on key grammatical points.
3. Translation exercises on the key sentence patterns or phrases.
4. Preview the next unit.
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and
Teaching Notes for Lesson Eight
Text A: Globalization’s Dual Power
Before the class:
Teachers are suggested to ask students to do a research on globalization
1. Teachers may ask students to find out information about its origin, its development,
and its power, etc.
2. Ask students to get some information about some of the historical events related to
globalization.
I.
1.
2.
Morning Report
Divide the class into groups of four and share news of recent events (about 5minutes)
Ask if there is any recent news about globalization and share them with the whole class.
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
1. check students’ research on globalization
2. Teachers’ further question/discussion on the points that students left out.
3. some background information (just in case that you might need it)
 the early caravans across the Sahara Desert
The Sahara Desert, covering most of North Africa, is the largest desert in the world. From north to south
the Sahara is between 800 and 1,200 miles and is at least 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from east to west. Due
to the massive size of the Sahara, Africa is split into two regions: that which lies above or forms part of
the Sahara and the rest of Africa south of the Sahara. On the west, the Sahara is bordered by the Atlantic
Ocean and on the east by the Red Sea, and to the north are the Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean Sea.
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 the Silk Road (please refer to the additional info package)
 the Crusaders (please refer to the additional info package)
 GATT: General Agreement on Tariffs And Trade
 IMF: International Monetary Fund 国际货币基金组织
 The Cold War (1945~1990)
B. In-Class Tasks
Task One: The overall discussion of the Text A
1.
There are sufficient questions on pages 244 and 245 in the text book.
Answers to the questions may cover the key points in the text.
2.
Assign specific questions to different groups of students, and ask them to
try to find answers from the text.
3.
Free discussion: Encourage students to bring forward different opinions on
issues under discussion.
Task Two: Detailed study of the text (Please also refer to the reference book)
Paragraph 1
Words and expressions
1. the edge: (fig) the point just before sth very different and noticeable happens, e.g.
It was reported in today’s newspaper that the company is on the edge of (on the
verge of) collapse.
The opposition leader claimed that the government had brought the country to the
edge of a catastrophe.
2. a double-edged: sth that is double-edged acts in two ways, both positive and
negative,
e.g.
 The increase in petrol prices is double-edged because it will make life harder for
some, but it will reduce congestion and pollution.
 She paid me a double-edged compliment, saying my work was excellent for a
beginner.
 The successful program to grow cash crops for export turned out to be a
double-edged sword because it created a local food shortage.
3. to spread: to popularize
4. vehicle: sth you use to achieve sth else, e.g.

The conference was seen as an ideal vehicle for increased cooperation between
the member states.
5. to assault: to attack
6. to erode: to wear away; to reduce gradually
C-E translation ex:
7. 新世纪来临之际
8. 双刃剑
9. 普及新技术
10. 提高生活水平
11. 侵蚀地方文化与传统
12. 威胁经济和社会稳定
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13. 威胁国家主权
Paraphrase
As the new century approaches, globalization means two different things. It ban have
both negative and positive effects. On the one hand, it can greatly increase economic
production, spread new technology and improve the living standards in both rich and
poor countries; on the other hand, it is highly controversial because it threatens national
sovereignty, destroys local culture and traditions, and is likely to cause economic and
social instability.
Paragraph 2
Words and expressions
14. daunting: intimidating; disheartening; discouraging, e.g.

In spite of unification, the country was still faced with the daunting prospect of
overcoming four decades of division.
15. upheaval: a great change, esp. causing or involving much difficulty, activity or
trouble
Paragraph 3
Words and Expressions
16. in some respects/in one respect/in every respect --- used to say that something is
true in one way, in some ways, or in every way.
eg.

In many respects the new version is not so good as the old one.

Aunt Mary is very stubborn. Kim takes after her in that respect.
17. trendy--- (infm) modern and unconventional; of the latest fad or fashion
Paraphrase (of the first sentence)
To some extent, globalization is not new. The world has always been in the process of
market expansion. What is new is the tern “globalization”, which became fashionable
only recently.
Paragraph 4
Questions (on some common knowledge) (you may also ask your own questions as
you see appropriate)
How much do you know about the Cold War? (ask this question to make sure that the
students know the following organizations)
The Cold War was a state of extreme hostility between countries with opposing political
systems existing after the Second World War to the demise of the Soviet Union---the
“socialist camp” headed by the Soviet Union and the “free world” headed by the United
States, which expressed itself not through shooting wars, but through fierce economic
competition, as well as through political and military pressure and threats.
It refers to the non-belligerent rivalry between the two blocs of nations--
the NATO countries---the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (北大西洋公约
组织, an alliance of 26 countries from North America and Europe committed to the
fulfilling of the goals of the North Atlantic Treaty signed on April 4, 1949)

the Warsaw Pact countries (华沙条约组织，详见附属参考资料)
Paraphrase (the first sentence of the paragraph)
During the Cold War, the United States enthusiastically fought for trade liberalization
partly in order to prevent communism.
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Words and Expressions
18. to champion: to fight for
19. to combat (crime, terrorism, inflation, disease): to try to stop sth unpleasant or
harmful from happening or increasing
20. a succession of: a number of people or things of the same kind following, coming
or happening one after the other, e.g.

A succession of visitors came to the door.

A succession of scandals and revelations ahs undermined the government over the
past year.

A succession of short-lived rulers did nothing to increase the country’s stability.

Life was just an endless succession of parties and dinners.

Manchester scored three goals in quick succession.

This is the seventh year in succession that they’ve won the cup.
Paragraph 5
21. antidote: (fig.) a way of preventing or acting against sth. bad, e.g.

Humor can be an effective antidote to hostility.

High interest rates are the only known antidote to a persistent consumer boom.

Regular exercise is the best antidote to tiredness and depression.
Paraphrase: Europeans saw economic unification as an antidote to deadly
nationalism.---Europeans regarded economic unification as a way to prevent
nationalism.
22. ...10 times higher than ... (help the students here to grasp this somewhat
troublesome structure “……比……高多少倍……”、“是……的多少倍……”等，e.g.
 新方法使效率比过去提高了十倍以上。
The new method was over ten times more efficient than before.
 我们现在的捕鱼量使那时候的十倍。
We’re now hauling in ten times more fish than we did then.
 今年的钢产量比去年同期增长百分之十一。
Output of steel this year was 11 percent higher than that of the same period of last
year.
在这种句子中，有时也可以用作表示程度的状语：e.g.
 There are now three times as many schools in our town as in 1949.
现在我们城里的学校比 1949 年增加了两倍。
 The U.S. military budget in that year was thirty times as large as that of 1938.
那一年美国的军备预算使 1938 年的三十倍。
Paragraph 6
23. depart from: to do something different from (a usual or intended action, way of
thinking, way of behaving, etc.) e.g.
 I see no reason for us to depart from our usual practice.
 Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to depart from our plans.
 The minister said that in making his speech he would be departing from his
prepared text.
24. in ...respect: in a particular feature or detail, e.g.
 This proposal differs from the last one in many important respects.
 In most respects (in many ways) the new film is better than the original.
Paragraph 7
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25. multi-: prefix, meaning “many”, e.g.
多元文化的 multicultural
多媒体 multimedia
多国的 multinational
26. lateral: adj. [not gradable] 边, e.g.
双边 bilateral
多边 multilateral
Paragraph 8
27. to dwarf: to make sth. seem small by comparison ( to help students understand this
word/sentence, ask if they know how to say in English, “白雪公主与七个小矮人”
（Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs）
 The new skyscraper will dwarf all those near it.
 This new financial crisis may well dwarf most that have gone before.
28. equity: one of the equal parts into which the value of a company is divided;(a set of)
shares, e.g.
 He sold his equity in the company last year.
 He was prepared to commit $1billion in equity to a purchase.
 The rights give the holders the opportunity to purchase additional equity interests in
the compnay at a big discount under certain conditions.
29. total: (used as verb here) cf. in total, e.g.
 We totaled the money we had each earned (added the amounts together), and then
shared it equally among the three of us.
 Last week forty people in total came to the learning center.
30. compared with: used when considering the size, quality, or amount of sth. in
relation to sth. similar, e.g.
 Compared with our small apartment, our uncle’s house seemed like a palace.
 Statistics show a 20% reduction in burglary compared with last year.
Paragraph 9
31. to go on a binge: (infml.) to drink a lot of alcohol in a short time; to do too much of
sth., such as eating, drinking, shopping, e.g.
 The annual office binge (=party) is in December.
 Her illness involved periods of binge-eating and then making herself sick.
 Harry’s gone on a binge with his friends.
32. cross-border: between countries
Paragraph 11
33. to stay abreast of: to stay informed about the most recent facts about, e.g.
 She is always abreast of the current political situation.
 I try to keep abreast of what is happening in psychology.
Paragraph 13
34. to be hard-pressed to do sth.： to be heavily burdened; to have serious difficulties
35. to hamstring: to cripple; to destroy or hinder the efficiency of
Paragraph 14
36. to clamor to do sth./for sth.
 She always clamors to go home as soon as she gets to school.
 Please don’t all clamor for attention at once.
 The residents are clamoring against the dumping of chemical waste near their
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houses.
Paragraph 17
37. to live on: to stay alive, esp. by getting enough money to pay for food, a place in
which to stay, clothing, etc m or by eating a particular food, e.g.
 The natives live on a diet of fruit and occasionally meat.
 She has an inheritance to live off so she doesn't need to get a job.
Paragraph 19
38. to be prone to sth.: be liable to sth.; be likely or inclined to do sth., e.g.
 The fierce competition makes students more prone to nervous breakdowns.
 Workers who are forced to work long hours are prone to accidents
 She is prone to asking stupid questions on such occasions.
 You’re more prone to illnesses when you're tired and your body is run-down.
 As a child he was very prone to nose and throat infections.
 You have to bear in mind that Angela is rather prone to exaggeration.
Paragraph 20
39. count: an opinion in a discussion or argument;
on both counts: on both points under discussion, e.g.
 I’m afraid I do not agree with you on all counts.
 Their education policy has failed on several counts. ( in several ways)
Paragraph 22
40. What prevented the Asian crisis from becoming a full scale economic
downturn has been the astonishing U.S. economy. --- It was the surprisingly vigorous
growth of the U.S. economy that save the Asian crisis from escalating into an all-round
economic depression. ( But don’t you think that China has also played a very important
part in tiding over this crisis? Here please raise this issue and see how the students
respond to it.)
Paragraph 24
41. The world economy ...has been flying on one engine. ---The world economy has
been drived by only one country’s economy, namely the economy of the United States.
In other words, the world has become too dependent on one country’s prosperity. (ask
the students if they agree)
Paragraph 25
42. to snowball into: to grow into; to escalate into; to develop into with escalating
speed, e.g.
 Ten years ago, we started raising money for helping poor children’s education.
Soon the project snowballed into a nationwide campaign.
 Once the contest became popular, it quickly snowballed into an all-day event with
TV coverage.
 This project will have a snowball effect in creating a lot of new possibilities for the
company.
Paragraph 32
43. just because... doesn’t mean...
44. to discriminate against sb.:
Paragraph 34
45. to cut both ways: (infml.) to have disadvantages as well as advantages
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IV. Homework
1. ex. 3 on p. 242; ex. 5 on p. 243; ex 1, 2, and 3 on pp. 246 and 247 (for the first day)
2. ex, 4, 5,on pp. 248 and 249;3x. 3, 4, 5 and 6 on pp254, 255 and 256 ( for the second
day)
3. prepare the new lesson (for the third day)
Text B: Internatioanl Language of Gesture
1. About the author
Paul Ekman (1934 - )
Paul Ekman was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and New York
University. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University (1958),
after a one year internship at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. After two
years as a Clinical Psychology Officer in the U.S. Army, he returned to Langley Porter
where he worked from 1960 to 2004. His research on facial expression and body
movement began in 1954, as the subject of his Master's thesis in 1955 and his first
publication in 1957. In his early work, his approach to nonverbal behavior showed his
training in personality. Over the next decade, a social psychological and cross-cultural
emphasis characterized his work, with a growing interest in an evolutionary and
semiotic frame of reference. In addition to his basic research on emotion and its
expression, he has, for the last thirty years, also been studying deceit.
Currently, he is the director of the Paul Ekman Group, LLC (PEG), a small company
that produces training devices relevant to emotional skills, and is initiating new research
relevant to national security and law enforcement.
In 1971, he received a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental
Health; that Award has been renewed in 1976, 1981, 1987, 1991, and 1997. His research
was supported by fellowships, grants and awards from the National Institute of Mental
Health for over forty years.
Articles reporting on Dr. Ekman's work have appeared in Time Magazine, Smithsonian
Magazine, Psychology Today, The New Yorker and others, both American and foreign.
Numerous articles about his work have also appeared in the New York Times,
Washington Post and other national newspapers.
He has appeared on 48 Hours, Dateline, Good Morning America, 20/20, Larry King,
Oprah, Johnny Carson and many other TV programs. He has also been featured on
various public television programs such as News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Bill
Moyers' The Truth About Lying.
Ekman is co-author of Emotion in the Human Face (1971), Unmasking the Face (1975),
Facial Action Coding System (1978), editor of Darwin and Facial Expression (1973),
co-editor of Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research (1982), Approaches
to Emotion (1984), The Nature of Emotion (1994), What the Face Reveals (1997), and
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author of Face of Man (1980), Telling Lies (1985, paperback, 1986, second edition,
1992, third edition, 2001), Why Kids Lie (1989, paperback 1991), and Emotions
Revealed, (2003). He is the editor of the third edition of Charles Darwin's The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1998). He has published more than
100 articles.
2. About the text
Cross-cultural communication:
跨文化交际
Waggle their fingers: 摇晃手指
Pick their noses: 扣鼻子
Pantomime: 哑剧
Heckler: 诘问者
Weekly Quiz
Name:___________________ Score___________________________
1. Spelling (20%)
1 sovereignty
5 relentless 9 recession
13 menace
17agenda
2 retarded
6 clamor
10 discriminate 14 financial
18 surge
3 multilateral
7 estimate
11 precisely
15 presumption
19 materialize
4 acquisition
8 inept
12 plausible
16 globalization
20 investment
2. Dictation (20%)
The accounting record of all international transactions between the residents of one country/ and the
residents of the rest of the world/ is the country’s balance of payments./When a country imports something
the cost shows up in its balance of payment. Similarly,when a country exports something, the receipts from
the sale are recorded in the balance of payment.
The balance of payments is divided into different types of transactions. The imports and exports of goods
and services are recorded in the current account section of the balance of payments. Take, for example,
the importation of French cheese. This is a merchandise import in the current account section. The
difference between merchandise imports and merchandise exports is the balance of trade. If merchandise
exports during the year are greater than merchandise imports, the balance of trace is siad to be favorable.
If imports are greater than exports, the balance of trace is said to be unfavorable.
3. Translate the following phrases into English (20%)
1) 转基因食品 genetically modified food
6) 欧盟 the European Union
2）国际收支逆差 balance of payments deficit
7）华盛顿邮报 Washington Post
3）兼并与收购 mergers and acquisitions
8）新闻周刊 Newsweek
4) 国内生产总值 gross domestic product 9）世界贸易组织 The World Trade Organization
5) 北大西洋公约组织 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization 10）非国有化 denationalization
4. Sentence translation from Chinese into English (40%)
1) 我们还要看看全球化是否能压倒民族主义。
2）世纪之交出生的婴儿长大成人的时候会看到整个中华民族都过着小康的生活。
3）这篇文章美就美在简洁的文体。
4) 激烈的竞争容易使学生精神崩溃。
5）新方法使效率比过去提高了十倍以上。
1. It remains to be seen whether globalization will prevail over nationalism.
2. When they grow up, babies born at the turn of the century will see the whole Chinese
nation enjoying a respectable standard of living.
3. The beauty of this essat consists in the simplicity of the style.
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4. The fierce competition makes students more prone to nervous breakdowns.
5) The new method was over ten times more efficient than before.
The Info Package (for your reference only, and I will be very glad if it is of any help to
you.)
For reference
Cold War: Postwar Estrangement
The Western democracies and the Soviet Union discussed the progress of World War II
and the nature of the postwar settlement at conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta
(February 1945), and Potsdam (July-August 1945). After the war, disputes between the
Soviet Union and the Western democracies, particularly over the Soviet takeover of
East European states, led Winston Churchill to warn in 1946 that an "iron curtain" was
descending through the middle of Europe. For his part, Joseph Stalin deepened the
estrangement between the United States and the Soviet Union when he asserted in 1946
that World War II was an unavoidable and inevitable consequence of "capitalist
imperialism" and implied that such a war might reoccur.
The Cold War was a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict short of
full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between
military-political alliances or blocs. There were real wars, sometimes called "proxy
wars" because they were fought by Soviet allies rather than the USSR itself -- along
with competition for influence in the Third World, and a major superpower arms race.
After Stalin's death, East-West relations went through phases of alternating relaxation
and confrontation, including a cooperative phase during the 1960s and another, termed
dtente, during the 1970s. A final phase during the late 1980s and early 1990s was hailed
by President Mikhail Gorbachev, and especially by the president of the new
post-Communist Russian republic, Boris Yeltsin, as well as by President George Bush,
as beginning a partnership between the two states that could address many global
problems.
Cold War: Soviet Perspectives
After World War II, Joseph Stalin saw the world as divided into two camps: imperialist
and capitalist regimes on the one hand, and the Communist and progressive world on
the other. In 1947, President Harry Truman also spoke of two diametrically opposed
systems: one free, and the other bent on subjugating other nations.
After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev stated in 1956 that imperialism and capitalism
could coexist without war because the Communist system had become stronger. The
Geneva Summit of 1955 among Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States,
and the Camp David Summit of 1959 between Eisenhower and Khrushchev raised
hopes of a more cooperative spirit between East and West. In 1963 the United States
and the Soviet Union signed some confidence-building agreements, and in 1967
President Lyndon Johnson met with Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin in
Glassboro, New Jersey. Interspersed with such moves toward cooperation, however,
93
were hostile acts that threatened broader conflict, such as the Cuban missile crisis of
October 1962 and the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968.
The long rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982) is now referred to in Russia as the
"period of stagnation." But the Soviet stance toward the United States became less
overtly hostile in the early 1970s. Negotiations between the United States and the Soviet
Union resulted in summit meetings and the signing of strategic arms limitation
agreements. Brezhnev proclaimed in 1973 that peaceful coexistence was the normal,
permanent, and irreversible state of relations between imperialist and Communist
countries, although he warned that conflict might continue in the Third World. In the
late 1970s, growing internal repression and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a
renewal of Cold War hostility.
Soviet views of the United States changed once again after Mikhail Gorbachev came to
power in early 1985. Arms control negotiations were renewed, and President Reagan
undertook a new series of summit meetings with Gorbachev that led to arms reductions
and facilitated a growing sympathy even among Communist leaders for more
cooperation and the rejection of a class-based, conflict-oriented view of the world.
With President Yeltsin's recognition of independence for the other republics of the
former USSR and his launching of a full-scale economic reform program designed to
create a market economy, Russia was pledged at last to overcoming both the imperial
and the ideological legacies of the Soviet Union.
Hypermedia exhibit note: The following image is truncated in its original form for
reasons unknown.
Cold War: Cuban Missile Crisis
According to Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs, in May 1962 he conceived the idea of
placing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba as a means of countering an
emerging lead of the United States in developing and deploying strategic missiles. He
also presented the scheme as a means of protecting Cuba from another United
States-sponsored invasion, such as the failed attempt at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
After obtaining Fidel Castro's approval, the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly
to build missile installations in Cuba. On October 16, President John Kennedy was
shown reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missile installations under construction in
Cuba. After seven days of guarded and intense debate in the United States
administration, during which Soviet diplomats denied that installations for offensive
missiles were being built in Cuba, President Kennedy, in a televised address on October
22, announced the discovery of the installations and proclaimed that any nuclear missile
attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be
responded to accordingly. He also imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba to prevent
further Soviet shipments of offensive military weapons from arriving there.
During the crisis, the two sides exchanged many letters and other communications, both
formal and "back channel." Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy on October 23 and 24
indicating the deterrent nature of the missiles in Cuba and the peaceful intentions of the
Soviet Union. On October 26, Khrushchev sent Kennedy a long rambling letter
seemingly proposing that the missile installations would be dismantled and personnel
removed in exchange for United States assurances that it or its proxies would not invade
Cuba. On October 27, another letter to Kennedy arrived from Khrushchev, suggesting
94
that missile installations in Cuba would be dismantled if the United States dismantled its
missile installations in Turkey. The American administration decided to ignore this
second letter and to accept the offer outlined in the letter of October 26. Khrushchev
then announced on October 28 that he would dismantle the installations and return them
to the Soviet Union, expressing his trust that the United States would not invade Cuba.
Further negotiations were held to implement the October 28 agreement, including a
United States demand that Soviet light bombers also be removed from Cuba, and to
specify the exact form and conditions of United States assurances not to invade Cuba.
冷战
冷战（1945 年至 1990 年）简单来说就是以美国为首的西方集团（即北大西洋公约
冷战（英语: Cold War, 俄语: Холодная Война, 1945 年—1990 年）简单来说就是以
美国为首的西方集团（即北大西洋公约组织的成员国）和以苏联为首的东欧集团
（即华沙条约组织（华沙公约组织）的成员国）之间在政治和外交上的对抗。这
个词起源于 1947 年 4 月 16 日伯纳德·巴鲁克在南卡罗来纳州哥伦比亚的一次演说。
此外，1946 年丘吉尔访问美国，在这次访问中他发表了著名的铁幕演说：“从波罗
的海边的什切青到亚得里亚海边的的里雅斯特，一幅横贯欧洲大陆的铁幕已经拉
下”。间接表示冷战的开始。
这场全面的“东方对西方”的战争并未真正爆发，最大的原因是由于双方都拥有大量
的核子武器，一旦直接冲突可能导致全人类毁灭，因此双方都尽力避免发生全面
的“热”战（请见相互保证毁灭），实际上只是在经济、哲学、文化、社会和政治立
场方面产生严重对立：西方指责东方不民主、极权主义和共产专制，而东方则批
评西方是中产阶级资本主义和帝国主义。东方国家指责西方国家“帝国主义”、“剥
削劳工”，而西方国家则称东方国家为“极权铁幕”，企图将民主国家纳入极权专制
的统治。
冷战从第二次世界大战结束开始，直到 1990 年代初苏联解体为止。朝鲜战争、越
南战争和阿富汗争端是几个东西方国家发生区域冲突的例子，但是大多数时候只
是双方代理人之间的冲突，在这些冲突中，主要强国只是通过资金和武器援助各
自支持的国家或组织。这么做就减少了两大阵营冲突的紧张性。
美国与苏联竞争的一个主要领域就是科学技术，此外还包括了十分隐蔽的间谍战，
和双方的政治宣传战。虽然双方的谍报系统经常采取秘密的暗杀行动，但是由于
核武器的威慑，两阵营一直没有发生全面冲突。当然在当时，人们并不清楚，一
个地区性的小规模冲突是否有可能引发核战争，有鉴于此，每一次的冲突都会引
发人们极高的关注。这种紧张态势几乎像真正的战争那样改变了全世界所有人的
生活。
德国可以算是冷战中最主要的争端焦点，特别是柏林。柏林墙很可能是冷战最生
动的标志。这堵墙分隔了东柏林（属于东德）与西柏林（属于西德），使西柏林孤
立于东德内。
西方世界对冷战的研究经历了 3 个阶段。在二战结束后 10 多年的时间内，很少有
学者会挑战美国官方对冷战起因的看法：即双方关系的破裂是由于斯大林违反了
雅尔塔共识、苏联企图主宰东欧，以及苏联的扩张主义。
95
但是之后很多历史学家提出了另一种观点：美国企图保障其在全球的贸易利益才
是冷战最主要的起因。一些历史学家认为，美国的帝国主义野心如果不是最主要，
至少也是与苏联的作为同等重要的导致冷战爆发的原因。简单而言，史学家对谁
应该为二战期间结盟的美苏关系的破裂以及冷战是否是不可避免的这两个问题上
产生分歧。后一种观点（即美国应该负责）在越南战争中达到顶峰，很多人开始
认为，美国在道德层面上并不比苏联高多少。
在冷战后期，历史学家们开始寻求一种后修正主义的解答。到冷战结束后，这一
派观点已经占了上风。这派历史学家并不认为两个超级大国中的任何一国应该为
冷战负全责，而是归咎于双方的误解与反应，两方都应对冷战负责。后修正主义
学者追随了现实主义国际关系的看法，认为美国在欧洲的政策，如 1947 年对希腊
的援助和马歇尔计划是必要的。
根据这种观点，“共产主义运动”并不是西欧困境的根源。相反，在经济、政治方面
的全面战争，以及欧洲的社会结构才是其根源。而马歇尔计划重建了一个良好的
欧洲经济体系，从而减少了极左势力在西欧的吸引力。对欧洲来说，经济援助结
束了资金短缺，刺激了对战后重建的投资。对美国来说，该计划解决了生产过剩
的问题，增加了美国对外出口。北约组织则将西欧国家纳入共同防御体系，从而
避免了共产主义的扩张。后修正主义学派不认为共产主义具有扩张性，企图推翻
“自由世界”，但是他们同时认为美国在欧洲的政策在确保欧洲的稳定方面是必要
的，从而避免权力向苏联倾斜，最终危及到西方的经济、政治制度。
组织的成员国）和以苏联为首的东欧集团（即华沙条约组织的成员国）之间在政
治和外交上的对抗。这个词起源于 1947 年 4 月 16 日伯纳德·巴鲁克在南卡罗来纳
州哥伦比亚的一次演说。
这场全面的“东方对西方”的战争并未真正爆发，两方都尽力避免发生一场全面的
“热”战。双方实际上只是在经济、哲学、文化、社会和政治立场方面产生严重对立：
西方指责东方不民主、极权主义和共产专制，而东方则批评西方是中产阶级资本
主义和帝国主义。东方国家指责西方国家“剥削工人”，而西方国家则称东方国家为
“邪恶帝国”，企图将共产主义意识形态传播到民主国家。
第二次世界大战后，世界上社会主义革命、人民革命、民族解放运动蓬勃发展，
严重地冲击着殖民主义、资本主义体系。以美国为首的西方统治集团，为了遏制、
扑灭这些革命运动的发展，巩固资本主义体系，采用各种手段推行“冷战”政策。最
先提出“冷战”术语的是美国参议员伯纳德·巴鲁克于 1946 年初在一次演说中提出
来的。同年 3 月 5 日，英国首相丘吉尔访美时，在富尔顿发表的反共演说和 1947
年 3 月 12 日美国总统杜鲁门提出的国情咨文的有关内容，标志着美国等西方国家
对苏联等社会主义国家正式推行“冷战”政策。1947 年 9 月，美国政论家沃尔特·李
普曼出版了“冷战”一书并连续发表了一系列鼓吹“冷战”的文章。从此起，“冷战”
术语广为流行，“冷战”政策成为以美国为首的西方统治集团，遏制、破坏社会主义，
镇压人民革命的一种重要手段。
朝鲜战争、越南战争和阿富汗争端是几个东西方国家发生区域冲突的例子，但是
大多数时候只是双方代理人之间的冲突，在这些冲突中，主要强国只是通过资金
96
和武器援助各自支持的国家或组织。这么做就减少了两大阵营冲突的紧张性。
随后，美军把“冷战”作为一种战争类型列入野战条令。1962 年版美军《作战纲要》，
把战争分为三种类型，即“冷战”、“有限战争”、“全面战争”。给“冷战”所定的定义
和原则是：“冷战包括除有限战争和全面战争以外的所有行动。敌对的国家或联盟
可以用冷战来进行较量”，“不仅运用政治、经济和心理力量，而且还使用军事力量。
军队在冷战中起着重要的作用，可以直接地或间接地为实现国家目标做出贡献。
为遏制他国使用武力，可以动员后备役部队或展开现役部队”。“冷战和有限战争之
间的界限既不是明确的，也不是绝对的。因此，可能需要使用正规军队来进行实
际上是战斗行动的冷战活动”。1968 年版美军《统帅纲要》又补充规定，“稳定局
势作战也包括在冷战中”。 这里说的“稳定局势作战”，就是在世界各地进行的镇压、
扑灭各国人民革命运动的作战。在世界上，哪里有人民革命和民族解放运动，它
们的军队就派往哪里，进行镇压，或是对反动政府提供军援和作战支援，甚至进
行核讹诈、核恫吓，大耍“世界宪兵”的把戏。此外，以美国为首的反动集团进行“冷
战”的手段还包括：派遣“和平队”进行渗透；挑起事端进行颠覆活动；以“经援”、“军
援”为诱饵，拉拢“朋友”，扩大势力范围；以签订集体防御条约的形式扩大军事同
盟，美国先后与五十多个国家签订了共同防御条约；在外国建立军事基地，派军
队控制战略要地；以经济封锁、制裁等手段，破坏社会主义国家的经济发展；挑
拨社会主义国家之间的关系，瓦解社会主义体系；以文化入侵，对社会主义国家
推行和平演变战略，等等。尽管如此，并没有阻止世界人民革命和民族解放运动
的发展。如第二次世界大战前，亚、非、拉和大洋洲，只有 38 个独立国家，现在
已发展到 140 多个独立国家。
各国的军队很少卷入到冷战之中；这场战争主要是诸如美国中情局、英国军情六
处、西德情报局、东德国家安全部和苏联的克格勃等情报机构之间展开的。世界
主要强国从来不会直接卷入一场针对对方的军事冲突。
冷战中大部分的伤亡可能是由情报机构所采取的针对平民或军事目标的袭击造成
的。间谍被派往东西两方阵营，或者在当地召募情报人员，甚至强迫加入。当间
谍被发现时，他们不是被立即杀害，就是与对方所抓获的人质交换。间谍飞机和
其他从事查勘任务的飞机一旦发现会被立即击落。
以美国为首的西方国家加紧推行“冷战”政策，导致了美、苏两大军事集团的产生。
以美国为首的“北大西洋条约”组织(简称“北约”)于 1949 年 4 月 4 日成立，继后，
以苏联为首的“华沙条约”组织(简称“华约”)于 1955 年 5 月 14 日成立。从此以后，
“北约”集团 15 个国家的军队近 600 万兵力和“华约”集团 7 个国家的军队 600 万
兵力，双方千万大军开始处于战略对峙状态。美国的 1626 枚战略导弹和苏联的
1910 枚战略导弹，及双方数以万计的战役核导弹，相互瞄准着对方成员国的军事、
政治、经济目标，处于待机“按电钮”之势，进而导致军备竞赛，争夺核优势、航天
优势的斗争愈演愈烈，国际形势日趋紧张。只是双方都害怕毁灭于世界上已掘有
的 130 亿--160 亿吨当量(相当于在广岛使用的 100 万颗原子弹的威力)的核武器中，
谁也未敢启动“核按钮”，发动核大战。苏联、“华约”于 1991 年解体后，美、苏两
大集团长达 40 年的“冷战”才算告终。这种“冷战”结束后，国际形势趋向缓和。但
是，帝国主义、霸权主义又企图制造反对中国和广大第三世界国家的新的冷战。
这是值得引起警惕和防备的。
97
今天很多的观察家认为，美国在冷战中的许多作为是违反其宪法以及国家理想的
（例如未经国会授权而发动一场未经宣告的战争）。美国的政治或军事领导人则经
常以国家安全受到威胁为由来开脱此类行为。在世界上很多地方的人们认为，他
们受到两个超级大国的凌辱。例如在阿富汗的反美主义主要来源于冷战中美国为
阻遏苏联对阿富汗的入侵而采取的不当行为。
根据这种观点，“共产主义运动”并不是西欧困境的根源。相反，在经济、政治方面
的全面战争，以及欧洲的社会结构才是其根源。而马歇尔计划重建了一个良好的
欧洲经济体系，从而减少了极左势力在西欧的吸引力。对欧洲来说，经济援助结
束了资金短缺，刺激了对战後重建的投资。对美国来说，该计划解决了生产过剩
的问题，增加了美国对外出口。北约组织则将西欧国家纳入共同防御体系，从而
避免了共产主义的扩张。後修正主义学派不认为共产主义具有扩张性，企图推翻
“自由世界”，但是他们同时认为美国在欧洲的政策在确保欧洲的稳定方面是必要
的，从而避免权力向苏联倾斜，最终危及到西方的经济、政治制度。
GATT
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was first signed in 1947. The
agreement was designed to provide an international forum that encouraged free trade
between member states by regulating and reducing tariffs on traded goods and by
providing a common mechanism for resolving trade disputes. GATT membership now
includes more than 110 countries.
Consideration of GATT's relationship to environmental policy is an emerging concern
in trade and environmental policy circles. Until the recently concluded Uruguay Round
of GATT negotiations, the word environment did not appear in the GATT text. Several
provisions and sections of GATT may be relevant to environmental issues, however.
The following sections of GATT are often referenced in the examination of
trade-environment issues. The excerpts are from GATT as amended through 1966,
originally digitized by the Multilaterals Project of the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy, Tufts University:

Article I General Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment;

Article III National Treatment on Internal Taxation and Regulation;

Article XI General Elimination of Quantitative Restrictions;

Article XIII Non-discriminatory Administration of Quantitative Restrictions;

Article XVI Subsidies;

Article XX General Exceptions;
The GATT Final Act Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round contains several
other relevant items:

the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights;

an Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures that permits some
environmental subsidies in section 8.2;

and the Agreement Establishing the Multilateral Trade Organization.
The complete Uruguay Round text is also available on-line. Explicit environmental
concern related to GATT has grown in the last few years. Although formally organized
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in 1971, a GATT committee on environment met for the first time in 1991. Also in 1991
a GATT dispute-resolution panel made a ruling in the tuna-dolphin case, a dispute
between the United States and Mexico over limiting imports based on fishing practices.
Issues in the tuna-dolphin dispute are described by Cough (1993) in
"Trade-Environment Tensions"; in the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (1992)
report Trade and the Environment; and in the GATT dispute panel report (1991) on the
case. In 1992, GATT produced "Trade and the Environment," a report that offered
GATT's recommendations on the relationship between international trade and
environmental measures.
The recent cases, the 1992 report, and growing international consideration of the
relationship between trade and environmental policy have focused attention on GATT's
influence on international environmental agreements. In some ways, GATT is seen as
potentially limiting or barring trade provisions in environmental agreements.
Environmental, legal, and other experts have also called for reform of GATT to
accommodate international concern for environmental issues.
Charnovitz (1992) examines the potential of GATT to limit trade-based
implementations in environmental agreements in "GATT and the Environment." In
"Free International Trade and Protection of the Environment," Schoenbaum (1992)
evaluates the impact of existing GATT provisions and discusses when trade restrictions
may be appropriate within environmental agreements. Weiss (1992) comments on
Schoenbaum's article in "Environment and Trade as Partners in Sustainable
Development," suggesting that global consensus on sustainable development as a
guiding policy principle has added weight and priority to environmental concerns in
relation to trade policy.
IMF 是英文 International Monetary Fund 的缩写，IMF 的中文意思是
国际货币基金组织。
IMF 是政府间的国际金融组织。它是根据 1944 年 7 月在美国新罕布什尔州布雷顿
森林召开联合国和联盟国家的国际货币金融会议上通过的《国际货币基金协定》
而建立起来的。于 1945 年 12 月 27 日正式成立，1947 年 3 月 1 日开始办理业务。
同年 11 月 15 日成为联合国的一个专门机构，但在经营上有其独立性。至今，IMF
已有 182 个成员。
基金组织设 5 个地区部门（非洲、亚洲、欧洲、中东、西半球）和 12 个职能部门
（行政管理、中央银行业务、汇兑和贸易关系、对外关系、财政事务、国际货币
基金学院、法律事务、研究、秘书、司库、统计、语言服务局）。其宗旨是作为
一个常设机构在国际金融问题上进行协商与协作，促进国际货币合作；促进国际
贸易的扩大和和平衡发展；促进和保持成员国的就业，生产资源的发展和实际收
入的高水平；促进国际汇兑的稳定，在成员国之间保持有秩序的汇价安排，防止
竞争性的货币贬值；协助成员国在经常项目交易中建立多边支付制定，消除妨成
员国临时提供普通资金，使其纠正国际收支的失调，而不采取危害本国或国际繁
荣的措施，缩短成员国国际收支不平衡的时间，减轻不平衡的程度。
IMF 主要业务活动有：向成员提供货款，在货币问题上促进国际合作，研究国际
货币制度改革的有关问题，研究扩大基金组织的作用，提供技术援助和加强同其
它国际机构的联系。
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The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries.
It was established to promote international monetary cooperation,
exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster
economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide
temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of
payments adjustment. (See Purposes of the IMF in the Articles of Agreement.)
Since the IMF was established its purposes have remained unchanged but its
operations—which involve surveillance, financial assistance, and technical
assistance—have developed to meet the changing needs of its member countries in an
evolving world economy.
The Crusades
Proud knights in the Crusades would march
towards forgiveness of their sins, filled with greed.
Bloodshed, they believed, was worth it, dying was
worth it. Marching towards Jerusalem with victory
in their eyes, they would take anyone who stood in
their way of victory. That was the Crusades of the
Middle Ages.
In the year 1095, people were shocked in Western
Europe by the words of Pope Urban II, "The
Muslims have conquered Jerusalem". Pope Urban
wanted the Christians to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. People shouted "God wills
it". All over France these were the warring words of the Christians.
The French, German, and Italians were the European Christians that went on Crusades.
The word Crusade meant "a war of the cross". During the first Crusade (1095-1097)
most of the knights died of hunger, thirst or disease. When they got to Jerusalem they
slaughtered anyone they could find. They took vows before going on a crusade.
Sometimes during a crusade a knight would forget his vows and ride off or live in the
village closest by.
In a Crusade there were pilgrims who were going to pray in Jerusalem, groomers that
cleaned the horses, wives and children of the knights, and two kinds of knights: a
mounted knight who rode on a horse and a foot soldier who walked on foot. Some of
the knights went on Crusades to get rich or to steal a new home from the people they
were fighting, but most of the knights went to get healed of their sins. Richard the Lion
Heart (or Richard the I of England) was a famous general in the Crusades. The fourth
Crusade (1199-1204) started off with a tournament against the Turks in France but the
Crusade ended in tragedy. Most of the armies that went were already half destroyed by
the Turks. They didn't reach Jerusalem. All together there were six Crusades in a
period of 176 years. The Crusades lasted from 1095 until 1271.
When the knights were attacked in a Crusade they used huge siege weapons. The
ballista was the simplest weapon. It was like a giant crossbow that could shoot arrows a
distance of 350-450 yards in length. The mangonel was called a wild donkey by the
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Romans. It was a medium range catapult. The trebuchet was the most powerful siege
weapon. It was a catapult that could fling rocks long range. A battering ram was a log
cut from a heavy tree. The battering ram got its name because the Romans said it looked
like a ram. It was then tied onto a penthouse to protect the knight from arrows and it
took twelve men to swing it. All these siege weapons were used to get into Jerusalem by
the knights of the Crusades. Other knights would try to dig under ground and then set
fire to the wall supports underground in hopes that the wall would collapse. Another
way knights tried to get into Jerusalem was to put long ladders against the wall and
trying to climb them without being pushed over or having boiling liquids poured onto
them, or being killed by a knight on the wall. The knights also built huge staircases,
called siege towers, that were pushed against the wall and the knights walked up the
staircases. When they actually reached Jerusalem however, they waited awhile before
attacking to starve their enemy, but it didn't work so they just attacked. The knights
captured towers built on the walls. When the knights got inside the walls of Jerusalem
they killed people walking street or inside buildings.
Religion was important to the knights in the Middle Ages. One of the results of the
Crusades was the founding of new Christian religious orders. Most of the monks were
former knights who fought against each other in the Crusades. The knights did capture
Jerusalem for a short period of time, but the Muslims kept on re-taking Jerusalem. The
knights gained temporary power, but lost many soldiers during the deadly Crusades, not
to mention causing the death of many innocent Muslims. The Crusades is a violent
reminder of the greed of Middle Ages.
Web Page researched and created by Kyle S.
The Silk Road
Introduction
The region separating China from Europe and Western Asia is not the most hospitable in
the world. Much of it is taken up by the Taklimakan desert, one of the most hostile
environments on our planet. There is very little vegetation, and almost no rainfall;
sandstorms are very common, and have claimed the lives of countless people. The
locals have a very great respect for this `Land of Death'; few travellers in the past have
had anything good to say about it. It covers a vast area, through which few roads pass;
caravans throughout history have skirted its edges, from one isolated oasis to the next.
The climate is harsh; in the summer the daytime temperatures are in the 40's, with
temperatures greater than 50 degrees Celsius measured not infrequently in the sub-sea
level basin of Turfan. In winter the temperatures dip below minus 20 degrees.
Temperatures soar in the sun, but drop very rapidly at dusk. Sand storms here are very
common, and particularly dangerous due to the strength of the winds and the nature of
the surface. Unlike the Gobi desert, where there are a relatively large number of oases,
and water can be found not too far below the surface, the Taklimakan has much sparser
resources.
The land surrounding the Taklimakan is equally hostile. To the northeast lies the Gobi
desert, almost as harsh in climate as the Taklimakan itself; on the remaining three sides
lie some of the highest mountains in the world. To the South are the Himalaya,
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Karakorum and Kunlun ranges, which provide an effective barrier separating Central
Asia from the Indian sub-continent. Only a few icy passes cross these ranges, and they
are some of the most difficult in the world; they are mostly over 5000 metres in altitude,
and are dangerously narrow, with precipitous drops into deep ravines. To the north and
west lie the Tianshan and Pamir ranges; though greener and less high, the passes
crossing these have still provided more than enough problems for the travelers of the
past. Approaching the area from the east, the least difficult entry is along the `Gansu
Corridor', a relatively fertile strip running along the base of the Qilian mountains,
separating the great Mongolian plateau and the Gobi from the Tibetan High Plateau.
Coming from the west or south, the only way in is over the passes.
The Early History of The Region
On the eastern and western sides of the continent, the civilisations of China and the
West developed. The western end of the trade route appears to have developed earlier
than the eastern end, principally because of the development of the empires in the west,
and the easier terrain of Persia and Syria. The Iranian empire of Persia was in control of
a large area of the Middle East, extending as far as the Indian Kingdoms to the east.
Trade between these two neighbours was already starting to influence the cultures of
these regions.
This region was taken over by Alexander the Great of Macedon, who finally conquered
the Iranian empire, and colonised the area in about 330 B.C., superimposing the culture
of the Greeks. Although he only ruled the area until 325 B.C., the effect of the Greek
invasion was quite considerable. The Greek language was brought to the area, and
Greek mythology was introduced. The aesthetics of Greek sculpture were merged with
the ideas developed from the Indian kingdoms, and a separate local school of art
emerged. By the third century B.C., the area had already become a crossroads of Asia,
where Persian, Indian and Greek ideas met. It is believed that the residents of the Hunza
valley in the Karakorum are the direct descendents of the army of Alexander; this valley
is now followed by the Karakorum Highway, on its way from Pakistan over to Kashgar,
and indicates how close to the Taklimakan Alexander may have got.
This `crossroads' region, covering the area to the south of the Hindu Kush and
Karakorum ranges, now Pakistan and Afghanistan, was overrun by a number of
different peoples. After the Greeks, the tribes from Palmyra, in Syria, and then Parthia,
to the east of the Mediterranean, took over the region. These peoples were less
sophisticated than the Greeks, and adopted the Greek language and coin system in this
region, introducing their own influences in the fields of sculpture and art.
Close on the heels of the Parthians came the Yuezhi people from the Northern borders
of the Taklimakan. They had been driven from their traditional homeland by the
Xiongnu tribe (who later became the Huns and transfered their attentions towards
Europe), and settled in Northern India. Their descendents became the Kushan people,
and in the first century A.D. they moved into this crossroads area, bringing their
adopted Buddhist religion with them. Like the other tribes before them, they adopted
much of the Greek system that existed in the region. The product of this marriage of
cultures was the Gandhara culture, based in what is now the Peshawar region of
northwest Pakistan. This fused Greek and Buddhist art into a unique form, many of the
sculptures of Buddhist deities bearing strong resemblances to the Greek mythological
figure Heracles. The Kushan people were the first to show Buddha in human form, as
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before this time artists had preferred symbols such as the footprint, stupa or tree of
enlightenment, either out of a sense of sacrilege or simply to avoid persecution.
The eastern end of the route developed rather more slowly. In China, the Warring States
period was brought to an end by the Qin state, which unified China to form the Qin
Dynasty, under Qin Shi Huangdi. The harsh reforms introduced to bring the individual
states together seem brutal now, but the unification of the language, and standardisation
of the system, had long lasting effects. The capital was set up in Changan, which rapidly
developed into a large city, now Xian.
The Xiongnu tribe had been periodically invading the northern borders during the
Warring States period with increasing frequency. The northern-most states had been
trying to counteract this by building defensive walls to hinder the invaders, and warn of
their approach. Under the Qin Dynasty, in an attempt to subdue the Xiongnu, a
campaign to join these sections of wall was initiated, and the `Great Wall' was born.
When the Qin collapsed in 206 B.C., after only 15 years, the unity of China was
preserved by the Western Han Dynasty, which continued to construct the Wall.
During one of their campaigns against the Xiongnu, in the reign of Emperor Wudi, the
Han learnt from some of their prisoners that the Yuezhi had been driven further to the
west. It was decided to try to link up with these peoples in order to form an alliance
against the Xiongnu. The first intelligence operation in this direction was in 138 B.C.
under the leadership of Zhang Qian, brought back much of interest to the court, with
information about hitherto unknown states to the west, and about a new, larger breed of
horse that could be used to equip the Han cavalry. The trip was certainly eventful, as the
Xiongnu captured them, and kept them hostage for ten years; after escaping and
continuing the journey, Zhang Qian eventually found the Yuezhi in Northern India.
Unfortunately for the Han, they had lost any interest in forming an alliance against the
Xiongnu. On the return journey, Zhang Qian and his delegation were again captured,
and it was not until 125 B.C. that they arrived back in Changan. The emperor was much
interested by what they found, however, and more expeditions were sent out towards the
West over the following years. After a few failures, a large expedition managed to
obtain some of the so-called `heavenly horses', which helped transform the Han cavalry.
These horses have been immortalised in the art of the period, one of the best examples
being the small bronze `flying horse' found at Wuwei in the Gansu Corridor, now used
as the emblem of the China International Travel Service. Spurred on by their discoveries,
the Han missions pushed further westwards, and may have got as far as Persia. They
brought back many objects from these regions, in particular some of the religious
artwork from the Gandharan culture, and other objects of beauty for the emperor. By
this process, the route to the west was opened up. Zhang Qian is still seen by many to be
the father of the Silk Road.
In the west, the Greek empire was taken over by the Roman Empire. Even at this stage,
before the time of Zhang Qian, small quantities of Chinese goods, including silk, were
reaching the west. This is likely to have arrived with individual traders, who may have
started to make the journey in search of new markets despite the danger or the political
situation of the time.
The Nature of the Route
The description of this route to the west as the `Silk Road' is somewhat misleading.
Firstly, no single route was taken; crossing Central Asia several different branches
103
developed, passing through different oasis settlements. The routes all started from the
capital in Changan, headed up the Gansu corridor, and reached Dunhuang on the edge
of the Taklimakan. The northern route then passed through Yumen Guan (Jade Gate
Pass) and crossed the neck of the Gobi desert to Hami (Kumul), before following the
Tianshan mountains round the northern fringes of the Taklimakan. It passed through the
major oases of Turfan and Kuqa before arriving at Kashgar, at the foot of the Pamirs.
The southern route branched off at Dunhuang, passing through the Yang Guan and
skirting the southern edges of the desert, via Miran, Hetian (Khotan) and Shache
(Yarkand), finally turning north again to meet the other route at Kashgar. Numerous
other routes were also used to a lesser extent; one branched off from the southern route
and headed through the Eastern end of the Taklimakan to the city of Loulan, before
joining the Northern route at Korla. Kashgar became the new crossroads of Asia; from
here the routes again divided, heading across the Pamirs to Samarkand and to the south
of the Caspian Sea, or to the South, over the Karakorum into India; a further route split
from the northern route after Kuqa and headed across the Tianshan range to eventually
reach the shores of the Caspian Sea, via Tashkent.
Secondly, the Silk Road was not a trade route that existed solely for the purpose of
trading in silk; many other commodities were also traded, from gold and ivory to exotic
animals and plants. Of all the precious goods crossing this area, silk was perhaps the
most remarkable for the people of the West. It is often thought that the Romans had first
encountered silk in one of their campaigns against the Parthians in 53 B.C, and realised
that it could not have been produced by this relatively unsophisticated people. They
reputedly learnt from Parthian prisoners that it came from a mysterious tribe in the east,
who they came to refer to as the silk people, `Seres'. In practice, it is likely that silk and
other goods were beginning to filter into Europe before this time, though only in very
small quantities. The Romans obtained samples of this new material, and it quickly
became very popular in Rome, for its soft texture and attractiveness. The Parthians
quickly realised that there was money to be made from trading the material, and sent
trade missions towards the east. The Romans also sent their own agents out to explore
the route, and to try to obtain silk at a lower price than that set by the Parthians. For this
reason, the trade route to the East was seen by the Romans as a route for silk rather than
the other goods that were traded. The name `Silk Road' itself does not originate from the
Romans, however, but is a nineteenth century term, coined by the German scholar, von
Richthofen.
In addition to silk, the route carried many other precious commodities. Caravans
heading towards China carried gold and other precious metals, ivory, precious stones,
and glass, which was not manufactured in China until the fifth century. In the opposite
direction furs, ceramics, jade, bronze objects, lacquer and iron were carried. Many of
these goods were bartered for others along the way, and objects often changed hands
several times. There are no records of Roman traders being seen in Changan, nor
Chinese merchants in Rome, though their goods were appreciated in both places. This
would obviously have been in the interests of the Parthians and other middlemen, who
took as large a profit from the change of hands as they could.
The Development of the Route
The development of these Central Asian trade routes caused some problems for the Han
rulers in China. Bandits soon learnt of the precious goods travelling up the Gansu
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Corridor and skirting the Taklimakan, and took advantage of the terrain to plunder these
caravans. Caravans of goods needed their own defence forces, and this was an added
cost for the merchants making the trip. The route took the caravans to the farthest extent
of the Han Empire, and policing this route became a big problem. This was partially
overcome by building forts and defensive walls along part of the route. Sections of
`Great Wall' were built along the northern side of the Gansu Corridor, to try to prevent
the Xiongnu from harming the trade; Tibetan bandits from the Qilian mountains to the
south were also a problem. Sections of Han dynasty wall can still be seen as far as
Yumen Guan, well beyond the recognised beginning of the Great Wall at Jiayuguan.
However, these fortifications were not all as effective as intended, as the Chinese lost
control of sections of the route at regular intervals.
The Han dynasty set up the local government at Wulei, not far from Kuqa on the
northern border of the Taklimakan, in order to `protect' the states in this area, which
numbered about 50 at the time. At about the same period the city of Gaochang was
constructed in the Turfan basin. This developed into the centre of the Huihe kingdom;
these peoples later became the Uygur minority who now make up a large proportion of
the local population. Many settlements were set up along the way, mostly in the oasis
areas, and profited from the passing trade. They also absorbed a lot of the local culture,
and the cultures that passed them by along the route. Very few merchants traversed the
full length of the road; most simply covered part of the journey, selling their wares a
little further from home, and then returning with the proceeds. Goods therefore tended
to moved slowly across Asia, changing hands many times. Local people no doubt acted
as guides for the caravans over the most dangerous sections of the journey.
After the Western Han dynasty, successive dynasties brought more states under Chinese
control. Settlements came and went, as they changed hands or lost importance due to a
change in the routes. The chinese garrison town of Loulan, for example, on the edge of
the Lop Nor lake, was important in the third century A.D., but was abandoned when the
Chinese lost control of the route for a period. Many settlements were buried during
times of abandonment by the sands of the Taklimakan, and could not be repopulated.
The settlements reflected the nature of the trade passing through the region. Silk, on its
way to the west, often got no further than this region of Central Asia. The Astana tombs,
where the nobles of Gaochang were buried, have turned up examples of silk cloth from
China, as well as objects from as far afield as Persia and India. Much can be learned
about the customs of the time from the objects found in these graves, and from the art
work of the time, which has been excellently preserved on the tomb walls, due to the
extremely dry conditions. The bodies themselves have also been well preserved, and
may allow scientific studies to ascertain their origins.
The most significant commodity carried along this route was not silk, but religion.
Buddhism came to China from India this way, along the northern branch of the route.
The first influences came as the passes over the Karakorum were first explored. The
Eastern Han emperor Mingdi is thought to have sent a representative to India to
discover more about this strange faith, and further missions returned bearing scriptures,
and bringing with them India priests. With this came influences from the Indian
sub-continent, including Buddhist art work, examples of which have been found in
several early second century tombs in present-day Sichuan province. This was
considerably influenced by the Himalayan Massif, an effective barrier between China
105
and India, and hence the Buddhism in China is effectively derived from the Gandhara
culture by the bend in the Indus river, rather than directly from India. Buddhism reached
the pastures of Tibet at a rather later period, not developing fully until the seventh
century. Along the way it developed under many different influences, before reaching
central China. This is displayed very cleared in the artwork, where many of the cave
paintings show people with clearly different ethnic backgrounds, rather than the
expected Cental and East Asian peoples.
The greatest flux of Buddhism into China occurred during the Northern Wei dynasty, in
the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. This was at a time when China was divided into
several different kingdoms, and the Northern Wei dynasty had its capital in Datong in
present day Shanxi province. The rulers encouraged the development of Buddhism, and
more missions were sent towards India. The new religion spread slowly eastwards,
through the oases surrounding the Taklimakan, encouraged by an increasing number of
merchants, missionaries and pilgrims. Many of the local peoples, the Huihe included,
adopted Buddhism as their own religion. Faxian, a pilgrim from China, records the
religious life in the Kingdoms of Khotan and Kashgar in 399 A.D. in great detail. He
describes the large number of monasteries that had been built, and a large Buddhist
festival that was held while he was there.
Some devotees were sufficiently inspired by the new ideas that they headed off in
search of the source, towards Gandhara and India; others started to build monasteries,
grottos and stupas. The development of the grotto is particularly interesting; the edges
of the Taklimakan hide some of the best examples in the world. The hills surrounding
the desert are mostly of sandstone, with any streams or rivers carving cliffs that can be
relatively easily dug into; there was also no shortage of funds for the work, particularly
from wealthy merchants, anxious to invoke protection or give thanks for a safe desert
crossing. Gifts and donations of this kind were seen as an act of merit, which might
enable the donor to escape rebirth into this world. In many of the murals, the donors
themselves are depicted, often in pious attitude. This explains why the Mogao grottos
contain some of the best examples of Buddhist artwork; Dunhuang is the starting point
for the most difficult section of the Taklimakan crossing.
The grottos were mostly started at about the same period, and coincided with the
beginning of the Northern Wei Dynasty. There are a large cluster in the Kuqa region,
the best examples being the Kyzil grottos; similarly there are clusters close to Gaochang,
the largest being the Bezeklik grottos. Probably the best known ones are the Mogao
grottos at Dunhuang, at the eastern end of the Taklimakan. It is here that the greatest
number, and some of the best examples, are to be found. More is known about the
origins of these, too, as large quantities of ancient documents have been found. These
are on a wide range of subjects, and include a large number of Buddhist scriptures in
Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uygur and other languages, some still unknown. There are
documents from the other faiths that developed in the area, and also some official
documents and letters that reveal a lot about the system of government at the time.
The grotto building was not confined to the Taklimakan; there is a large cluster at
Bamiyan in the Hindu Kush, in present-day Afghanistan. It is here that the second
largest sculpture of Buddha in the world can be found, at 55 metres high.
For the archaeologist these grottos are particularly valuable sources of information
about the Silk Road. Along with the images of Buddhas and Boddhisatvas, there are
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scenes of the everyday life of the people at the time. Scenes of celebration and dancing
give an insight into local customs and costume. The influences of the Silk Road traffic
are therefore quite clear in the mix of cultures that appears on these murals at different
dates. In particular, the development of Buddhism from the Indian/Gandharan style to a
more individual faith is evident on studying the murals from different eras in any of the
grotto clusters. Those from the Gandharan school have more classical features, with
wavy hair and a sharper brow; they tend to be dressed in toga-like robes rather than a
loin cloth. Those of the Northern Wei have a more Indian appearance, with narrower
faces, stretched ear-lobes, and a more serene aura. By the Tang dynasty, when
Buddhism was well developed in China, many of the statues and murals show much
plumper, more rounded and amiable looking figures. By the Tang dynasty, the Apsara
(flying deity, similar to an angel in Christianity) was a popular subject for the artists.
It is also interesting to trace the changes in styles along the length of the route, from
Kuqa in the west, via the Turfan area and Dunhuang, to the Maijishan grottos about 350
kilometres from Xian, and then as far into China as Datong. The Northern Wei dynasty,
that is perhaps the most responsible for the spread of Buddhism in China, started the
construction of the Yungang grottos in northern Shanxi province. When the capital of
the Northern Wei was transfered to Luoyang, the artists and masons started again from
scratch, building the Longmen grottos. These two more `Chinese' grottos emphasised
carving and statuary rather than the delicate murals of the Taklimakan regions, and the
figures are quite impressive in their size; the largest figure at Yungang measures more
than 17 metres in height, second only in China to the great Leshan Buddha in Sichuan,
which was constructed in the early 8th Century. The figures are mostly depicted in the
`reassurance' pose, with right hand raised, as an apology to the adherents of the
Buddhist faith for the period of persecution that had occurred during the early Northern
Wei Dynasty before construction was started.
The Buddhist faith gave birth to a number of different sects in Central Asia. Of these,
the `Pure Land' and `Chan' (Zen) sects were particularly strong, and were even taken
beyond China; they are both still flourishing in Japan.
Christianity also made an early appearance on the scene. The Nestorian sect was
outlawed in Europe by the Roman church in 432 A.D., and its followers were driven
eastwards. From their foothold in Northern Iran, merchants brought the faith along the
Silk Road, and the first Nestorian church was consecrated at Changan in 638 A.D. This
sect took root on the Silk Road, and survived many later attempts to wipe them out,
lasting into the fourteenth century. Many Nestorian writings have been found with other
documents at Dunhuang and Turfan. Manichaeism, a third century Persian religion, also
influenced the area, and had become quite well developed by the beginning of the Tang
Dynasty.
The Greatest Years
The height of the importance of the Silk Road was during the Tang dynasty, with
relative internal stability in China after the divisions of the earlier dynasties since the
Han. The individual states has mostly been assimilated, and the threats from marauding
peoples was rather less.
During this period, in the seventh century, the Chinese traveller Xuan Zhuang crossed
the region on his way to obtain Buddhist scriptures from India. He followed the
northern branch round the Taklimakan on his outward journey, and the southern route
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on his return; he carefully recorded the cultures and styles of Buddhism along the way.
On his return to the Tang capital at Changan, he was permitted to build the `Great
Goose Pagoda' in the southern half of the city, to house the more than 600 scriptures
that he had brought back from India. He is still seen by the Chinese as an important
influence in the development of Buddhism in China, and his travels were dramatised by
in the popular classic `Tales of a Journey to the West'.
The art and civilisation of the Silk Road achieved its highest point in the Tang Dynasty.
Changan, as the starting point of the route, as well as the capital of the dynasty,
developed into one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities of the time. By 742 A.D.,
the population had reached almost two million, and the city itself covered almost the
same area as present-day Xian, considerably more than within the present walls of the
city. The 754 A.D. census showed that five thousand foreigners lived in the city; Turks,
Iranians, Indians and others from along the Road, as well as Japanese, Koreans and
Malays from the east. Many were missionaries, merchants or pilgrims, but every other
occupation was also represented. Rare plants, medicines, spices and other goods from
the west were to be found in the bazaars of the city. It is quite clear, however, despite
the exotic imports, that the Chinese regarded all foreigners as barbarians; the gifts
provided for the Emperors by foreign rulers were simply considered as tribute from
vassal states.
After the Tang, however, the traffic along the road subsided, along with the grotto
building and art of the period. The Five Dynasties period did not maintain the internal
stability of the Tang dynasty, and again neighbouring states started to plunder the
caravans. China was partially unified again in the Song dynasty, but the Silk Road was
not as important as it had been in the Tang.
From the point of view of those in the far west, China was still an unknown territory,
and silk production was not understood. Since the days of Alexander the Great, there
had been some knowledge of India, but there was no real knowledge of, or contact with,
the `Seres' until about the 7th century, when information started to filter along the Road.
It was at this time that the rise of Islam started to affect Asia, and a curtain came down
between the east and west. Trade relations soon resumed, however, with the Moslems
playing the part of middlemen. The sea route to China was explored at this time, and the
`Sea Silk Route' was opened, eventually holding a more important place than the land
route itself, as the land route became less profitable.
But the final shake-up that occurred was to come from a different direction; the hoards
from the grasslands of Mongolia.
The Mongols
Trade along the route was adversely affected by the strife which built up between the
Christian and Moslem worlds. The Crusades brought the Christian world a little nearer
to Central Asia, but the unified Moslem armies under Saladin drove them back again. In
the Fourth Crusade, the forces of Latin Christianity scored a triumph over their Greek
rivals, with the capture of Constantinople (Istanbul). However, it was not the Christians
who finally split the Moslem world, but the Mongols from the east. Whilst Europe and
Western Asia were torn by religious differences, the Mongols had only the vaguest of
religious beliefs. Several of the tribes of Turkestan which had launched offensives
westwards towards Persia and Arabia, came to adopt Islam, and Islam had spread far
across Central Asia, but had not reached as far as the tribes which wandered the vast
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grasslands of Mongolia. These nomadic peoples had perfected the arts of archery and
horsemanship. With an eye to expanding their sphere of influence, they met in 1206 and
elected a leader for their unified forces; he took the title Great Khan. Under the
leadership of Genghis Khan, they rapidly proceeded to conquer a huge region of Asia.
The former Han city of Jiaohe, to the west of Turfan, was decimated by the Mongols as
they passed through on their way westwards. The Empire they carved out enveloped the
whole of Central Asia from China to Persia, and stretched as far west as the
Mediterranean. This Mongol empire was maintained after Genghis' death, with the
western section of the empire divided into three main lordships, falling to various of his
descendents as lesser Khans, and with the eastern part remaining under the rule of the
Great Khan, a title which was inherited from by Kublai Khan. Kubilai completed the
conquest of China, subduing the Song in the South of the country, and established the
Yuan dynasty.
The partial unification of so many states under the Mongol Empire allowed a significant
interaction between cultures of different regions. The route of the Silk Road became
important as a path for communication between different parts of the Empire, and
trading was continued. Although less `civilised' than people in the west, the Mongols
were more open to ideas. Kubilai Khan, in particular, is reported to have been quite
sympathetic to most religions and a large number of people of different nationalities and
creeds took part in the trade across Asia, and settled in China. The most popular religion
in China at the time was Daoism, which at first the Mongols favoured. However, from
the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, buddhist influence increased, and the early
lamaist Buddhism from Tibet was particularly favoured. The two religions existed side
by side for a long period during the Yuan dynasty. This religious liberalism was
extended to all; Christianity first made headway in China in this period, with the first
Roman Catholic arch-bishopric set up in Beijing in 1307. The Nestorian church was
quite widespread in China; Jews and Moslems also populated several of the major cities,
though they do not seem to have made many converts.
It was at this time that Europeans first ventured towards the lands of the `Seres'. The
earliest were probably Fransiscan friars who are reported to have visited the Mongolian
city of Karakorum. The first Europeans to arrive at Kubilai's court were Northern
European traders, who arrived in 1261. However, the most well known and best
documented visitor was the Italian Marco Polo. As a member of a merchant family from
Venice, he was a good businessman and a keen observer. Starting in 1271, at the age of
only seventeen, his travels with his father and uncle took him across Persia, and then
along the southern branch of the Silk Road, via Khotan, finally ending at the court of
Kubilai Khan at Khanbalik, the site of present-day Beijing, and the summer palace,
better known as Xanadu. He travelled quite extensively in China, before returning to
Italy by ship, via Sumatra and India to Hormuz and Constantinople.
He describes the way of life in the cities and small kingdoms through which his party
passed, with particular interest on the trade and marriage customs. His classification of
other races centre mainly on their religion, and he looks at things with the eyes of one
brought up under the auspices of the Catholic Church; it is therefore not surprising that
he has a great mistrust of the Moslems, but he seems to have viewed the `Idolaters'
(Buddhists and Hindus) with more tolerance. He judges towns and countryside in terms
of productivity; he appears to have been quick to observe available sources of food and
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water along the way, and to size up the products and manufacture techniques of the
places they passed through. His description of exotic plants and beasts are sufficiently
accurate to be quite easily recognizable, and better than most of the textbooks of the
period. He seems to have shown little interest in the history of the regions he was
passing through, however, and his reports of military campaigns are full of inaccuracies,
though this might be due to other additions or misinformation.
The `Travels' were not actually written by Marco Polo himself. After his return to the
West in 1295, he was captured as a prisoner of war in Genoa, when serving in the
Venetian forces. Whilst detained in prison for a year, he met Rustichello of Pisa, a
relatively well-known romance writer and a fellow prisoner of war. Rustichello was
obviously attracted to the possibilities of writing a romantic tale of adventure about
Polo's travels; it should be remembered that the book was written for entertainment
rather than as a historic document. However, the collaboration between them, assuming
that the story has not been embroidered excessively by Rustichello, gives an interesting
picture of life along the Silk Road in the time of the Khans. Some of the tales are no
doubt due to the romance-writing instincts of Rustichello, and some of those due to Polo
are at best third-hand reports from people he met; however, much of the material can be
verified against Chinese and Persian records. As a whole, the book captured public
notice at the time, and added much to what was known of Asian geography, customs
and natural history.
The Decline of the Route
However, the Mongolian Empire was to be fairly short-lived. Splits between the
different khans had erupted as early as 1262. Although the East was considerably more
stable, especially under the rule of Kubilai, it also succumbed to a resurgence of
Chinese nationalism, and after several minor local rebellions in the first few decades of
the fourteenth century, principally in the south of China, the Yuan dynasty was finally
replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. With the disintegration of the Mongol empire,
the revival of Islam and the isolationist policies of the Ming dynasty, the barriers rose
again on the land route between East and West.
Despite the presence of the Mongols, trade along the Silk Road never reached the
heights that it did in the Tang dynasty. The steady advance of Islam, temporarily halted
by the Mongols, continued until it formed a major force across Central Asia,
surrounding the Taklimakan like Buddhism had almost a millennium earlier. The
artwork of the region suffered under the encroach of Islam. Whereas the Buddhist artists
had concentrated on figures in painting and sculpture, the human form was scorned in
Islamic artwork; this difference led to the destruction of much of the original artwork.
Many of the grottos have been defaced in this way, particularly at the more accessible
sites such as Bezeklik, near Turfan, where most of the human faces in the remaining
frescoes have been scratched out.
The demise of the Silk Road also owes much to the development of the silk route by sea.
It was becoming rather easier and safer to transport goods by water rather than overland.
Ships had become stronger and more reliable , and the route passed promising new
markets in Southern Asia. The overland problems of `tribal politics' between the
different peoples along the route, and the presence of middlemen, all taking their cut on
the goods, prompted this move. The sea route, however, suffered from the additional
problems of bad weather and pirates. In the early fifteenth century, the Chinese seafarer
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Zhang He commanded seven major maritime expeditions to Southeast Asia and India,
and as far as Arabia and the east coast of Africa. Diplomatic relations were built up with
several countries along the route, and this increase the volume of trade Chinese
merchants brought to the area. In the end, the choice of route depended very much upon
the political climate of the time.
The encroach of the deserts into the inhabited land made life on the edges of the
Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts particularly difficult. Any settlement abandoned for a
while was swallowed by the desert, and so resettlement became increasingly difficult.
These conditions were only suitable in times of peace, when effort could be spent
countering this advance, and maintaining water sources.
The attitude of the later Chinese dynasties was the final blow to the trade route. The
isolationist policies of the Ming dynasties did nothing to encourage trade between China
and the rapidly developing West. This attitude was maintained throughout the Ming and
Qing dynasties, and only started to change after the Western powers began making
inroads into China in the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century, the Qing dynasty subdued the Dzungar people, however, and annexed the
whole Taklimakan region, forming the basis of present-day Xinjiang province. This
restored China to the state it had been in in the Han dynasty, with full control of the
western regions, but also including the territories and Tibet and Mongolia.
However, as trade with the West subsided, so did the traffic along the Road, and all but
the best watered oases survived. The grottos and other religious sites were long since
neglected, now that the local peoples had espoused a new religion, and the old towns
and sites were buried deeper beneath the sands.
Foreign Influence
Renewed interest in the Silk Road only emerged among western scholars towards the
end of the nineteenth century. This emerged after various countries started to explore the
region. The foreign involvement in this area was due mostly to the interest of the
powers of the time in expanding their territories. The British, in particular, were
interested in consolidating some of the land north of their Indian territories. The first
official trip for the Survey of India was in 1863, and soon afterwards, the existence of
ancient cities lost in the desert was confirmed. A trade delegation was sent to Kashgar in
1890, and the British were eventually to set up a consulate in 1908. They saw the
presence of Russia as a threat to the trade developing between Kashgar and India, and
the power struggle between these two empires in this region came to be referred to as
the `Great Game'. British agents (mostly Indians) crossed the Himalayas from Ladakh
and India to Kashgar, travelling as merchants, and gathering what information they
could, including surveying the geography of the route. At a similar time, Russians were
entering from the north; most were botanists, geologists or cartographers, but they had
no doubt been briefed to gather whatever intelligence they could. The Russians were the
first to chance on the ruined cities at Turfan. The local treasure hunters were quick to
make the best of these travellers, both in this region and near Kashgar, and noting the
interest the foreigners showed towards the relics, sold them a few of the articles that
they had dug out of the ruins. In this way a few ancient articles and old manuscripts
started to appear in the West. When these reached the hands of Orientalists in Europe,
and the manuscripts were slowly deciphered, they caused a large deal of interest, and
more people were sent out to look out for them.
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The study of the Road really took off after the expeditions of the Swede Sven Hedin in
1895. He was an accomplished cartographer and linguist, and became one of the most
renowned explorers of the time. He crossed the Pamirs to Kashgar, and then set out to
explore the more desolate parts of the region. He even succeeded in making a crossing
of the centre of the Taklimakan, though he was one of only three members of the party
who made it across, the rest succumbing to thirst after their water had run out. He was
intrigued by local legends of demons in the Taklimakan, guarding ancient cities full of
treasure, and met several natives who had chanced upon such places. In his later travels,
he discover several ruined cities on the south side of the desert, and his biggest find, the
city of Loulan, from which he removed a large number of ancient manuscripts.
After Hedin, the archaeological race started. Sir Aurel Stein of Britain and Albert von
Le Coq of Germany were the principle players, though the Russians and French, and
then the Japanese, quickly followed suit. There followed a period of frenzied digging
around the edges of the Taklimakan, to discover as much as possible about the old
Buddhist culture that had existed long before. The dryness of the climate, coupled with
the exceedingly hot summers and cold winters, made this particularly difficult. However
the enthusiasm to discover more of the treasures of the region, as well as the
competition between the individuals and nations involved, drove them to continue.
Although they produced reports of what they discovered, their excavation techniques
were often far from scientific, and they removed whatever they could from the sites in
large packing cases for transport to the museums at home. The manuscripts were
probably the most highly prized of the finds; tales of local people throwing these old
scrolls into rivers as rubbish tormented them. Removal of these from China probably
did help preserve them. However, the frescoes from the grottos also attracted their
attention, and many of the best ones were cut into sections, and carefully peeled off the
wall with a layer of plaster; these were then packaged very carefully for transport. To
their credit, almost all these murals survived the journey, albeit in pieces.
The crowning discovery was of a walled-up library within the Mogao grottos at
Dunhuang. This contained a stack of thousands of manuscripts, Buddhist paintings and
silk temple banners. The manuscripts were in Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uyghur and
several other less widely known languages, and they covered a wide range of subjects;
everything from sections of the Lutras Sutra to stories and ballads from the Tang
dynasty and before. Among these is what is believed to be the world's oldest printed
book. This hoard had been discovered by a Daoist monk at the beginning of the
twentieth century, and he had appointed himself as their protector. The Chinese
authorities appear to have been aware of the existence of the library, but were perhaps
not fully aware of its significance, and they had decided to leave the contents where
they were, under the protection of the monk. On hearing of this hoard, Stein came to see
them; he gradually persuaded the monk to part with a few of the best for a small
donation towards the rebuilding of the temple there. On successive visits, he removed
larger quantities; the French archaeologist Pelliot also got wind of this discovery, and
managed to obtain some. The frescoes at Dunhuang were also some of the best on the
whole route, and many of the most beautiful ones were removed by the American
professor Langdon Warner and his party.
The archaeological free-for-all came to a close after a change in the political scene. On
25th May 1925 a student demonstration in the treaty port of Shanghai was broken up by
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the British by opening fire on them, killing a number of the rioters. This instantly
created a wave of anti-foreign hostility throughout China, and effectively brought the
explorations of the Western Archaeologists to an end. The Chinese authorities started to
take a much harsher view of the foreign intervention, and made the organisation of the
trips much more difficult; they started to insist that all finds should be turned over to the
relevant Chinese organs. This effectively brought an end to foreign exploration of the
region.
The treasures of the ancient Silk Road are now scattered around museums in perhaps as
many as a dozen countries. The biggest collections are in the British Museum and in
Delhi, due to Stein and in Berlin, due to von Le Coq. The manuscripts attracted a lot of
scholarly interest, and deciphering them is still not quite complete. Most of them are
now in the British Library, and available for specialist study, but not on display. A large
proportion of the Berlin treasures were lost during the Second World War; twenty eight
of the largest frescoes, which had been attached to the walls of the old Ethnological
Museum in Berlin for the purposes of display to the public, were lost in an Allied Air
Force bombing raids between 1943 and 1945. A huge quantity of material brought back
to London by Stein has mostly remained where it was put; museums can never afford
the space to show more than just a few of the better relics, especially not one with such
a large worldwide historical coverage as the British Museum.
The Chinese have understandably taken a harsh view of the `treasure seeking' of these
early Western archaeologists. Much play is made on the removal of such a large
quantity of artwork from the country when it was in no state to formally complain, and
when the western regions, in particular, were under the control of a succession of
warlord leaders. There is a feeling that the West was taking advantage of the relatively
undeveloped China, and that many of the treasures would have been much better
preserved in China itself. This is not entirely true; many of the grottos were crumbling
after more than a thousand years of earthquakes, and substantial destruction was
wrought by farmers improving the irrigation systems. Between the visits of Stein and
Warner to Dunhuang, a group of White Russian soldiers fleeing into China had passed
by, and defaced many of the best remaining frescoes to such an extent that the irate
Warner decided to `salvage' as much as he could of the rest. The Chinese authorities at
the time seem to have known about the art treasures of places like Dunhuang, but don't
seem to have been prepared to protect them; the serious work of protection and
restoration was left until the formation of the People's Republic.
Their only consolation is that many of the scrolls which had been purchased from native
treasure-hunters at the western end of the Taklimakan at the beginning of the century
were later found to have been remarkably good forgeries. Many were produced by an
enterprising Moslem in Khotan, who had sensed how much money would be involved
in this trade. This severely embarrassed a number of Western Orientalists, but the
number of people misled attests to their quality.
The Present Day
The Silk Road, after a long period of hibernation, has been increasing in importance
again recently.
The fight of man against the desert, one of the biggest problems for the early travellers,
is finally gaining ground. There has been some progress in controlling the progress of
the shifting sands, which had previously meant having to resite settlements. The
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construction of roads around the edges of the Taklimakan has eased access, and the
discovery of large oil reserves under the desert has encouraged this development. The
area is rapidly being industrialised, and Urumchi, the present capital of Xinjiang, has
become a particularly unprepossessing Han Chinese industrial city.
The trade route itself is also being reopened. The sluggish trade between the peoples of
Xinjiang and those of the Soviet Union has developed quickly; trade with the C.I.S. is
picking up rapidly with a flourishing trade in consumer items as well as heavy industry.
The new Central Asian republics had previously contributed much of the heavy industry
of the former Soviet Union, with a reliance for consumer goods on Russia. Trade with
China is therefore starting to fulfill this demand. This trading has been encouraged by
the recent trend towards a `socialist market economy' in China, and the increasing
freedom of movement being allowed, particularly for the minorities such as those in
Xinjiang. Many of these nationalities are now participating in cross-border trade,
regularly making the journey to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The railway connecting Lanzhou to Urumchi has been extended to the border with
Kazakhstan, where on 12th September 1990 it was finally joined to the former Soviet
railway system, providing an important route to the new republics and beyond. This
Eurasian Continental Bridge, built to rival the Trans-Siberian Railway, has been
constructed from LianYunGang city in Jiangsu province (on the East China coast) to
Rotterdam; the first phase of this development has already been completed, and the
official opening of the railway was held on 1st December 1992. It is already promised
to be at least 20% cheaper than the route by sea, and at 11,000 kilometres is
significantly shorter. From China the route passes through Kazakhstan, Russia,
Byelorussia and Poland, before reaching Germany and the Netherlands. The
double-tracking of the railway from Lanzhou to the border of the C.I.S. has now been
put high on the Chinese development priority list.
Restoration and Tourism
Since the intervention of the West last century, interest has been growing in this ancient
trade route. The books written by Stein, Hedin and others have brought the perceived
oriental mystery of the route into western common knowledge. Instilled with such
romantic ideals as following in the footsteps of Marco Polo, a rapidly increasing
number of people have been interested in visiting these desolate places. Since China
opened its doors to foreign tourists at the end of the 1970s, it has realised how much
foreign currency can be brought to the country by tapping this tourist potential. This has
encouraged the authorities to do their best to protect the remaining sites; restoration of
many of the sites is presently underway. The Mogao grottos were probably the first
place to attract this attention; the Dunhuang Research Institute has been studying and
preserving the remains of the grottos, as well as what was left of the library. Restoration
is presently underway; the outside of the grottos was faced in a special concrete to
prevent further subsidence, and some of the murals are being touched up by a team of
specially trained artists and craftsmen.
Archaeological excavations have been started by the Chinese where the foreigners laid
off; significant finds have been produced from such sites as the Astana tombs, where the
dead from the city of Gaochang were buried. Finds of murals and clothing amongst the
grave goods have increased knowledge of life along the old Silk Road; the dryness of
the climate has helped preserve the bodies of the dead, as well as their garments.
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There is still a lot to see around the Taklimakan, mostly in the form of damaged grottos
and ruined cities. Whilst some people are drawn by the archaeology, others are attracted
by the minority peoples; there are thirteen different races of people in the region, apart
from the Han Chinese, from the Tibetans and Mongolians in the east of the region, to
the Tajik, Kazakhs and Uzbeks in the west. Others are drawn to the mysterious cities
such as Kashgar, where the Sunday market maintains much of the old Silk Road spirit,
with people of many different nationalities selling everything from spice and wool to
livestock and silver knives. Many of the present-day travelers are Japanese, visiting the
places where their Buddhist religion passed on its way to Japan.
Although Xinjiang is opening up, it is still not an easy place to travel around. Apart
from the harsh climate and geography, many of the places are not fully open yet, and,
perhaps understandably, the authorities are not keen on allowing foreigners to wander
wherever they like, as Hedin and his successors had done. The desolation of the place
makes it ideal for such aspects of modern life as rocket launching and nuclear bomb
testing. Nevertheless, many sites can be reached without too much trouble, and there is
still much to see.
Conclusions
From its birth before Christ, through the heights of the Tang dynasty, until its slow
demise six to seven hundred years ago, the Silk Road has had a unique role in foreign
trade and political relations, stretching far beyond the bounds of Asia itself. It has left its
mark on the development of civilisations on both sides of the continent. However, the
route has merely fallen into disuse; its story is far from over. With the latest
developments, and the changes in political and economic systems, the edges of the
Taklimakan may yet see international trade once again, on a scale considerably greater
than that of old, the iron horse replacing the camels and horses of the past.
BOOKS
Peter Hopkirk, `Foreign Devils on the Silk Road', Oxford U.P., 1980.
`China: A Guidebook to Xinjiang', Xinjiang Educational Press, Urumqi 1988.
Marco Polo, `The Travels', translated by R. Latham, Penguin, 1958.
Jin Bohong, `In the footsteps of Marco Polo', New World Press, Beijing 1989.
Xinjiang Educational Press, `China: A Guidebook to Xinjiang', Urumqi 1988.
Shaanxi Travel and Tourism Press, `The 40 Scenic Spots along the Silk Road', Xian
(1990****?)
Zhang Yehan (Ed.), `Si Lu You (Silk Road Tour)', Xinjiang People's Publishing House,
Urumchi, Vol.1 (1988), Vol.2 (1990).
Brian Hook (Ed.) `The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China', Cambridge U.P., (1991,2nd
ed.)
Also the exhibition `The Crossroads of Asia', Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), on
until mid-December 1992.
The Silk Road - Pictures
The story of one of the world's oldest and most historically important trade routes and
its influences on the culture of China, Central Asia and the West
Oliver Wild, 1992
115
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Camels
Dunes at Dunhuang
Jiayuguan Fort
Ruins at Gaochang
Xian Market
Kashgar Market
Kashgar Mosque
Bezeklik Grottoes
The mouth of the Hexi corridor in Gansu, where the Gobi meets the Taklimakan. A herd
of camel flee from the oncoming train. Only the telegraph wires and the distant greenery
on the edge of the Qilian Mountain Range reveal the presence of mankind.
116
A group of chinese tourists enjoy the singing sands on the edge of Mingshashan as dusk
settles over the Dunhuang oasis; behind the stony Taklimakan lurks menacingly, kept
temporarily at bay by the irrigation systems built up with the hard toil of local people
over countless generations.
The fort at Jiayuguan marks the Western end of the Great Wall. The most rececnt fort
mwas built as late as the Ming Dynasty; the massive fortifications are still clearly
evident and only the wooden gate towers have been recently restored.
The ruins of Gaochang city, near Turfan. More than 1500 years ago this city was the
centre of the Huihe kingdom; now the local Uygur people tend their flocks of sheep and
goats in what were once the houses and streets of the provincial capital.
117
The muslim food street in Xian, the modern city that was once Changan, the Tang
Dynasty capital. This street leads off the main westward thoroughfare only a stone's
throw from the Drum Tower in the centre of the city which could justifiably lay claim to
being the eastern end of the Silk Road; much of the muslim culture of Western China is
still in evidence here.
A corner of the sunday market in Kashgar, the former crossroads of Asia, where the the
spirit of the Silk Road lives on. Every week, the different peoples from Western China
are joined by countless others from Pakistan and the former Soviet Republics in one of
118
the world's busiest and most lively open-air markets. In this quiet corner a Uygur trader
sells spices, many of which have no doubt come from much further afield.
The Silkroad (Sichou zhi lu 絲綢之路)

Prehistory and Xia
The Silkroad (or Silk Road; Chinese: Sichou zhi lu 絲綢之路) or rather

Shang
the "silkroads" is the most famous and longest trade route of human

Zhou
history. It served as a path not only for items and goods being

Qin
transportated from east to west and vice versa, but also as a door for

Han and Xin
foreign

Three Kingdoms
Zoroastrianism,

Jin
knowledge (Indian and Arab astronomy and mathematics) and foreign

16 Barbarian States
arts (music, dance, painting, handicrafts) enriching China and for

Southern Dynasties
Chinese culture and knowledge leaving the motherland and spreading to

Northern Dynasties
the west. The most important good leaving China and wandering to the

Sui
west was the silk, hence the name of the road(s), but Chinese

Tang
knowledge also left China to wander to the west (bookprinting,

Five Dynasties
moxibustion, rhubarb, paper making, compass, porcelain). The name

Ten States
"silkroad" was first created by the German scholar Richthofen in 1877.

Song
From the begin of the 20th century on archeologists like the Swede

Liao (Khitan)
Sven Hedin started to rediscover the old trade routes that had stretched

Jin (Jurchen)
from the Chinese capital Chang'an 長安 (modern Xi'an/Shaanxi) to

Western Xia (Tanguts)
Persia and the Mediterranean Sea from the Han Dynasty 漢 to the end

Yuan (Mongols)
of the Tang period 唐.

Ming

Qing (Manchu)

Republic of China (1911-49)

People's Republic
The technique of silk production and weaving was fully developed in

Taiwan R.O.C.
the beginning bronze age of China (Shang period 商), and at the begin
ideas,
foreign
religions
Nestorianism,
Islam),
(Buddhism,
foreign
Manicheism,
cultures,
foreign
History of the Silkroad
of Han the neighboring people of the northwestern steppe highly
estimated silk fabrics. Peoples like the Wusun 烏孫, Yuezhi 月氏, and
Xiongnu 匈 奴 controlled the ways to Inner Asia and acted as
intermediary traders. In the late 2nd century BC the belligerent emperor
Han Wudi 漢武帝 conquered the territories of the northwest to get rid
of the tributary pressure of the intruding and robbing Xiongnu tribes.
He installed the commanderies Jiuquan 酒泉, Wuwei 武威, Zhangyi
張掖, and Dunhuang 敦煌 where Chinese soldiers were deployed and
had to supply themselves with agrarian military colonies (tuntian 屯
田). Additionally, forts and fortified walls (later known as the Great
Wall, Changcheng 長城) were constructed to prevent the Xiongnu
from plundering Chinese villages. To administer and to control these
regions, a Protectorate of the Western Regions (Xiyu duhu 西域都護)
was installed, and the Han court often interfered into the politics of the
city states along the silkroad. Along the silkroad, China sent
embassadors to kingdoms and empires in the west, one of them called
Daqin 大秦 that some scholars identify with Rome.
After the political center of the unified empire collapsed with the end of
119
Eastern Han, and during the three centuries of the division between
north and south (Southern and Northern Dynasties, Nanbeichao 南北
朝 ) trade and political and cultural exchange along the silkroad
increased, and trade centers like the commandery Dunhuang developed
a vivid cultural and religious life. With the foundation of the Sui 隋
and shortly after the Tang Dynasty 唐 the regular trade with the
Central Asian kingdoms became crucial for the social and economic life
of the capital Chang'an. The Tang government installed four garrisons
(sizhen 四鎮) to administer the protectorate of the "Pacified West"
(Anxi duhufu 安 西 都 護 府 ), Qiuci 龜 茲 (Kucha), Yanqi 焉 耆
(Karashar), Yutian 于闐 (Khotan), and Shule 疏勒 (Kashgar). After
the end of Tang the Chinese government and economy of Song 宋
oriented more to the seashore and the trade with Korea, Japan,
Southeast Asia and India, and the trade routes along the silkroad were
again controlled by Non-Chinese empires like the Khitan-Liao 遼,
Jurchen-Jin 金 and Tangut-Xixia 西夏. The Mongols that controlled
Asia from China to Eastern Europe again allowed a continuous passage
from the Near East to the capital in modern Beijing. Marco Polo and
many other traders and missionaries followed the silkroad to enter the
realm of the mighty qaghan Khubilai.
Geography of the Silkroad
For more details see citystates of the silkroad. The silkroad started in
the Han and Tang capitals Chang'an 長安 and Luoyang 洛陽 and
lead through the Gansu corridor along the commanderies Wuwei 武威,
Zhangyi 張掖, Jiuquan 酒泉 and Dunhuang 敦煌 to the Yumen Pass
玉門關 and the Yangguan Pass 陽關 from where the road first ended
in Loulan 樓蘭 (northwest of Lop Nur Lake 羅布泊/Xinjiang, today
buried under sand dunes). From there, the silkroad separated in a
northern route and a southern route to by-pass the Taklamakan desert.
The northern route passed Yiwu 伊吾, Cheshi 車師 , Gaochang 高昌,
Yanqi 焉耆, Weixu 危須, Quli 渠犁, Wulei 烏壘, Luntai 輪台, Qiuci
龜茲, Gumo 姑墨 to Shule 疏勒. The southern route passed Shanshan
鄯善, Qiemo 且末, Yumi 扜彌, Yutian 于闐, Pishan 皮山, Shache
莎車, and met the northern route in Shule. Today, many cities of the
southern route have been swallowed by the desert. A second northern
route was opened in Later Han and lead along Yiwulu 伊 吾 廬
(modern Hami 哈密), Liuzhong 柳中, Gaochangbi 高昌壁, Cheshi
車師, Jiaohecheng 交河城 (near modern Turpan 吐魯番), crossed the
Tianshan and ended in Yanqi 焉耆 and Qiuci. During the division in
south and north, the Southern Dynasties (Nanchao 南朝) reached the
silkroad via modern Sichuan and Qinghai that was dominated by the
Tuyuhun 吐谷渾 realm. From Shule, the silkroad stretched on to the
120
empire of Dayuan 大 宛 and from there on divided into many
sideroutes to Eastern Europe, Persia and India.
The Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, spiritual centre of the town. Islam was one of the later
imports along the Road, and now has a firm footing throughout Xinjiang.
The Bezeklik Grottoes in the Flaming Mountains near Turfan hang precariously off a
cliff above a steep gorge. However, the Buddhist carvings and murals within these
caves were not sufficiently remote to escape both the onslaught of Islam and the
intensions of foreign archaeologists and treasure seekers. Now there is a new threat: that
of numerous coach loads of foreign and domestic tourists, keen to see what's left.
The Warsaw Pact, 1955
TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP, CO-OPERATION AND MUTUAL ASSISTANCE'
Between the People's Republic of Albania, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the
Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Polish People's
121
Republic, the Rumanian People's Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and
the Czechoslovak Republic, May 1, 1955
The contracting parties,
Reaffirming their desire for the organisation of a system of collective security in Europe,
with the participation of all the European states, irrespective of their social and state
systems, which would make it possible to combine their efforts in the interests of
securing peace in Europe,
Taking into consideration at the same tirne the situation obtaining in Europe as the
result of ratification of the Paris agreements, which provide for the formation of a new
military grouping in the shape of the "Western European Union" together with a
remilitarised Western Germany, and for the integration of Western Germany in the
North Atlantic bloc, which increases the threat of another war and creates a menace to
the national security of the peaceloving states,
Convinced that, under these circumstances, the peaccloving states of Europe should take
the necessary measures for safeguarding their security, and in the interests of
maintaining peace in Europe,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter,
In the interests of further strengthening and promoting friendship, co-opcration and
mutual assistance, in accordance with the principles of respect for the independence and
sovereignty of states, and also with the principle of noninterference in their internal
affairs,
Have resolved to conclude this Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual
Assistance, . . .
Article 1. The contracting parties undertake, in accordance with the Charter of the
United Nations Organisation, to refrain in their international relations from the threat or
use of force, and to settle their international disputes by peaceful means so as not to
endanger international peace and security.
Article 2. The contracting parties declare their readiness to take part, in the spirit of
sincere co-operation, in all international undertakings intended to safeguard
international peace and security and they shall use all their energies for the realisation of
these aims.
Moreover, the contracting parties shall work for the adoption, in agreement with other
states desiring to co-operate in this matter, of effective measures towards a general
reduction of armaments and prohibition of atomic, hydrogen and other weapons of mass
destruction.
Article 3. The contracting parties shall take council among themselves on all important
international questions relating to their common interests, guided by the interests of
strengthening international peace and security.
They shall take council among themselves immediately, whenever, in the opinion of
any of them, there has arisen the threat of an armed attack on one or several states that
are signatories of the treaty, in the interests of organising their joint defence and of
upholding peace and security.
Article 4. In the event of an armed attack in Europe on one or several states that are
signatories of the treaty by any state or group of states, each state that is a party to this
treaty shall, in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defence in
accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations Organisation, render the
122
state or states so attacked immediate assistance, individually and in agreement with
other states that are parties to this treaty, by all the means it may consider necessary,
including the use of armed force. The states that are parties to this treaty shall
immediately take council among themselves concerning the necessary joint measures to
be adopted for the purpose of restoring and upholding international peace and security.
In accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations Organisation, the
Security Council shall be advised of the measures taken on the basis of the present
article. These measures shall be stopped as soon as the Security Council has taken the
necessary measures for restoring and upholding international peace and security-.
Article 5. The contracting parties have agreed on the establishment of a joint command
for their armed forces, which shall be placed, by agreement among these parties, under
this command, which shall function on the basis of jointly defined principles. They shall
also take other concerted measures necessary for strengthening their defence capacity,
in order to safeguard the peaceful labour of their peoples, to guarantee the inviolability
of their frontiers and territories and to provide safeguards against possible aggression.
Article 6. For the purpose of holding the consultations provided for in the present treaty
among the states that are parties to the treaty, and for the purpose of considering
problems arising in connection with the implementation of this treaty, a political
consultative committee shall be formed in which each state that is a party to this treaty
shall be represented by a member of the government, or any other specially appointed
representative.
The committee may, form the auxiliary organs for which the need may arise.
Article 7. The contracting parties undertake not to participate in any coalitions and
alliances, and not to conclude any agreements the purposes of which would be at
variance with those of the present treaty.
The contracting parties declare that their obligations under existing international treaties
are not at variance with the provisions of this treaty.
Article 8. The contracting parties declare that they will act in the spirit of friendship and
co-operation with the object of furthering the development of, and strengthening the
economic and cultural relations between them, adliering to the principles of mutual
respect for their independence and sovereignty, and of non-interference in their internal
affairs.
Article 9. The present treaty is open to be acceded to by other states-irrespective of their
social and state systems-which may express their readiness to assist, through
participation in the present treaty, in combining the efforts of the peaccloving states for
the purpose of safeguarding the peace and security, of nations. This act of acceding to
the treaty shall become effective, with the consent of the states that are parties to this
treaty, after the instrument of accedence has been deposited with the government of the
Polish People's Republic.
Article 10. The present treaty is subject to ratification, and the instruments of ratification
shall be deposited with the government of the Polish People's Republic.
The treaty shall take effect on the date on which the last ratification instrument is
deposited. The government of the Polish People's Republic shall advise the other states
that are parties to the treaty of each ratification instrument deposited with it.
Article 11. The present treaty shall remain in force for 20 years. For the contracting
parties which will not have submitted to the government of the Polish People's Republic
123
a statement denouncing the treaty a year before the expiration of its term, it shall remain
in force throughout the following ten years.
In the event of the organisation of a system of collective security in Europe and the
conclusion of a general European treaty of collective security to that end, which the
contracting parties shall unceasingly seek to bring about, the present treaty shall cease to
be effective on the date the general European treaty comes into force.
Done in Warsaw, on May 1, 1955, in one copy each in the Russian, Polish, Czech, and
German languages, all the texts being equally authentic. Certified copies of the present
treaty shall be transmitted by the government of the Polish People's Republic to all the
parties to this treaty.
Source:
from Soviet News, No. 3165 (May 16, 1955), pp. 1-2.
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a
collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in
modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No
permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
© Paul Halsall, November 1998
halsall@fordham.edu
华沙条约组织
华沙公约组织（简称华约组织或华约，俄语：
Организация Варшавского Договора）是为对抗北
大西洋公约组织而成立的政治军事同盟。1955 年德
意志联邦共和国（西德）加入北约后，欧洲社会主义
阵营国家（包括德意志民主共和国即东德）签署了《华沙公约》，全称《阿尔巴尼
亚人民共和国、保加利亚人民共和国、匈牙利人民共和国、德意志民主共和国、
波兰人民共和国、罗马尼亚人民共和国、苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟、捷克斯洛
伐克共和国友好合作互助条约》。该条约由原苏联领导人赫鲁晓夫起草，1955 年 5
月 14 日于波兰首都华沙签署，东欧社会主义国家除南斯拉夫以外，全部加入华约
组织。条约规定：“如果在欧洲发生了任何国家或国家集团对一个或几个缔约国的
武装进攻，每一缔约国应……以一切她认为必要的方式，包括使用武装部队，立
即对遭受这种进攻的某一个或几个国家给予援助。”
华沙公约的组织机构
政治协商委员会，最高决策机构，由各缔约国党的第一书记、总理、国防部长和
外交部长组成。负责协商和决定缔约国的国防、政治、外交和经济等重大问题。
下设常设委员会（驻莫斯科），联合秘书处（执行机构，设在莫斯科）。
国防部长委员会，最高军事机构。由缔约国国防部长、华约联合武装部队总司令
和总参谋长等人组成。主要任务是研究共同的军事政策及联合武装部队的训练、
演习、组织建设等问题。
外交部长委员会。负责协商各缔约国的对外政策。
124
联合武装部队司令部，军事指挥机构。负责对华约武装部队的领导、训练、装备
和调动等。各缔约国派一名将军作为常驻代表，苏联国防部第一副部长任总司令，
其他成员国的国防部长或副部长任副总司令。
成员国
苏联
阿尔巴尼亚社会主义人民共和国
保加利亚人民共和国
罗马尼亚社会主义共和国
德意志民主共和国(东德)
匈牙利人民共和国
波兰人民共和国
捷克斯洛伐克社会主义共和国
观察国
越南
蒙古人民共和国
老挝
影响和结局
北约、华约两大国际组织的成立，标志着双方以冷战形式的军事对抗正式开始。
1968 年 8 月，捷克斯洛伐克发生布拉格之春的改革运动，华约组织武装力量在苏
联的牵头下大规模武装入侵捷克斯洛伐克，招致普遍抗议。阿尔巴尼亚于同年 9
月 13 日宣布退出华约。
1990 年 10 月 3 日东德与西德统一后退出华约。华约于 1991 年 3 月 31 日停止一切
活动，官方于 1991 年 7 月 1 日在捷克斯洛伐克首都布拉格签署了关于华沙公约停
止生效的议定书，华沙公约正式宣布解散。
Lesson 9
I. Objectives
1. Students will be able to tell the basic elements of a short story.
2. Students will be able to define the setting, the conflict and the theme of the story.
3. Students will learn to use the active words and the set phrases in the text in an
appropriate way.
4. Students will be able to retell the story in their own words or by the use of the
newly-picked-up
words
125
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work and the study of the first part of the text (1.5 hours)
2. The study of the second part of the text (1.5 hours)
3. The exercises (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
1. Language points
1).Key vocabulary and key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
2).Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
2. Text reading comprehension
1).What are the double meanings of the title? What are two different ways to interpret
the title?
2).What is the theme of the story?
3). How did the writer inspire fear without obvious bloodshed?
More Reading comprehension questions: Refer to the textbook P276
IV. Suggested Class Activities
1. Students will be asked to draw the Malay man-catcher and the Burmese tiger pit.
2. Oral work 1: Retell the five rounds of their contest one by one.
3. Oral work 2: At the end of the story, it is not clear if Rainsford will leave the island or
take Zaroff's place. After the hunt, do you think Rainsford will become more like General
Zaroff? Why or why not?
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Students will be asked to finish the exercises by themselves before the exercise
class.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Unit 9
Text A: The Most Dangerous Game
I. Morning Report
126
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
3. Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found to
the class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
4. Since students have done a research about the features of a good short story before
class, ask them to have a group discussion on the following topics:
a. What is the genre of this article?
b. What are the basic elements of a short story?
c. What is a good description?
d. How to present the main characters effectively.
B. In-class Tasks
1. Students are required to present what background knowledge in the text they have
explored during their study of the text.
Background information about the story and the writer:
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, gained favorable recognition upon its
initial publication in 1924, winning the prestigious O. Henry Memorial Award for short
fiction. Its popularity was further established when the first film version of the story was
produced in 1932. Alternately known as The Most Dangerous Game and The Hounds of
Zaroff, the film tampered notably with Connell's plot, particularly in the introduction of
a female character. The story's theme, that of the hunter becoming the hunted, has
become a popular one in other books and films since Connell's version appeared.
1920s: Big game hunting in African and South American countries is popular with
wealthy Europeans and Americans. In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt and his son killed 512
animals on an African safari.
Today: Most big game hunting in Africa and South America is illegal due to dwindling
animal population. The number of tourists visiting these areas, however, has reached
record highs.
127
Go to URL http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.1317/ to read the
complete story of The Most Dangerous Game.
2. Role-play of the story
3. Group discussion: What are the double meanings of the title? What are two different
ways to interpret the title?
？Game: Game1 — competition—hunting
Game2—quarry—a human being (Rainsford)
？The most dangerous: the game2 in this game1 has the most advanced intelligence
in the globe—human being.
4. Group discussion and presentation on the Organization of the story
Part I: (Para. 1—14) the beginning of the game
Part II: (Para. 15-25) the first round of the game: Zaroff scored
Part III: (Para. 26-28) the second round of the game: Zaroff got injured
Part IV: (Para29—32) the third round of the game: Zaroff lost one of his best dogs
Part V: (Para 33—37) the fourth round of the game: Zaroff lost Ivan
Part IV: (Para.38--45) the fifth round of the game: Zaroff lost his life
Part IIV: (Para.46) the ending of the game
5. Group discussion: How can the story successfully engage the readers’ interest and
emotion?
·an attractive plot
·a vivid characterization
·a successful description of the setting
6. Ask students to retell the five rounds of their contest one by one.
7. Group discussion: Do you find anything in the detailed descriptions that shows
Rainsford to be an experienced hunter?
8. Ask students to draw the Malay man-catcher and the Burmese tiger pit.
9. Group discussion: At the end of the story, it is not clear if Rainsford will leave the
island or take Zaroff's place. After the hunt, do you think Rainsford will become
more like General Zaroff? Why or why not?
10. Detailed study of the text (please also refer to the reference book)
1). He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. General
128
Zaroff’s face suddenly brightened.
(Para.3)
He saw the general staring at him with his cold, severe and expressionless eyes. The
general’s face suddenly became cheerful.
2). “we will hunt—you and I.”
(Para.4)
Notice how the general made it sound like a fair game instead of saying “I will hunt you
down, and you can try to slip through my fingers. This is one of the many revelations of
the theme—appearance vs. reality.
3). The choice rests entirely with you. (Para.6)
It’s up to you. /It’s for you to decide (whether to play the game or not).
rest with sb. to do sth.: be one’s responsibility to do sth.
4). …his hogshead of a chest.
(Para.7)
his chest is as big and thick as a hogshead( a barrel for beer).
More examples: the devil of a temper, the fool of a doctor
5). And the stake is not without value, er?
(Para. 11)
stake: (usu. plural) money risked on the result of a game or race, all of which is taken
by the winner. Here the stake is life.
Pay attention to another meaning of stake in the latter part of the story—para. 30
6). “I must keep my nerve...” (Para.15)
keep one’s nerve: keep one’s courage. The opposite is lose one’s nerve.
7). He had plunged along, spurred on by a sharp feeling of panic.
(Para16)
be spurred on: be driven, be pushed forward, be stimulated.
8). But now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of
himself and the situation.
(Para16)
get a grip on oneself: calm down; control one’s emotions
take stock of : assess; size up (the situation)
9).
Night found him legweary…
(Para.18)
When night came, he was too tired to walk…
The subject in the sentence is impersonal. More examples:
--The year 2003 witnessed a sharp increase in export.
--The new semester found her fresh and energetic.
129
10). …and stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested.
(Para 18)
after a fashion: to a certain extent, but not satisfactorily
11). …only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry.
(Para 22)
the merest sth.: sth. small and unimportant, yet with big effect
eg. --The merest noise can wake him up.
12). So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that…
(Para 27)
be intent on (doing) sth: be determined to do or achieve sth, esp that may cause
damage, eg.
--He was quite intent on getting that position, by hook or by crook.
13). …but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it.
(Para
27)
If it had not been for his alertness, he would certainly have been crushed to death.
but for: without
--But for his timely warning, there would have been a terrible disaster.
14). An idea that held a wild chance came to him…
(Para 34)
He came up with an idea which held slight chance/possibility…
15). Straining his eyes… (Para 35)
strain one’s eyes: try very hard to see sth.
Cf. strain one’s ears to hear sth. / strain one’s voice to shout sth.
16). Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry
again.
(Para 38)
As soon as Rainsford fell quickly and suddenly to the ground, the pack of dogs began to
bark again.
Refresh students’ memory of the expression: had hardly done sth. when sth else
happened
17). He was deliciously tired.
(Para 39)
It is a figure of speech—oxymoron. Eg. an open secret, a glorious defeat, walking
corpses. For more examples, see exercise 5 on Page 280.
18). He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.
130
decide: come to a conclusion.
There’s a complete list of the set phrases and expressions on page 274.
11. Text B
1).Let the students retell the story.
2).Let the students have a discussion about the organization of the story
IV. Homework
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Text B: The Big Buffalo Bass
1. The Buffalo National River
The Buffalo River, located in northern Arkansas, is the United States' first National
River. The entire Buffalo River is slightly over 150 miles in length, of which the lower
135 miles sit within the boundaries of the area managed by the National Park Service
where it is designated the Buffalo National River. The Buffalo originates in the highest
part of Boston Mountains of the Ozarks, flows out onto the Springfield Plateau near the
historic community of Erbie, and finally crosses the Salem Plateau just before joining
the White River. The park is home to the state's only elk herd. The upper section of the
river in the Ozark National Forest is managed by the U.S. Forest Service as a National
Scenic River and a National Wild River.
The Buffalo National River was created by an Act of Congress on March 1, 1972,
finally putting to rest the recurring plans of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to
construct one or more dams on the river. The designation as a National River protects
natural rivers from industrial uses, dams, empoundments and other obstructions that
change the character of the river and disrupt the natural land and water life that
flourishes there. Beginning as a trickle a little more than 15 miles above the park
boundary in Newton County, Arkansas, the Buffalo River starts as the Main Prong Big
Buffalo Creek. Advanced canoeists and kayakers refer to this section as the Hailstone.
131
On topographic maps, the Buffalo River is shown to form at the confluence of Reeves
Fork and Big Buffalo Creek just northeast of Fallsville. The river then flows north
through Boxley to Ponca, where it begins a west-to-east trek across northern Arkansas
to its confluence with the White River on the Marion-Baxter County Line just south of
Bull Shoals Lake (approximately 14 mi (23 km) southeast of Yellville).
Location of the Buffalo River and Watershed.
Buffalo River from river trail overlook near Steel Creek in the
Boston Mountains.
132
Bluff along the Buffalo River downstream from Ponca.
Along the upper river, the gradient is steep and the water is fast, leveling and slowing as
the river runs its course. The upper section of the river has most of the whitewater
rapids to be found along the river, and features some very beautiful topography, among
which are sink holes and caves, springs and waterfalls, over 500 foot tall sandstone and
limestone bluffs overlooking the river, and many interesting rock formations. At one
point, a half-mile hike off the river up a narrow, boxed canyon leads to a 209-foot
waterfall, Hemmed-in-Hollow falls, the highest of its kind between the Southern
Appalachians and the Rockies. The river's ancient current also gives life to well over
300 species of fish, insects, freshwater mussels, and aquatic plants.
The Buffalo National River is a popular camping, canoeing and fishing destination.
Visitors may bring their own canoes or rent from several independent concessioners.
Camping is generally allowed throughout the park with the following exceptions: the
Hemmed-in-Hollow area, on Big Bluff, in historical structures, on private property
within the park, or within 100 feet of any trail or watercourse. Camping is however
permitted on gravel/sand bars along the river. In addition, the National Park Service has
a number of "developed" campgrounds along the river. These fee-based sites have
parking areas, water, toilets, picnic tables and pay phones.
The National Park Service headquarters for the Buffalo National River is located in
Harrison, Arkansas.
133
2. King Solomon (970-928 BCE)
Solomon's reign was marked by a constant tension between two conflicting orientations:
faithfulness to the God of Israel and fulfillment of the Judaic religious precepts, against
a propensity to yield to the pervasiveforeign influences that penetrated the kingdom as a
result of the obligation simposed by its grandiose nature.
The major undertaking of Solomon's reign - besides his almost complete success in
preserving the kingdom which he inherited fromhis father King David - was the
building of the magnificent Temple to the God of Israel on the summit of Mount Moriah,
a project which his father, for various reasons, had not undertaken.
The resplendent Temple was an expression of the power thatresided in Solomon's
kingdom and of its beneficent foreign relations. The monumental sanctuary received the
symbolic affirmation of the God to whom it was dedicated: "the priests came out of the
sanctuary for the cloud had filled the House ofthe Lord and the priests were not able to
remain and perform the service because of the cloud, for the Presence of the Lord filled
the House of the Lord... "(1 Kings 8:11).Solomon also experienced a divine revelation
in the form of a vision following the conclusion of the dedicatory service: "I have heard
the prayer and the supplication which you have offered to Me. I consecrate this House
which you have built and I set Myname there forever "(1 Kings 9:3). The concentration
of religious ritual in the Temple, together with the institutionalization of the biblical
injunction regarding the pilgrimage festivals, transformed Jerusalem - despite its
unpromising natural features - into an important political and commercial center during
Solomon’s reign. At the same time, the king's earthly imperial rule involved him in the
affairs of the surrounding peoples: "Solomon allied himself by marriage with
Pharaohking of Egypt. He married Pharaoh's daughter and brought her to the City of
David" (1 Kings 3:1), and built her a palace (1 Kings 7:8). This unique historical
evidence of an Egyptian princess leaving her country attests both to Solomon’s power
and Egypt's temporary weakness. However, this marriage, and others he made with
high-born foreigners for political expediency, inclined the king to the culture and
religion of those peoples, causing him to neglect his own God: "At that time Solomon
built a shrine for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the hill near Jerusalem, and one
for Moloch the abomination of the Ammonites. And he did the same for all his foreign
134
wives who offered and sacrificed to their gods" (1 Kings 11:7-8). A strong impression
was also made by the foreign dignitaries who visited Jerusalem, of whom the most
famous is probably the Queen of Sheba. She had " heard of Solomon’s fame, through
the name of the Lord, and she came to test him with hard questions. She arrived in
Jerusalem with a very large retinue, with camels bearing spices, a great quantity of gold
and precious stones" (1 Kings 10:1-2).
3. Language points
paragraph 1
scrubby: small; underdeveloped
Paragraph 6
hanker : hanker after/for sth/to do sth: have a strong desire for sth
Paragraph 18
Hold court: entertain visitors, admirers, etc
Paragraph 22
Taciturn: (in the habit of ) saying very little; uncommunicative
Paragraph 48
Slack: not tight or tense; loose
Paragraph 55:
Dubious: ~ about sth/doing sth: not certain and slightly suspicious about sth; doubtful
Paragraph 58
Inane: without meaning; silly or stupid
4. Assignments
4．Review Lesson 9, focusing on the key words and expression
5．Preview Lesson 10, and list the puzzles in TEXT A in the lesson
135
6．Oral discussion on “live and let live philosophy”
4. Written assignment: how to achieve homonym with nature
Weekly Quiz
I. Spelling
1. torch
6. stake
11. furnish
16. hound
2. stamina
7. repast
12. huskily
17. expanse
3. utmost
8. savagely
13. fable
18. agility
4. varnish
9. mutter
14. dingy
19. legweary
II. Word definition
1. to make or become more cheerful.
( brighten)
2. systematic, efficient
(businesslike )
3. to shrink away in fear
(cower)
4. mad, crazy
(insane)
5. very sad, lamentable
(deplorable)
6. extremely
(exceedingly)
7. to sing a tune without opening the lips or saying words
8. knowledge acquired through education or experience
9. object of pursuit; game
(quarry)
10. extremely enthusiastic (zealous)
5. uncanny
10. placid
15. dodge
20. metallic
(hum)
(lore)
III. Word derivation
1. Flowers brighten up a room. (bright)
2. The acting was deplorable! (deplore)
3. They have been extremely zealous in their attempts to get smoking banned in their
office. (zeal)
4. To his annoyance, he discovered they hadn’t waited. (annoy)
5. You’ve been exceedingly kind. (exceed)
IV. Translation
A. Phrases
1. 勉强凑合的 after a fashion
2. 控制情绪
get a grip on oneself
3. 承认失败
acknowledge one’s defeat
4.误入沼泽
blunder into a swamp
5. 估计形势
take stock of the situation
6．一幅公事公办的样子 in a businesslike air
7．累却快乐着 deliciously tired
8．度日如年
live a year in a minute
9. 极目远眺
strain one’s eyes
10．保持镇静
keep one’s nerve
136
B. Sentences
1.现在中国人比以前吃得好了，穿得好了，也住得好了。
Today Chinese people are better fed, better dressed, and better housed.
2.你这沙拉上放不放调料？
You want the salad dressed or undressed?
3.要不是他的妻子, 他是读不完大学的。
But for his wife, he would never have been able to finish college.
4．这张相片焦距有问题。我们看不清这是谁的脸。
The photo is completely out of focus. We cannot make out whose face it is.
5．你来自何方并不重要，重要的是从你的起点出发你能走多远。
It doesn’t count where you come from. What matters is how far you can go from where
you start.
V. Dictation
Instinct is a complex unlearned response to a stimulus or group of stimuli./
Instinctive behavior and reflex action are often difficult to distinguish./ A true reflex is a
simple, unlearned activity such as swallowing, sucking, and grasping./ An instinct is a
complicated unlearned combination of reflexes.—the flying of birds, for example./ A
habit, on the other hand, is a learned form of behavior/ that becomes largely automatic
through repetition./
In animals below the human level,/ instinctive responses include mating, parental
behavior, ways of securing food,/ and swimming or other methods of locomotion./ Since
20th century, experiments have shown less evidence/ of the existence of instincts in
man./
Today psychologists generally consider instincts to be peculiar to the lower animals,
and avoid the term“instinctive”with regard to human behavior./ many maintain that
anything man does that is not reflex action is something he has learned./
Even in the lower animals/ it is often difficult to tell how much of the behavior is
inborn/ and how much is modified by learning./ for example, each bird of a species
tends to build nests in the same way as others of its species./ however, the nest pattern
and the materials for building can be adapted to the location in which the nest is made.
137
Lesson 10
I. Objectives
1. Helping students appreciate the structural organization and narrative techniques
of the narrative essay
2. Drawing students’ attention to the use of the key grammar in this text: ways of
exemplification and comparison
3. Involving students in the discussion concerning the attitude toward new things
II. Contents & Time Allotment
7. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the
first part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
8. The study of the second part & the exercise from P.309-314 (1.5 hours)
9. The study of the last part of the text & the exercise from P.314-319 (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
20. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the textbook
21. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
22. Important sentences as is indicated in the teaching notes
IV. Suggested Class Activities
4. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions
about the text orally.
5. Try the selected oral work on P. 307-308 in the exercise.
6. Ask students to have group discussion about the writing techniques of this
narrative essay and the attitude we should take towards new things.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners
3. Prepare the new lesson.
138
Teaching Notes for Lesson 10
Text A: The Telephone
I. Pre-class work:
1. Vocabulary:
1) Teachers can check the students pre-class work by doing the exercises on page
309-310
2) Teachers can help the students understand the terms with local flavor
2. Oral work:
1) Ask Students to summarize the story by asking questions listed on page 307-308
2) Should we always embrace the new because what is new always means progress?
3) How can we, esp. language majors, communicate effectively with people from
different ethnic backgrounds?
II. Text analysis

Text study

Style: narrative

Title meaning: The village of Magdaluna was overcome by the telephone.
(TB)

Style: informal
Part I (Para.1-10)
Introduction: the unchanging cycle of life before the telephone came
Ask Students to paraphrase the following sentences in this part.
1. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate
and played and married our cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and
chickenpox – and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins
and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. P1
2. Incredible as it may sound, the story of the fish and oranges was true, because men
139
who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story until it was
incorporated into Magdaluna’s calendar. P8
3. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for
months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to
a trickle. P9
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Part II (Para.11-25)
How the telephone was installed and the changes it brought about to the village.
Ask the students to paraphrase the following sentences in this part.
1. But they were out shouted and ignored and finally shunned by the other villagers for
resisting progress and trying to keep a good thing from coming to Madaluna. P11
2. – the signal that they were ready to toss back and forth, like a ball, the latest rumors
going around the village. P21
3. … and drank lukewarm sodas that they called Kacula, Seffen-Ub, and Bebsi. P21
4. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self, desolate and forsaken, like the
tombs, a place to get away from. P24
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Detailed Discussion of the Text
1. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the
hours, days, months, and years.
To keep track (of): to keep oneself informed about a person, situation, etc, e.g.
They try hard to keep track of all the new developments in the IT industry.
Cf. to lose track (of): to fail to remain informed, e.g.
He loses track of time whenever he surfs the Net.
2. married our cousins…
ask the students to analyze the reasons of intermarriage among cousins in Arab
countries.
3. It worked just fine for us.
Fine: adv.(infml) in a way that is acceptable and good enough, e.g.
140
Don’t worry. He is doing fine.
Things are fine at school this year.
4. You couldn’t be more accurate than that, now, could you?
That is the most accurate answer I could get.
Now: (spoken) used for giving emphasis to a request, order, or comment, e.g.
Be careful, now! (order)
Now, what is going on here? (request)
It is marvelous, now isn’t it? (comment)
5. …because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that
story until it was incorporated into Magdaluna’s calendar.
This shows, to some extent, the way of thinking of the villagers in those days when
honesty prevailed. They trusted honest people and didn’t seek any proof for what had
been said about past events.
Incorporate sth (into): to add or include sth as part of sth else, e.g.
A number of courses in public relations have been incorporated into our curriculum.
6. their napping men and wet babies
ask student to elaborate on the cultural backgrounds of Arabic countries.
Men in Arab countries, especially in the countryside, usually don’t do any housework.
As we read on, we find the men in the village spent the evening somewhere drinking,
chatting, playing games with each other.
7. …call each other names that my ears tingle…
…the words they used when they were quarreling were so offensive that we little boys
felt uncomfortable…
to call sb names: to abuse them by insulting words
8. …Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one.
…Magdaluna wouldn’t achieve any success without a telephone.
To get anywhere/somewhere/nowhere: to make some/no progress or have some/no
success, e.g.
Have you got anywhere in your project?
You will surely get somewhere if you persist in it.
9. …did all they could to talk Abu Raja out of having a telephone brought to the
141
village.
To talk sb into/out of (doing) sth: to persuade sb to do /not to do sth, e.g.
Finally he talked Xiao Chen into accepting the job.
If she wants to do something, no one can talk her out of it.
10. the shout went out that…
to go out: to be told to people
11. some of the rich villagers walked right into the store and stood at the elbows of the
two important-looking men…
at sb’s elbow: very close to or beside sb
12. her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted
from having so little to do.
Exhausted from having so little to do: ask the students to analyze this paradox and the
other paradoxes in this text. And discuss what makes this woman and her house popular.
13. but as the days went by fewer and fewer men came to Im Kaleem’s, and more and
more congregated at Abu Raja’s to wait by the telephone.
Ask the students to explain what causes the change.
14. In the evening, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped.
Trail off/away: (of sb’s voice, speech, etc) to become gradually quieter and then stop
Cf. die down: to become gradually less strong, loud, noticeable, etc, e.g.
The storm seems to be dying down.
A solid three minutes passed before the applause died down.
15. like the others who left Magdaluna before me , I am still looking for that better life.
Ask students to define A BETTER LIFE. What are they looking for?
Useful words and expressions: (Please make a selection of the following and refer to
the exercises for more or other ones.)
bustle, chime, congregate, desolate, devout, escalate, forsaken, lucrative, lure,
rumor, rumor, skeleton, troubleshooter, weary.
III. Exercise

Vocabulary
 Phrases: learn to translate phrase from Chinese into English and vice versa
142
(E.1)
 Replace the words and expressions italicized with suitable words and
expressions from the text (E.2)
 Sentence translation from Chinese into English (E.3)
 Fill in blanks with proper verbs, prepositions, adverbs, etc. (E.4)
 Tell the difference between the following pairs or groups of words (E.5)
 Study the following sentences which contain paradoxes (E.6)

Grammar
 Study and summarize terms of comparison and exemplification (E.1)
 Exercise on comparison and exemplification (E.2&3)
 Translate using ways of comparison (E.4)
 Comprehensive grammar exercise (E.5&6)
Suggestion: Distinguishing different usage of words and clarifying students’
grammatical concept are of great importance.
Map of Lebanon
Map: Lebanon
Lebanon Profile: History · Government · Economy · Population …
Travel to Lebanon—Unbiased reviews and great deals from Trip Advisor
143
144
You want to see the map of Lebanon ? Libanon Karta ? la carte du Liban ?
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Lebanon
Map of Lebanon
Republic of Lebanon
National name: Al-Joumhouriya al-Lubnaniya
President: Émile Lahoud (1998)
Prime Minister: Fouad Siniora (2005)
Current government officials
Land area: 3,950 sq mi (10,230 sq km); total area: 4,015 sq mi (10,400 sq km)
Population (2006 est.): 3,874,050 (growth rate: 1.2%); birth rate: 18.5/1000; infant
mortality rate: 23.7/1000; life expectancy: 72.9; density per sq mi: 981
145
Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Beirut, 1,916,100 (metro. area), 1,171,000 (city
proper)
Other large cities: Tripoli, 212,900; Sidon, 149,000
Monetary unit: Lebanese pound
Languages: Arabic (official), French, English, Armenian
Ethnicity/race: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%
Religions: Islam 60% (Shi'a, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite/Nusayri), Christian 39%
(Maronite, Melkite, Syrian, Armenian, and Roman Catholic; Greek, Armenian,
and Syrian Orthodox; Chaldean; Assyrian; Copt; Protestant), other 1%
Literacy rate: 87% (2003 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2005 est.): $20.42 billion; per capita $5,300. Real
growth rate: 0.5%. Inflation: 2.4%. Unemployment: 18% (1997 est.). Arable land:
17%. Agriculture: citrus, grapes, tomatoes, apples, vegetables, potatoes, olives,
tobacco; sheep, goats. Labor force: 2.6 million; note: in addition, there are as many as
1 million foreign workers (2001 est.); services n.a., industry n.a., agriculture n.a.
Industries: banking, tourism, food processing, jewelry, cement, textiles, mineral and
chemical products, wood and furniture products, oil refining, metal fabricating. Natural
resources: limestone, iron ore, salt, water-surplus state in a water-deficit region, arable
land. Exports: $1.782 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): authentic jewelry, inorganic chemicals,
miscellaneous consumer goods, fruit, tobacco, construction minerals, electric power
machinery and switchgear, textile fibers, paper. Imports: $8.855 billion f.o.b. (2005
est.): petroleum products, cars, medicinal products, clothing, meat and live animals,
consumer goods, paper, textile fabrics, tobacco. Major trading partners: Syria, UAE,
Turkey, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, Germany, China, U.S., UK (2004).
Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 700,000 (1999); mobile cellular:
580,000 (1999). Radio broadcast stations: AM 20, FM 22, shortwave 4 (1998).
Radios: 2.85 million (1997). Television broadcast stations: 15 (plus 5 repeaters)
(1995). Televisions: 1.18 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 22 (2000).
Internet users: 300,000 (2001).
Transportation: Railways: total: 401 km (unusable because of damage in civil war)
(2002). Highways: total: 7,300 km; paved: 6,198 km; unpaved: 1,102 km (1999 est.).
146
Ports and harbors: Antilyas, Batroun, Beirut, Chekka, El Mina, Ez Zahrani, Jbail,
Jounie, Naqoura, Sidon, Tripoli, Tyre. Airports: 8 (2002).
Geography
Lebanon lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea north of Israel and west of
Syria. It is four-fifths the size of Connecticut. The Lebanon Mountains, which parallel
the coast on the west, cover most of the country, while on the eastern border is the
Anti-Lebanon range. Between the two lies the Bekaa Valley, the principal agricultural
area.
Government
Republic.
History
After World War I, France was given a League of Nations mandate over Lebanon and
its neighbor Syria, which together had previously been a single political unit in the
Ottoman Empire. France divided them in 1920 into separate colonial administrations,
drawing a border that separated mostly Muslim Syria from the kaleidoscope of religious
communities in Lebanon, where Maronite Christians were then dominant. After 20
years of the French mandate regime, Lebanon's independence was proclaimed on Nov.
26, 1941, but full independence came in stages. Under an agreement between
representatives of Lebanon and the French National Committee of Liberation, most of
the powers exercised by France were transferred to the Lebanese government on Jan. 1,
1944. The evacuation of French troops was completed in 1946.
According to the unwritten National Pact, different religious communities were
represented in the government by having a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni
Muslim prime minister, and a Shiite national assembly speaker. The arrangement
worked for two decades.
147
Civil war broke out in 1958, with Muslim factions led by Kamal Jumblat and Saeb
Salam rising in insurrection against the Lebanese government headed by President
Camille Chamoun, a Maronite Christian favoring close ties to the West. At Chamoun's
request, President Eisenhower, on July 15, sent U.S. troops to reestablish the
government's authority.
Clan warfare between various religious factions in Lebanon goes back centuries. The
hodgepodge includes Maronite Christians, who, since independence, have dominated
the government; Sunni Muslims, who have prospered in business and shared political
power; the Druze, who hold a faith incorporating aspects of Islam and Gnosticism; and
Shiite Muslims.
A new—and bloodier—Lebanese civil war that broke out in 1975 resulted in the
addition of still another ingredient in the brew—the Syrians. In the fighting between
Lebanese factions, 40,000 Lebanese were estimated to have been killed and 100,000
wounded between March 1975 and Nov. 1976. At that point, Syrian troops intervened at
the request of the Lebanese and brought large-scale fighting to a halt. In 1977 the civil
war again flared up and continued until 1990, decimating the country.
Palestinian guerrillas staging raids on Israel from Lebanese territory drew punitive
Israeli raids on Lebanon and two large-scale Israeli invasions, in 1978 and again in 1982.
In the first invasion, the Israelis entered the country in March 1978 and withdrew that
June, after the UN Security Council created a 6,000-man peacekeeping force for the
area called UNIFIL. As the UN departed, the Israelis turned their strongholds over to a
Christian militia that they had organized, instead of to the UN force.
The second Israeli invasion came on June 6, 1982, after an assassination attempt by
Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli ambassador in London. As a base of the PLO,
Lebanon became the Israelis' target. Nearly 7,000 Palestinians were dispersed to other
Arab nations. The violence seemed to have come to an end when, on Sept. 14, Bashir
Gemayel, the 34-year-old president-elect, was killed by a bomb that destroyed the
headquarters of his Christian Phalangist Party. Following his assassination, Christian
militiamen massacred about 1,000 Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps, but Israel denied responsibility.
148
The massacre in the refugee camps prompted the return of a multinational peacekeeping
force. Its mandate was to support the central Lebanese government, but it soon found
itself drawn into the struggle for power between different Lebanese factions. The
country was engulfed in chaos and instability. During their stay in Lebanon, 241 U.S.
Marines and about 60 French soldiers were killed, most of them in suicide bombings of
the U.S. Marine and French army compounds on Oct. 23, 1983. The multinational force
withdrew in the spring of 1984. In 1985, the majority of Israeli troops withdrew from
the country, but Israel left some troops along a buffer zone on the southern Lebanese
border, where they engaged in ongoing skirmishes with Palestinian groups. The
Palestinian terrorist group Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” was formed in the 1980s
during Israel's second invasion of Lebanon. With financial backing from Iran, it has
launched attacks against Israel for more than 20 years.
In July 1986, Syrian observers took up a position in Beirut to monitor a peacekeeping
agreement. The agreement broke down and fighting between Shiite and Druze militia in
West Beirut became so intense that Syrian troops mobilized in Feb. 1987, suppressing
militia resistance. In 1991 a treaty of friendship was signed with Syria, which in effect
gave Syria control over Lebanon's foreign relations. In early 1991, the Lebanese
government, backed by Syria, regained control over the south and disbanded various
militias, thereby ending the 16-year civil war, which had destroyed much of the
infrastructure and industry of Lebanon.
In June 1999, just before Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu left office, Israel
bombed southern Lebanon, its most severe attack on the country since 1996. In May
2000, Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Barak, withdrew Israeli troops after 18
consecutive years of occupation.
In the summer of 2001, Syria withdrew nearly all of its 25,000 troops from Beirut and
surrounding areas. About 14,000 troops, however, remained in the countryside. With
the continuation of Israeli-Palestinian violence in 2002, Hezbollah again began building
up forces along the Lebanese-Israeli border.
In Aug. 2004, in a stark reminder of its continuing iron grip on Lebanon, Syria insisted
that Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Émile Lahoud, remain in office beyond the
149
constitutional limit of one six-year term. Despite outrage in the country, the Lebanese
parliament did Syria's bidding, permitting Lahoud to serve for three more years.
A UN Security Council resolution in Sept. 2004 demanded that Syria remove the troops
it had stationed in Lebanon for the past 28 years. Syria responded by moving about
3,000 troops from the vicinity of Beirut to eastern Lebanon, a gesture that was viewed
by many as merely cosmetic. As a result of the crisis, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
(1992–1998, 2000–2004), largely responsible for Lebanon's economic rebirth in the past
decade, resigned. On Feb. 14, 2005, he was killed by a car bomb. Many suspected Syria
of involvement and large protests ensued, calling for Syria's withdrawal from the
country. After two weeks of protests by Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Druze parties,
pro-Syrian prime minister Omar Karami resigned on Feb. 28. Several days later, Syria
made a vague pledge to withdraw its troops but failed to announce a timetable. On
March 8, the militant group Hezbollah sponsored a massive pro-Syrian rally, primarily
made up of Shiites, that greatly outnumbered previous anti-Syrian protests. Hundreds of
thousands gathered to thank Syria for its involvement in Lebanon. The pro-Syrian
demonstrations led to President Lahoud's reappointment of Karami as prime minister on
March 9. But thereafter an anti-Syrian protest—twice the size of the Hezbollah
protest—followed. In mid-March, Syria withdrew 4,000 troops and redeployed the
remaining 10,000 to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria. In April, Omar
Karami resigned a second time after failing to form a government. Lebanon's new prime
minister, Najib Mikati—a compromise candidate between the pro-Syrian and
anti-Syrian groups—announced that new elections would be held in May. On April 26,
after 29 years of occupation, Syria withdrew all of its troops.
In May and June 2005, Syria held four rounds of parliamentary elections. An
anti-Syrian alliance led by Saad al-Hariri, the 35-year-old son of assassinated former
prime minister leader Rafik Hariri, won 72 out of 128 seats. Former finance minister
Fouad Siniora, who was closely associated with Hariri, became prime minister.
On Sept. 1, four were charged in the murder of Rafik Hariri. The commander of
Lebanon's Republican Guard, the former head of general security, the former chief of
Lebanon's police, and the former military intelligence officer were indicted for the
February assassination. On Oct. 20, the UN released a report concluding that the
150
assassination was carefully organized by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials,
including Syria's military intelligence chief, Asef Shawkat, who is the brother-in-law of
Syrian president Bashar Assad.
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters entered Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. In
response, Israel launched a major military attack, bombing the Lebanese airport and
other major infrastructures, as well as parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, led by
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, retaliated by launching hundreds of rockets and missiles into
Israel (Iran supplies Hezbollah with weapons, which are transported through Syria).
After a week of fighting, Israel made it clear that its offensive in Lebanon would
continue until Hezbollah was routed. Although much of the international community
demanded a cease-fire, the United States supported Israel's plan to continue the fighting
until Hezbollah was drained of its military power (Hezbollah is thought to have at least
12,000 rockets and missiles and had proved a much more formidable foe than
anticipated). On Aug. 14, a UN-negotiated cease-fire went into effect. The UN planned
to send a 15,000-member peacekeeping force. About 1,150 Lebanese, mostly civilians,
and 150 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died in the 34 days of fighting. More than 400,000
Lebanese were forced from their homes by the fighting. Almost immediately, Hezbollah
began organizing reconstruction efforts, and handed out financial aid to families who
had lost their homes, shoring up loyalty from Shiite civilians.
In November, Pierre Gemayel, minister of industry and member of a well-known
Maronite Christian political dynasty, was assassinated, the fifth anti-Syrian leader to be
killed since the death of Rafik Hariri in Feb. 2005. Pro-government protestors blamed
Syria and its Lebanese allies, and staged large demonstrations following the
assassination. These protests were then followed by even larger and more sustained
demonstrations by Hezbollah supporters. Beginning Dec. 1, tens of thousands of
demonstrators, led by the Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, occupied the center
of Beirut and called for the resignation of the pro-Western coalition government.
See also Encyclopedia: Lebanon.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Lebanon
Central Administration for Statistics www.cas.gov.lb/ .
See also Lebanon Timeline.
151
Text B: The Hour of Letdown
1. About the author E. B. White
E.B. White was born in Mount Vernon, New York and graduated from Cornell
University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1921. He picked up the nickname "Andy"
at Cornell, where tradition confers that monicker on any student surnamed White, after
Cornell co-founder Andrew Dickson White. While at Cornell, he worked as editor of
The Cornell Daily Sun with classmate Allison Danzig who later became a sportswriter
for The New York Times. White was also a member of the Quill and Dagger society.
He wrote for The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and worked as an ad man
before returning to New York City in 1924.
He published his first article in The New Yorker magazine in 1925, then joined the staff
in 1927 and continued to contribute for six decades. Best recognized for his essays and
unsigned Notes and Comment pieces, he gradually became the most important
contributor to The New Yorker at a time when it was arguably the most important
American literary magazine. He also served as a columnist for Harper's Magazine from
1938 to 1943.
In the late 1930s White turned his hand to children's fiction on behalf of a niece, Janice
Hart White. His first children's book, Stuart Little, was published in 1945, and
Charlotte's Web appeared in 1952. Both were highly acclaimed, and in 1970 jointly won
the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a major prize in the field of children's literature. In the
same year, he published his third children's novel, The Trumpet of the Swan. In 1973,
that book received the Sequoyah Award from Oklahoma and the William Allen White
Award from Kansas, both of which were awarded by students voting for their favorite
book of the year.
In 1959, White edited and updated The Elements of Style. This handbook of
grammatical and stylistic dos and don'ts for writers of American English had been
written and published in 1918 by William Strunk Jr., one of White's professors at
Cornell. White's rework of the book was extremely well received, and further editions
of the work followed in 1972, 1979, and 1999; an illustrated edition followed in 2005.
That same year, a New York composer named Nico Muhly premiered a short opera
152
based on the book. The volume is a standard tool for students and writers, and remains
required reading in many composition classes.
In 1978, White won a special Pulitzer Prize for his work as a whole. Other awards he
received included a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and memberships in a
variety of literary societies throughout the United States. White was also a world
federalist, and once said[1]:
"Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international
cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it...Where does
security lie, anyway - security against the thief, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at
all. It lies in government."
White married Katharine Sergeant Angell in 1929, also an editor at The New Yorker,
and author (as Katharine White) of Onward and Upward in the Garden. They had a son,
Joel White, a naval architect and boatbuilder, who owned Brooklin Boatyard in
Brooklin, Maine. Katharine's son from her first marriage, Roger Angell, has spent
decades as a fiction editor for The New Yorker and is well-known as the magazine's
baseball writer.
White died on October 1, 1985 at his farm home in North Brooklin, Maine, after a long
fight with Alzheimer's Disease. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried beside his
wife at the Brooklin Cemetery.[2]
2. About the writing
The story develops itself within the setting of a bar. At the beginning, a man with
his machine came in and ordered rye & water for two, for he thought the machine
needed to be letdown after three days of competition in chess. The people in the bar
stirred and took their side, either with the bartender or with the machine group. This is
quite common a phenomenon when faced with a new thing: to welcome it or to boycott
it. After ingesting a couple of drinks, the wonder machine unnerved the barflies by
multiplying 10,862 by 99 in a split second, then capped the stunt by getting behind the
wheel of a Cadillac and driving off. The vivid description of people’s change in attitude
and facial expression as well as the simple and personalized language contributes to the
wonderful combination of good fun and good sense.
153
One of the original authentic voices of The New Yorker belongs to E. B. (for
Elwyn Brooks) White. As an editor and frequent lead-off man in the "Talk of the Town"
section, E. B. White has done much in the past 28 years to set the urbane, casual pitch
which is its hallmark.
The Second Tree from the Corner, a sampling of his New Yorker pieces, is "a
dog's breakfast," according to White—short stories, parodies, poems, essays, table
talk—some of it funny, some of it scary, almost none of it dull.
As if to highlight the plight of modern-day humor, the title piece focuses on a
psychiatrist and his neurotic patient who stymie each other with the question, "What do
you want?" The doctor finally admits that what he really wants is a new wing for his
house in the suburbs. Going home, the patient glimpses the tremor of a leaf in the
afternoon sun and sets his heart on something at once simpler and more complicated: "I
want the second tree from the corner just as it stands." Several of White's other tales
roll along this same rim of near hysteria. In "The Hour of Letdown," a man enters
a bar, plunks down a mechanical brain, and orders rye & water for two. After
ingesting a couple of drinks, the wonder machine unnerves the barflies by
multiplying 10,862 by 99 in a split second, then caps the stunt by getting behind the
wheel of a Cadillac and driving off. In "The Morning of the Day They Did It," two
U.S. military men on SPCA duty ("Space Platform for Checking Aggression") blow the
earth to bits out of sheer boredom. "About Myself is a nightmare comedy of numbers
set in an Orwellian bureaucracy. ("My left front tire is Number 48KE8846, my right
front tire is Number 63T6895".) But if Humorist White jangles the nerves with
predictable frequency, he remembers how to jiggle the funny bone too. His four-page
"Across the Street and into the Grill," a parody of Hemingway, is a minor triumph of
satirical humor.
His random digs at classics clubs ("I, connoisseur of good reading, friend of con
noisseurs of good reading everywhere"), sloppy diction ("what one weather prophet on
the radio calls 'inner mitten' showers"), "personalized" writing ("As for us, we would as
lief Simoniz our grandmother as personalize our writing"), usually blend good fun with
good sense. Full of engaging tidbits, the "dog's breakfast" does not offer much to chew,
but more than enough to tickle the taste buds.
154
Leading American essayist and literary stylist of his time. White was known for
his crisp, graceful, relaxed style. "No one can write a sentence like White," James
Thurber once stated. White's stories ranged from satire to children's fiction. While he
often wrote from the perspective of slightly ironic onlooker, he also was a sensitive
spokesman for the freedom of the individual. Among his most enduring essays is
'Once More to the Lake.'
"I am the holder of a quit-claim deed recorded in Book 682, Page 501, in the
country where I live. I hold Fire Insurance Policy Number 424747, continuing until
the 23 day of October in the year nineteen hundred forty-five, at noon, and it is
important that the written portions of all policies covering the same property read
exactly alike." (from 'About Myself', 1945)
Elwyn Brooks White was born in Mount Vernon, New York, as the son of
Samuel White, a prosperous piano manufacturer, and Jessie (Hart) White; she was
forty-one and Samuel was forty-five. Elwyn was the youngest child of a large family,
where parents really loved children. On Elwyn's twelfth birthday his father wrote to him:
"You are the object of the affectionate solicitude of your mother and father. Then you
have been born a Christian. When you reflect that the great majority of men are born in
heathen lands in dense ignorance and superstition it is something to be thankful for that
you have the light that giveth life."
White once said, that he was a busy writer long before he went into long pants.
After graduating from Cornell University in 1921, White worked in some miscellaneous
jobs, such as reporter for United Press, American Legion News Service, and the Seattle
Times. In 1924 he returned to New York. He worked as a production assistant and
advertising copywriter before joining the newly established New Yorker. There he met
his wife, Katherine Sergeant Angell, who was the magazine's literary editor. They
married in 1929. For 11 years he wrote for the magazine editorial essays and
contributed verse and other pieces. Among the other writers with whom White and his
wife become friends were Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and
Stephen Leacock.
"Walden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed
on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this one is mine.
155
It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest,
and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for
relief in moments of defluxion or despair." (White in The New Yorker, May 23, 1953)
From 1929 White worked for The New Yorker's weekly magazine, remaining in
its staff for the rest of his career. White's favorite subjects were the complexities of
modern society, failures of technological progress, the pleasures of urban and rural life,
war, and internationalism. He was skeptical about organized religion, and advocated a
respect for nature and simple living. White's early collections of poetry, THE LADY IS
COLD (1929) and THE FOX OF PEAPACK AND OTHER POEMS (1928), reflected
his interest in "the small things of the day" and "the trivial matters of the heart." From
1938 to 1943 he wrote and edited a column called 'One Man's Meat' for Harper's
magazine. These collected essays, featuring White's rural experiences, were published
in 1942. Critics hailed this as White's best book to date, but he first gained wide fame
with the publication of IS SEX NECESSARY?, which he wrote with his friend and
colleague James Thurber. In 1941 he published with Katherine Sergeant Angell A
SUBTREASURY OF AMERICAN HUMOUR. ONE MAN'S MEAT, which appeared
in 1942, and was reissued two years later in expanded form, had a nonstop run of 55
years in print. It was compiled of White's columns for Harper's with three essays from
The New Yorker.
In 1939 White moved to a farm in North Brooklin, Maine, and continued his
writing career without the responsibilities of a regular job. He never stopped loving
New York, calling it "a riddle in steel and stone," but he also prophetically saw the
vulnerability of the city: "A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can
quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the
underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions... Of all targets New York
has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the
lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm." (from Here is New York,
1949) The barn near White's Maine home inspired many of the characters in his stories
for children.
After World War II White became an enthusiastic editorial supporter of
internationalism and the United Nations, publishing an collection of essays under the
156
title THE WILD FLAG (1946). In the essay 'The Ring of Time' from 1956 he dealt with
segregation. He tells how he explained to his cook, who was from Finland, that in the
American Southland she should sit in one of the front seats - the seats in back are
reserved for colored people. "Oh, I know - isn't it silly," was her reply and White
concludes: "The Supreme Court said nothing about silliness, but I suspect it may play
more of a role than one might suppose. People are, if anything, more touchy about being
thought silly than they are about being thought unjust... Probably the first slave ship,
with Negroes lying in chains on its decks, seemed commonsensical to the owners who
operated it and to the planters who patronized it. But such a vessel would not be in the
realm of common sense today. The only sense that is common, in the long run, is the
sense of change..."
In 1959 White published a standard style manual for writing, THE ELEMENTS
OF STYLE, which became a mainstay of high-school and college English courses in the
U.S. The work was based on Prof. William Strunk Jr.'s privately printed book, which
had gone out of print. White revised the original adding a chapter and expanding some
of the other content. Later Strunk & White's The Elements of Style was revised several
times. The famous manual, with its timeless observations, is still considered an
exemplar of the principles it explains. "A sentence should contain no unnecessary words,
a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have
no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary part." White's essay ´'Will Strunk',
published in The New Yorker, now serves as the intro to the book.
Between writing columns, White also published children's books. STUART
LITTLE (1945) depicted an independent and adventurous child, the size of mouse, who
is born into a human family. After various adventures Stuart goes in search of a bird
whose life he had previously saved. CHARLOTTE'S WEB (1952) was about the
friendship between a young pig, Wilbur, and a spider, Charlotte A. Cavitica. She
craftily saves him from the butcher's knife through the message, ''Some Pig'', she
weaves in her web - only to die alone. In THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN (1970) a
mute swan learns to trumpet and becomes a celebrity. In these works White explored
such themes as loyalty, tolerance, and rural living. They have become for many young
readers unforgettable guides into the world of fiction.
157
E.B. White died of Alzheimer disease on October 1, 1985 in North Brooklin,
Maine. He was awarded the gold medal for essays and criticism of the National Institute
of Arts and Letters, and a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 1978. He held honorary
degrees from seven American colleges and universities and was a member of the
American Academy.
For further reading: Meet E.B. White by S. Ward (2001); E. B. White: The
Emergence of an Essayist by Robert L., Jr. Root (1999); E.B. White: The Children's
Books by Lucien L. Agosta (1995); E.B. White The Elements of a Writer by Janice
Tingum (1995); Critical Essays on E.B. White, ed. by R.L. Root (1994); Stuart Little: A
Full-Length Musical Based Upon the Book by E.B. White by Ronna Frank (1993); E.B.
White: Some Writer! by Beverly Gherman (1992); To the Point: A Story About E.B.
White by David R. Collins, Amy Johnson (1989); E.B. White: A Biography by S.
Elledge (1984); Hugging the Shore by J. Updike (1983); E.B. White by E. Sampson
(1974)
Selected works:

THE LADY IS COLD, 1928

IS SEX NECESSARY?, 1929 (collaboration with James Thurber)

HO-HUM: NEWSBREAKS FROM THE NEW YORKER, 1931

ANOTHER HO-HUM, 1932

EVERY DAY IS SATURDAY, 1934

THE FOX OF PEAPACK, 1938

QUO VADIMUS, 1939

A SUBTREASURY OF AMERICAN HUMOUR, 1941 (ed. with
Katherine Sergeant Angell)

ONE MAN'S MEAT, 1942

STUART LITTLE, 1945 - film 1999, dir. by Rob Minkoff, starring
Geena Davis, Jeffey Jones, Julia Sweeney; voices: Michael J. Fox, Nathan Lane,
Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly, Bruno Kirby, David Allan Grier, Steve Zahn.

THE WILD FLAG, 1946

HERE IS NEW YORK, 1949
158

CHARLOTTE'S WEB, 1952 - animated feature in 1973, dir. by
Charles A. Nichols, Iwao Takamoto. Voices: Debbie Reynolds, Henry Gibson,
Paul Lynde, Agnes Moorehead, Charles Nelson Reilly. Narrated by Rex Allen.

THE SECOND TREE FROM THE CORNER, 1954

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, 1959 (with William Strunk, Jr.)

THE POINTS OF MY COMPASS, 1962

E.B. WHITE READER, 1966

THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN, 1970 - animation in 2001, dir. by
Richard Rich, Terry L. Noss, screenplay by Judy Rothman Rofe, E.B. White

LETTERS OF E.B. WHITE, 1976 (ed. by Dorothy Lobrano Guth)

ESSAYS OF E.B. WHITE, 1977

POEMS AND SKETCHES OF E.B. WHITE, 1981

WRITINGS FROM THE NEW YORKER, 1925-76, 1990

LETTERS OF E. B. WHITE, 2007 (originally ed. by D. L. Guth, rev.
by Martha White)
3. About the text
Para. 1
gadget: a small specialized mechanical or electronic device; a contrivance.
Para. 6
cater to:
to be particularly attentive or solicitous; minister.
For example: The nurses catered to my every need.
take a drag out of it: smoke it (the cigarette)
Para. 11
exploit the advantage: make use of the advantage
Para. 13
let down: to relax or enjoy oneself (in the text)
Para. 19
haggle: to argue in an attempt to come to terms
Para. 21
be fagged out: be exhausted
Para. 46
159
go into retirement: to stop working; to be alone and live quietly (in the text)
Para. 49
simmer: to become calm after excitement or anger(in the text).
Weekly Quiz
1. Spelling
chickenpox
Lebanese
ravine
congregate
lucrative
reassuring
desolate
lukewarm
sinewy
devout
maimed
skeleton
drought
oasis
escalate
pestilence
forsaken
prostitute
tingle weary
2. Word derivation
1) I hear that they charge students 50,000 yuan each for tuition. Education has now
definitely become a very ______ business. (lucre)
2) An ______ is a set of moving stairs that take people to different levels in a building.
(escalate)
3) Restrictions on freedom of ______ have gradually been relaxed. (assemble)
4) We have been given _____ that the water is safe to drink. (reassuring)
5) Good company and good discourse are the very ______ of virtue. (sinewy)
Answers:
lucrative, escalator, assembly, reassurance, sinews
3. Translation
1) 在机场我听说他们一碗普通的面条要价 30 元。
2) 他被捕了？说他犯了什么罪？
3) 他的牙齿很结实，可以不费劲地咬开核桃。
4) 他把车档调到了最高档，一下就把其他车甩到了后面。
5) 当地百姓对在这座美丽的山上装缆车提出了强烈的反对。
Suggested reference:
At the airport I hear that they charge 30 yuan just for a bowl of plain noodles.
He is arrested? On what charge?
160
He has very strong teeth and can crack walnuts without difficulty.
He shifted into top gear and soon left the other cars far behind.
The local people have raised a strong objection to erecting the cable car on this beautiful
mountain.
4. Dictation
Many students find the experience of attending university lectures to be a
confusing and frustrating experience. The lecturer speaks for one or two hours perhaps
illustrating the talk with slides, writing up important information on the blackboard,
distributing reading material and giving out assignments. The new student sees the other
students continuously writing on notebooks and wonders what to write. Very often the
student leaves the lecture with notes which do not catch the main points and which
become hard even for the student himself to understand.
Most institutions provide courses which assist new students to develop the skill
they need to be effective listeners and note-takers. If these are unavailable there are
many useful study-skill guides which enable learners to practice these skills
independently. In all cases it is important to tackle the problem before actually starting
your studies. If you leave it until after your course begins, you may find that you are not
able to study and to learn how to study at the same time.
161
Lesson 11
I. Objectives
1. Helping Students appreciate the basic structure and language features of a
playwriting.
2. Drawing students’ attention to the use of the key grammar in this text: the
subjunctive & conjunctions of condition
3. Learning to use key vocabularies to describe the character’s personalities, the
psychology of the characters and the scenery of the environment
II. Contents & Time Allotment
10. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the
first part of the text (1.5 hours)
11. The study of the other parts of the text (1.5 hours)
12. Role-play and exercises from p. 348-353 (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
23. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the teaching notes
24. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
25. Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
162
IV. Suggested class activities
7. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions
about the text orally.
8. Try the selected oral work on P. 347 in the exercise.
9. Ask students to act out the play.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Lesson 11
Text A: The Pen of My Aunt
Teaching outline:
a) Pre-class work:
 Vocabulary:
1) Teachers can check the students pre-class work by doing the exercises on
page 342-344 to use reference books to find word meanings, e.g.
acclimatize, anathema
1. Learn the rules of word-formation to enlarge the vocabulary
3) Learn to read “proper names” such as “Madame”, “Simone”.
 Oral work:
1) Ask Students to summarize the story of the play by asking questions
listed on page 347
2) Does this story remind you of any similar stories in Chinese history?
i.
Text Analysis
Suggestion: 1. Students are encouraged to summarize the synopsis and analyze
the character first, then group discussion could be introduced
before the conclusion from the teacher.
2. Paraphrasing should be practiced more in text analysis.
163




Style: drama—describes an episode during the Nazi German Occupation of
France during the Second World War. An upper-class woman, in collaboration
with her servant, outwits a German corporal and has him drive a soldier of the
Resistance to a location on his way to the coast.
Synopsis (refer to the teacher’s book)
Plot development: introduction – complication – climax -- resolution
Character analysis (refer to the teacher’s book)
III. Detailed Discussion
Part I: (1-37) Introduction
1. Introduce two characters: Madame and Simone
2. Their attitude toward the Nazi occupation
3 .Madame’s response to the approach of the soldiers toward the house is contrasted
with that of Simone’s.
Ask Students to paraphrase the following sentences in this part.
1. After the last few months I should not have thought that soldiers coming up the
avenue was a remarkable fact. It is no doubt a party with a billeting order. 19
2. And you will answer it and behave as if you had been trained by a butler and ten
upper servants instead of being the charcoal-burner’s daughter from over at Les Chenes.
33
3. A good servant does not have an inside, merely an exterior. 35
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Part II. (38-103)
1. The other two characters, the stranger and the corporal, are introduced.
2. Madame confirms the stranger’s identity as her nephew.
3. Madame explains why “her nephew” behaved as he did in the wood, and she
argues with the corporal about young French people’s behavior.
4. The corporal demands the stranger show his papers, and Simone and the stranger
trick the German into believing that the nephew’s coat, with the papers in the
pocket, has been sent to the laundry.
5. Madame promises to have the papers sent to the corporal, who then leaves.
Ask students to paraphrase the following sentences in this part.
1. And I rightly pointed out that if I carry all the papers one is supposed to these days, I
am no good to God or man. If I put them in a hip pocket, I can’t bend forward; if I
put them in a front pocket, I can’t bend at all. 43
2. … a generation who delight in flouting appearances. It is what they call “expressing
their personality,” I understand. 52
3. Convention is anathema to them, and there is no sin like conformity. Even a collar is
an offense against their liberty, and a discipline not to be borne by free necks. 53
4. Let us not descend to personalities. 56
5. It is no reflection on Madame. It is a matter of routine, nothing more. 71
6. The damage is done now. 93
7. And Corporal, try to take your duties a little less literally in future. My countrymen
164
appreciate the spirit rather than the letter. 102
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Part III. (104-172)
1. Madame tells the stranger she does have a nephew who is a collaborator.
2. Madame makes sure that the stranger is a comrade.
3. The stranger is surprised that Madame hides her list of names in a quill, and she
tells him why she does so.
4. Madame and the stranger discuss the route for him to take to get to the coast.
Ask students to paraphrase the following sentences in this part.
1. For a good collaborator, that was remarkably quick adoption. 104
2. I expect your knees are none too well. 105
3. He likes to talk and here there is no audience. At Headquarters in Bonneval he finds
the audience sympathetic. 113
4. He believes in the Brotherhood of Man --- if you can credit it. 115
5. A “good collaborator” cannot be too careful. 141
6. What would you advise as the ideal quality in a hiding place for a list of names? 145
7. If I ceased to be looked on with approval my usefulness would end. 149
8. Brotherhood does not really begin under field rank, I understand. 157
9. We are liable to be billeted on at any moment, without notice. 163
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Part IV. (173-246)
1. The corporal drags Simone in and demands that Madame explain why her servant
said she had never set eyes on “her nephew” before.
2. Madame convinced the corporal that her sevant dislikes her nephew’s sloppy ways
and that what the girl said was that she wished she had never set eyes on her
nephew.
3. Madame makes the corporal feel that he has treated her discourteously.
4. Madame makes the corporal agree to drive “her nephew” somewhere near an ideal
hiding place.
Ask students to paraphrase the following sentences
1. The corporal’s voice is heard mingled in fury with the still more furious tones of
Simone. 173
2. And a great deal more dignity. I don’t like having my servants manhandled. 199
3. We Germans have come a long way from the geese. 215
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Conclusion (247-262)
1. The stranger expresses admiration for Madame’s extraordinary abilities and
gratitude for what she has done for him.
2. Madame is proud of Simone for what she has done. The drink a toast together --- to
Freedom.
Ask students to paraphrase the following sentences.
1. I wish I had an aunt of your caliber. All mine are authorities on crochet. 249
165
2. Being sped on my way by the enemy is a happiness I had not anticipated. I shall
never be able to repay you for that. 253
3. And a very bad end to that Corporal. 262
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
IV. Exercise
 Vocabulary
 Phrases: learn to translate phrase from Chinese into English and vice versa
(E.1)
 Replace the words and expressions italicized with suitable words and
expressions from the text (E.2)
 Sentence translation from Chinese into English (E.3)
 Filing blanks with proper verbs, prepositions, adverbs, etc. (E.4)
 Making sentences after the models (E.5)
 Translation and attention to the parallel construction (E.6)
 Grammar
 Study and summarize how the subjunctive is used (E.1)
 Exercise on verbs (E.2)
 Filling blanks with conjunction of condition (E.3)
 Using the subjunctive to translate sentences (E.4)
 Comprehensive grammar exercise (E.5)
Suggestion: Distinguishing different usage of words and clarifying students’
grammatical concept are of great importance.
V. Further information about the text
1. About the author: Josephine Tey (1896-1952)
Miss Elizabeth Mackintosh, who under the pen-name “Josephine Tey” and "Gordon
Daviot”, wrote a number of plays, the most successful of which was Richard of
Bordeaux, died as already briefly reported, on Wednesday in London.
She was born and brought up at Inverness and was trained as a physical training
instructress at the Anstey Physical Training College, Birmingham. She taught physical
training at various schools in England and Scotland, but had not got very far in her
chosen calling when she had to return home to look after her father. In the midst of her
household duties she began to write and had some short stories accepted the English
Review and other periodicals. Meanwhile she began seriously to study the theatre and,
after writing a number of plays which she did not feel were up to the high standard she
had set herself, she wrote Richard of Bordeaux, which was performed at the Arts
Theatre in 1932.
The play was so favourably received by the critics that it was produced in the course of
the ensuing year at the New Theatre, where it was played to enthusiastic audiences for a
whole year and established her reputation as a playwright. Though she was always
serious in purpose and displayed an uncommon insight into character, it cannot be said
166
that even Richard of Bordeaux attained that depth of penetration that is the hall-mark of
the best dramatic writing, yet it merited criticism on a higher plane than most of the
plays of its period.
Miss Mackintosh never attained quite the same success with her later ventures in the
theatre, though she came near it in Queen of Scots, which was produced in 1934 and
re-established her title to serious consideration after the not undeserved failure of The
Laughing Woman, a romanticized dramatization of the relations of the sculptor Henri
Gaudier and Sophia Brzeska, though even this contained a more intelligent and
persuasive study of an artist than is at all common on the modern stage. The Stars Bow
Down, the story of Joseph and his brethren, was published in 1939, and had to wait
some 10 years before it was produced at the Malvern Festival. Meanwhile another play
on a Biblical subject, The Little Dry Thorn and a somewhat bloodless drama, having for
its subject conditions in Roman Britain towards the end of the second century, was
produced and received respectful attention from the critics but little public support.
Though she was best known as a playwright, she continued at intervals to publish
novels and short stories, and under the pen-name "Josephine Tey," wrote a number of
detective stories in which a distinctive quality, usually historical, enhanced the ingenuity
which is the main attraction of this kind of fiction. Her last work was a study of Morgan,
the pirate, under the title of The Privateer.
Text B: Only Three More Days
I. About the author
Shirer broadcasts from St. Peter's
Square in Rome, circa 1940
William Shirer (1904 – 1993)
One of the most recognized U.S.
Americans to visit Nazi Germany,
William Shirer perhaps shed
more light on the events that led
to Hitler’s ascendancy and
German involvement in World
War II than anyone else from the
United States. Although closely
watched in Germany, Shirer
managed to convey much in his
reporting by using subtle
phrasing, suggestive tones of
voice or U.S. slang unfamiliar to
German censors trained only in
formal British English. Having
167
lived in Paris and familiar with Central Europe from his days with the Chicago Tribune,
Shirer became one of the most respected U.S. journalists in wartime Europe. Selected as
one of twelve foreign correspondents to accompany the German army in its 1940
western offensive, for example, he had a scoop on the French-German armistice in
Compiegne by hearing over a German sound truck that France would surrender—three
hours before even Berlin knew of the French defeat.
While as an adult he became intimately involved with the drama unfolding in Germany,
Shirer came from a world quite removed from Europe. William Lawrence Shirer was
born in Chicago in September 1904. His father Seward practiced law in the Windy City
and later served as Assistant United States District Attorney. His mother, Bessie Tanner
Shirer, took her son and his younger brother with her to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to live with
her parents when their father died of peritonitis in 1913. There, Shirer later enrolled at
Coe College, where he worked on the school newspaper staff and wrote for the sports
page of the Cedar Rapids Republican.
Briefly enlisting as a teenager in the army and landing summer jobs with the traveling
Chautauqua, Shirer left the Iowa prairies upon earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in
1925. He visited Chicago and New York City, then went to Montreal to work his way to
Europe pitching hay on a cattle boat. Touring England, Belgium and France, he
eventually found a job in the Paris office of the Chicago Tribune just before spending
the last of the two-hundred dollars he had borrowed and having to return to the States.
Life in postwar Paris excited the curious young reporter. Besides working with James
Thurber and Elliot Paul at the Tribune, he met some of his maverick compatriots who
were setting the arts world on its head—among them Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds,
Isadora Duncan, Ezra Pound and the imposing Gertrude Stein. Compensating for an
isolated past, Shirer began studying European history at the College de France. At the
age of twenty-three—more familiar with contemporary Europe and having successfully
covered the local beat—he graduated from the Paris edition of the Tribune to the foreign
staff of the home edition. This assignment led him to cover Lindbergh’s arrival in Paris
and later to be sent to London, Rome, Geneva and Vienna; in 1928 he covered the IX
Olympiad Games in Amsterdam. He also went to India to meet Gandhi and to
Afghanistan in 1930 to attend Nadir Khan’s crowning.
In 1931 Shirer married Theresa Stiberitz in Vienna. By now the Tribune’s Central
European Bureau chief, his bride became his assistant. Shirer lost the sight of one eye in
a skiing accident in the Alps in 1932; that disability complicated his work at the Bureau,
but it was the spreading effects of the Great Depression that later cost Shirer his job.
Living on savings, the couple shared a villa on the coast of Spain for a year with the
guitarist Andres Segovia. While there, Shirer wrote an unpublished novel and an early
autobiography—which he later destroyed.
The New York Herald hired the anxious Shirer in 1934 to work for its Paris edition. In
August of that year, he became a correspondent in Berlin for the Universal News
Service, where he served until 1937, when William Randolph Hearst disbanded the
168
service. Then, Edward R. Morrow—chief of the European staff of the Columbia
Broadcasting System—placed Shirer in its new office in Vienna. The Anschluss
(annexation) of Austria, however, forced him to relocate in Geneva—for, as he later said,
he was never one “to argue with bayonets.” At the start of World War II, Shirer once
again reported from Berlin—where he remained until his return to the United States in
December 1940.
Upon his return to the United States in 1940, William Shirer launched an extensive
lecture tour. During the summer of 1941 he served as a technical advisor for the
Hollywood production of Passport from Bordeaux and edited his journal into the
bestselling book Berlin Diary. From 1942 to 1948 Shirer wrote a column for the New
York Herald Tribune syndicate. He also worked as a CBS commentator until 1947,
when he resigned over an editorial disagreement with Edward R. Murrow.
As the war ended in Europe Shirer returned to Germany to cover the war crimes trial in
Nuernberg and later attended the San Francisco conference that established the United
Nations. Winning the George Foster Peabody Award for outstanding interpretation of
the news in 1946, Shirer worked for the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1947 to
1949 as a commentator. He continued to lecture and he wrote articles for Life, Collier’s,
the Atlantic Monthly and other major magazines. In 1950 Shirer published Traitor, a
novel about a man who under extreme pressure betrays his country and works for its
enemies.
Shirer went on to write other novels, too, but earned widespread public recognition
mostly for his non-fiction writing. He wrote End of a Berlin Diary in 1947 as a sequel
to his earlier book. He later wrote additional books based on his childhood in Chicago
and Iowa, as well as his travels through Europe and Asia and his meetings with Gandhi
and Hitler. It was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, however, which won Shirer the
1960 National Book Award and a special Sidney Hillman Foundation award in 1961; his
intimate involvement with Hitler’s Germany made him a foremost U.S. authority on the
Nazi era and his expertise led to several decades of writing and lecturing. Shirer
ultimately divorced his wife Tess, who he had married while living in Europe.
II. Cultural Notes
1. Gestapo (paragraph 5)
(German: "Secret State Police") Political police of Nazi Germany. It was created by
Hermann Goring in 1933 from the political and espionage units of the Prussian police
and by Heinrich Himmler from the police of the remaining German states. Himmler was
given command in 1934. The Gestapo operated without civil restraints, and its actions
were not subject to judicial appeal. Thousands of Jews, leftists, intellectuals, trade
unionists, political clergy, and homosexuals disappeared into concentration camps after
being arrested by the Gestapo. In World War II the Gestapo suppressed partisan
activities in the occupied territories, and a section of the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann
organized the deportation of Jews to the extermination camps in Poland.
Hitler named Herman Göring the director of the Gestapo soon after its founding. Göring
169
encouraged his officers to root out and arrest leftist sympathizers, especially
communists, whom he considered a threat to the Nazi government.
In 1939, in the months prior to the beginning of the second world war, Hitler
reorganized the German armies. The Gestapo was integrated, with the rest of the Nazi
police and intelligence organizations, into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA) under
the direction of Reinhard Heydrich. Though officially part of the Reich Security Central
Office, the organization remained popularly known as the Gestapo.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, there were approximately 40,000
Gestapo agents in Germany. As the war progressed and the Nazis gained territory
throughout Europe, the Gestapo swelled to employ over 150,000 informants, agents,
and accessory personnel. Gestapo agents were charged with rooting out foreign agents
and resistance fighters, but they also expanded their role as an internal police force.
Gestapo agents and informants concentrated on finding suspected political dissidents of
the Third Reich. Spying on citizens became pervasive, and the Gestapo encouraged
people to turn in "suspect persons" to local authorities. While victims of the Gestapo
were subject to both civil and criminal prosecution, the secret police themselves
operated above the law. On February 10, 1936, the Nazi government officially decreed
that the organization was not subject to judicial review. There were no legal restraints on
detention of suspects, evidence collection, or police violence. This lack of legal restraint,
paired with the Gestapo's tendency to attract and employ Nazi extremists and former
criminals in its ranks, permitted the brutality for which the force became infamous.
The Gestapo also aided intelligence work during the war, but the department was
secondary to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), or Security Service. The department employed
counter-intelligence agents, ciphers, and oversaw a vast network of informants in Allied
countries. In the occupied territories, the Gestapo infiltrated partisan resistance groups.
The organization also aided the massive Nazi propaganda campaign both before and
during the war.
The Gestapo, as well as its parent organization, the SS, aided the Einsatsgruppen, or
mobile killing units, responsible for the massacre of nearly one million Jews during the
Holocaust. Gestapo and SS members also tracked down refugees in hiding and policed
ghettos and concentration camps. After the war at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war
criminals, the Gestapo was named as one of the chief institutional perpetrators of the
Holocaust.
The Gestapo was dissolved with the fall of the Third Reich in 1945.
2. the Third Reich (paragraph 6)
The name given by the Nazis to their government in Germany; Reich is German for
“empire.” Adolf Hitler, their leader, believed that he was creating a third German empire,
a successor to the Holy Roman Empire and the German empire formed by Chancellor
Bismarck in the nineteenth century.
170
3. Lufthansa (paragraph 30)
Lufthansa, created in Germany in 1926, is one of the world's largest airlines and an
aviation group with a network of more than 400 subsidiaries around the globe, operating
in six business areas: passenger business, logistics, maintenance, repair and overhaul,
catering, leisure travel and international technology services. Lufthansa owes its origins
to "Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft" (renamed "Lufthansa" in 1933), which was
formed from a merger between "Deutsche Aero Lloyd" (DAL) and "Junkers
Luftverkehr" on January 6, 1926. Its crane logo, still in use today, was designed by
"Deutsche Luft-Reederei" in 1919, for DAL, using the blue-and-yellow house colors
from Junkers. It commenced scheduled flights on April 6, 1926, with a fleet of 162
aircraft, of 18 different types. Today Lufthansa, Air Canada, SAS, Thai Airways und
United Airlines create the "Star Alliance," the world's first multilateral airline grouping,
later to be joined by other carriers.
4. Führer (paragraph 34)
Führer was the title granted by Hitler to himself by law, as part of the process of
Gleichschaltung, following the death of the last Reichspräsident of the Weimar Republic,
Paul von Hindenburg, on August 2, 1934. The new position, fully named Führer und
Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the (Third) Reich), unified the offices of
President and Chancellor, formally making Hitler Germany's Head of State as well as
Head of Government respectively; in practice, the Dictator of the Nazi Third Reich.
Nazi Germany cultivated the Führerprinzip (leader principle), and Hitler was
generally known as just der Führer ("the Leader"). One of the Nazis' most-repeated
political slogans was “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” ( “One people, One state, One
leader”).
III. About the Text
Paragraph 5:
entrust: to give someone a thing or a duty for which they are responsible
He didn't look like the sort of man you should entrust your luggage to.
Two senior officials have been entrusted with organizing the auction.
otherwise: except for what has just been referred to:
The bike needs a new saddle, but otherwise it's in good condition.
The poor sound quality ruined an otherwise splendid film.
paragraph 7:
dispatch: [C] a newspaper report sent by someone in a foreign country, often
communicating war news, or an official report, often on a military matter:
In her latest dispatch, Clare Duggan, our war correspondent, reported an increase in
fighting.
paragraph 9:
sniff out: to discover where something or someone is by smelling:
171
At customs, dogs are used to smell out drugs in passengers' luggage.
paragraph 19:
effusive: expressing welcome, approval or pleasure in a way that shows very strong
feeling:
They gave us such an effusive welcome it was quite embarrassing.
paragraph 23:
insignia: [C] plural insignia
an object or mark which shows that a person belongs to a particular organization or
group, or has a particular rank:
the royal insignia
Weekly Quiz
1. Spelling
assent billet collaborator
liable implement hearten
exterior gelatin inkwell
combatant conformity deceitful fiend repressive
pry miscreant valid wink crochet consign
2. Dictation
In recent years, television has made it a lot more difficult to be a good parent.// If I were
raising a child today //I would be a lot tougher about what he or she watched// than 90
percent of today’s parents are. //I say this because I spent five years studying the
changing world of children.//
Television is a major part of the world. //I think the sheer amount of time children now
consume watching TV is a national scandal. //They spend about as many hours a year in
front of the tube //as they spend in front of teachers. //Nielsen surveys show that nearly
3 million children ages 6 to 11 //are still watching TV between 10 and 11 p.m. //About
380,000 of these watch past midnight. //
If I were a parent of young children today, //I wouldn’t allow any of my kids under 15 to
have a television set in his or her room.// Having a set so readily available simply puts
too much pressure on children to watch excessively. //
3. Sentence translation
他们要求公开道歉。
They demand an open apology.
软件设计师目前需求量很大。
Software designers are very much in demand.
要分清是非并不总是那么容易。
It is not always easy to distinguish right from wrong.
世界银行预计明年世界经济将稍有回升。
The World Bank anticipates that the world economy will see a mild recovery next
year.
在那以前的几个月里，我们一直在抗旱，我们没有预料到这场突然的洪水。
Throughout the previous months we had been fighting drought. We had not
172
anticipated the sudden flood.
4.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Word-building
The way these animals are killed is barbaric. (barbarism)
The building does not conform with safety regulation. (conformity)
He arrived at the solution by a simple process of deduction. (deduce)
He didn’t wish to appear discourteous, but he was extremely irritated by the way he
was treated. (discourtesy)
5) This decision was taken after close consultation with local residents. (consult)
Lesson 12
I. Objectives
173
1. To help students summarize the important strands that are interwoven to form
this narration..
2. To make the students realize the important usage of the key words: to drift, to
appeal, to pick up, to tear, etc.
3. To review elliptical coordinate clauses/sentences and absolute constructions.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
13. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the
first part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
14. The study of the second part & the exercise from P.381-385 (1.5 hours)
15. The study of the last part of the text & the exercise from P.386-390 (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
26. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the TB
27. Key grammar:
elliptical coordinate clauses/sentences and absolute constructions.
3. Important sentence as is indicated in the TB
IV. Suggested Class Activities
10. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions
about the text orally.
11. Try the selected oral work on P. 379-380 in the exercise.
12. Ask students to have group discussion about the writing techniques of a good
description and narration.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners and write an article in imitation of this
style about the Children’s Park.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
174
Teaching Notes for Lesson 12
Text A: Lions and Tigers and Bears
Teaching outline:
 Pre-class work: vocabulary
 Learn to use reference books to find word meanings, e.g. in a thesaurus
 Learn the rules of word-formation to enlarge students’ vocabulary
 Learn to use key words: to drift, element, to appeal, to pick up, to tear, etc.
 Learn to read “proper names”
 Oral work: questions helping comprehension
 Why do you think the author wrote this essay? How does it differ from
other travel writings?
 How is this essay organized? How does he combine the narration of his
experience with description of the Park’s history?
 Say what you know about the present and past of Central Park.
 What interesting details did the author tell us about the history of the Park?
 How does the essay end? Do you find the ending interesting?
 Text study
 Style: narration(travel writing)—a travel description of Central Park, together
with everything the author has read, heard, observed and experienced in
connection with the place.
 Purpose of studying: students should be able to appreciate the writing style and
learn to use rhythmic writing.
 Themes: A: There is the love and pride one has for the cultural richness and the
beauty the Park
Offers;
B: The crime and fear associated with the Park.
Suggestion: 1. Students are expected to summarize the important strands that are
interwoven to form this narration.
2. Students should be encouraged to learn to use rhythmic writing.
3. Students should be able to distinguish and remember terms for
crime and criminal offenders.
 Exercise
 Vocabulary
 Adjective suffixes summarized. (P375)
 Words matching (P376)
 Sentence translation from Chinese into English (P382)
 Filing blanks with proper verbs, prepositions, adverbs, etc. (P383)
 Sentence correcting (P384)
 Grammar
 Identify subject and main verb, also the object/predicative (P385)
 Elliptical coordinate clauses/sentences and absolute constructions (P386)
 Comprehensive grammar exercise (P387-P390)
Suggestion: Distinguishing different usage of words and clarifying students’
175
grammatical concept are of great importance.
卫星图 http://map.soouo.com/UserMap-3249.htm
Map of Central Park
176
177
Language learning (language points):
 …and, having stuffed my small rucksack with…1
to stuff sth with sth else: to fill or overfill a container or space with sth. E.g.
It is cheaper to stuff the pillow with foam than with feathers.
The cook stuffed the chicken with rice and sausage.
Compare:
To stuff sth into sth else: to push into a space or container. E.g.
Don’t stuff anything else in, or the bag will burst.
Just stuff the laundry into the machine and turn on power. It is fully automatic.
Rucksack: (BrE) a bag used for carrying things on your back
 .... ever since the Park’s founding commissioners, nearly a hundred and fifty
years ago...1,
the founding commissioners: the city officials who were appointed to establish
Central Park. Commissioners are officials in government, esp,
those in charge of departments. The founding commissioners of
Central Park were the landscape architects Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The two designed and oversaw the
first-phase construction of the Park which began in 1858 and
ended in 1878.
 Verb: to make for 3
1) to move towards ( a place)
As soon as it started to rain, we turned round and made for home.
The escaped prisoner was making for the coast.
2) to help make sth possible
International football matches sometimes make for better understanding
between countries.
The large print makes for easier reading.


Distinguish: “respect” and “aspect” 3
These two words are easily confused. The best way to learn the difference is to
look at their different collocations, which show us just how important collocations
are.
Respect: a way
In many respects John is the best student we have had for years. (in many
ways)
These two poems are similar in some respects. (in some ways)
In this/one respect the Negroes were even worse off than the Indians. (on this
point)
Aspect: a single area of interest from a particular point of view; a side or phase.
We discussed several important aspects of the learning process.
There is a humanitarian aspect in this matter.
They had to consider the plan in all its aspects.
We as jurors are here to decide whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. The
moral aspect of the
case is not our concern.
… a police car was now parked conspicuously in view, its roof light slowly
178
rotating…. 3
in view: close enough to be seen. E,g.
Victory is in view.
The magician performed the trick in full view of the audience.
Other uses of “view”
To come to view,
The castle suddenly came into view.
To come in view of:
We came in view of the castle as we turned the corner.
To disappear /be lost from view:
The procession gradually disappeared from view.
To block/obstruct/shut off/ spoil the view:
The new building spoils the view from our window.
To have a fantastic/breathtaking/splendid/magnificent/spectacular/superb/glorious
view of sth:
We have a fantastic view of the mountains from our balcony.
 --a detail that I have compulsively reviewed in my mind since I first heard it. 6
compulsive:
1) said of sth that is difficult or impossible to stop or control, e.g.
compulsive gambling/shopping/stealing/exercising/lying
His compulsive ambition made him unpopular with the rest of the staff.
Many young people went on a shopping spree and indulged in compulsive
buying.
2) said of sb who has a desire or habit that they connot control. E.g.
compulsive gamblers/liars/addicts/eaters, ect
compulsory: required; must be done because of a rule or law. E.g.
compulsory courses/education
 He put in baseball diamonds, volleyball courts…10
To put in: to install; to build, e.g.
We cant move into the house until they have put the heating in.
We’re having a burglar alarm put in.
Other uses of put in:
1) to spend time/ to make efforts
If you put in a few hours of work every week, the lawn would not look so
terrible.
They must have put in a lot of effort to prepare this exhibition.
2) to invest in a business
They have each put in 10,000 to start up the business.
Diamond: here, it refers to the diamond-shaped field for playing baseball.
 He even tried to turn the Ramble into a senior citizen’s recreation center, but
was stopped by the protesting birdwatchers. 10
Senior citizens: a euphemism for old people.
Euphemisms are mild, pleasant or indirect words or phrases in place of harsh,
unpleasant, more direct or accurate ones.
For example;
Euphemisms for “to die” : to pass away/ to be no more/ to be gone/to go to heaven/
179

to join the great majority/ to breathe one’s last
Euphemism for garbage collector; sanitary engineer
Birdwatcher: birdwatchers observe wild birds in their natural habit. The favorite
places for bird watching in Central Park are the Ramble and the reservoir area.
But there was no escaping the recognition that this city-contrived, manmade,
glaringly obtrusive, consuming wasteful and staggering quantities of electricity
and water and energy- was very beautiful.12
Structure: “ there is no verb+ing…”
There is no escaping the dust in Spring.
There is no escaping the fact that he has lied.
There is no escaping mental stress these days. Life is tough.
There is no denying the fact that these people have a reason to be angry.
For more paraphrasing analysis, pl. see TB.
Text B: Two Cities
About the text
Paragraph 2:
Chic: conforming to the current fashion; stylish:
chic clothes; a chic boutique.
Pushcart: A light cart pushed by hand.
手推车用手推的轻便的四轮车
Paragraph 3:
semiderisively: adv.半嘲笑地, 半嘲弄地
Paragraph 4:
wondrous: adj. Remarkable or extraordinary; wonderful.
Brag: 自夸；自吹
He bragged that he had passed the exam easily.
他吹牛说他已轻松地通过了考试。
Paragraph 5:
Carousel: A merry-go-round, as one at an amusement park.
旋转木马，如游乐园的木马
Paragraph 7:
Horrific: adj.令人毛骨悚然的, 可怕的, 恐怖的
Paragraph 8:
Lip service: n.说得好听的话, 空口的应酬话
Nill: v.不想, 不愿
Catchword: A well-known word or phrase, especially one that exemplifies a notion,
class, or quality; 流行语；标语广为所知的字或短语，尤指那种标志着一个概念、
种类或品质的：
“Glasnost has entered the international vocabulary as a catchword for a general
liberalization of Soviet society? (Bill Keller)
“公开性作为苏维埃社会普遍自由化的时髦语已进入国际语汇”(比尔·凯勒)
Paragraph 9:
Abrade: To make weary through constant irritation; wear down spiritually.
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折磨不停地骚扰而使疲惫；精神上的折磨
harry: To disturb or distress by or as if by repeated attacks; harass.
一再骚扰以反复的攻击或类似方式来烦扰；骚扰
taunting: .嘲骂
Paragraph 10:
Antipodes
n. 澳大利亚和新西兰
Weekly Quiz
1. Spelling (two parts)
A. (20 words) abdomen authoritatively contrived disembowel forthrightly
indefatigable involuntarily magnify nocturnal obliterate ominous perplex platitude
rampage transverse embolden intestine architect foliage pointedly
B. (10 words) planned in advance rather than being spontaneous or genuine
(contrived)
Automatically, compulsively (involuntarily)
Commonplace remark or statement, esp when it is said as if it were new or interesting
(platitude)
To start to sleep (to drop off)
To look at sth quickly, esp. secretly or from behind sth. ( to peek)
To get rid of ( obliterate)
To become confused about where you are or what you do next. ( to lose your
bearings)
Lands owned by a nobleman, government, etc. (domain)
Not visited or seen by many people; away from the company of others (secluded)
The outline of buildings, trees, hills, etc as seen against the sky (skyline)
2. Translation
1. 国际社会已向双方呼吁，希望他们和平解决他们之间的争端。
The international community has appealed to both sides for a peaceful settlement
of their dispute.
2. 骑自行车畅游全国的主意对我有极大的吸引力。
The idea of touring the country on a bike appeals to me immensely.
3. 我不想糊涂地了此一生。
I do not intend to drift through life.
4. 我要是他的律师，我就把那些证据一条一条驳斥掉，起码我会努力这么去做。
If I were his lawyer, I would have torn the evidence to shreds, or at least tried to.
5. 改革总会有风险。
Reform always contains an element of risk.
3. Word Derivation
1. I regained my _____. (bear)
2. The concert, ____ , was designed to keep the city’s rougher elements out. (point)
3. The Park at night must have seemed ____ and secluded. (luxury)
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4. George T. Strong, the ____ diarist, recognized that the architects were building two
different parks at once. (fatigue)
5. The ravine ____ its way down to the stream. (wind)
bearings, pointedly, luxurious, indefatigable, wound
4. Dictation :
People first learn values as children. The family is a fundamental source of values
that people use effectively throughout their lives. For many people religious beliefs and
teachings provide values. These principles offer a base for forming guidelines to live by.
Some values come from cultural backgrounds. For example, many Asian cultures
emphasize that young people should respect their grandparents and other elders.
Children learn to value the experience and knowledge of older people. Society teaches
values in many ways as well. Laws, for example, very clearly set forth what is
important and what isn’t. You learn that safety is a value because of laws limiting speed
on roads and requiring people to wear safety belts. Opportunities form values are all
around you. Sometimes you are aware of choosing values, and sometimes you aren’t.
With so much information to absorb, you may feel overwhelmed at times. You may
even feel pulled in different directions by conflicting values.
Lesson 13
I. Objectives
1. Students are expected to grasp the general idea of the author and have a deep and
thorough understanding of the impacts of war on people — not the economic loss
outside but spiritual suffering in their heart.
2. Students are expected to grasp the key language expressions in the text.
3. Students are expected to reinforce their grasp of grammatical items like passive
voice.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. The check of pre-class work—spelling, general comprehension of the text (1.5 hours)
2. Detailed study of Text A (1.5 hours)
3. Exercises and Text B (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
182
1. Key words and expressions as are indicated in the TB
2. Key grammar: passive voice
3. Important sentence as is indicated in the TB
IV. Suggested Class Activities
1. Pair Work: Discuss questions on Text A.
2. Group Work: Group of 4; discussion of the writing techniques of Text A ; presentation
of the results.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Recite Paragraph 25, 26, 27.
3. Writing about family’s or relatives’ true experience of war.
183
Teaching Notes for Lesson 13
Text A: Soldier’s Heart
Questions to Discuss
1. What is the author’s general attitude toward war? What did the war he fought in
mean to Him?
2. What specific aspects about the war did he find so difficult to forget?
3. What was his general opinion of the men and women he was working with at the
university? Why did he feel that way?
4. Should we bury our war memories?
Writing Analysis
1. Genre: exposition—to illustrate the impacts of war on people — not the economic
loss outside but spiritual suffering in their heart.
2. Writing purpose: his purpose is not to condemn war, but to tell people why he
keeps writing about war.
3. Style: formal and logical; thesis is well supported (Students can be suggested to
draw an outline of the text to follow the writers’ train of thought.)
Introduction to the Text
1. It should be pointed out to the students at the very beginning that the text is a
first-person narration of a World WarⅡveteran about this personal experience, his
feelings and sufferings during the war and the physical and psychological scars the
war left with him.
2. Explain to the students that the illness the author had as a result of being shot at and
shelled for months on end is called “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) after
Vietnam War; “combat fatigue” in WWII; “shell shock” in WWI; “soldier’s heart”
in the Civil War.
3. The author does not attempt to discuss the problem of war in all its complexity.
Although the ugliness of the war does come through clearly in his narration, his
purpose is not to condemn war, but to tell people why he keeps writing about.
184
4. The author believes that wars should be remembered because the people who have
so bravely borne the hardships, sufferings and sacrifices of war should be
remembered. For him, these common people are people who deserve our respect
and admiration.
Explanation of the text in details
1. The Structure of the Text
It can be divided into two big parts:
The first part describes his war memories in France in the summer of 1944.
The second part describes his life after the war.
2. Detailed Discussion of the text
(1) If the sounds continue, the men will be seen scraping the surface of the earth
with shovels and burying themselves in it until, like a species of animal, they
vanish from sight.
Paraphrase:
Obviously the soldiers are being bombarded. If the sound of planes does not
stop, that is, if the planes do not drop their bombs, the men will be seen
digging in until they disappear into the foxholes.
(2) I believe with Shakespeare that there are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamed of in the philosophy of those who serve the world, and who
administer its institutions, and grow rich.
Paraphrase:
I agree with what Shakespeare says, i.e. there are more important things in
heaven and in the world, things that are missing in the philosophy of the rich
and powerful, things that these people have never dreamed of.
Vocabulary
1. subject: a.
the thing you are talking about or considering in a conversation,
discussion, lecture,
book, film, etc.
b.
an area of knowledge you study at school or university
c.
(in grammar) 主语
2. to sweep: a.
to clean or clear away with or as if with a broom or brush
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b. (said of people) to move quickly together; to move quickly,
confidently and impatiently
c.
(said of winds, waves etc) to move quickly and with a lot of force
d.
(said of ideas, feelings etc) to become very popular
3. export (n)
a.
(said of a product or service or technology) sth sold to another
country
b. the whole business of selling goods or services to another country
4. to stuff (with): to fill or be filled with sth
stuff (n):
(infml) thing or things
5. more uses of the verb to clear
(1) to remove sth or some things from a place that is being blocked
(2) to prove that sb is not guilty of sth
(3) (said of weather) to become brighter when clouds break and move away
(4) (said of a debt) to pay the debt
Grammar
1.
Sentence analysis
2.
The passive
3.
“Than” as relative pronoun & conjunction of comparison
4.
Verb forms & tenses
What can we learn from the text?
War, this complex phenomenon in our life, has been one of the most favorite subjects in
art and literature as well as in serious academic studies. And although we have now
entered the third millennium, we do not see any reason why it will not remain so. In
literature, war has been described as a conflict between justice and evil; a battle of wits
and a demonstration of military powers; a display of noble patriotism and courage as
well as a revelation of human wickedness, cruelty and stupidity.
Text B: War
1. About the author
Luigi Pirandello(1867-1936), Italian author and playwright, is regarded as one of the
great playwrights of the twenty-century European theater. Born in Sicily, Pirandello
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became professor of Italian literature at the Normal College for Women in Rome. He
wrote seven novels and nearly three hundred stories, but he is best known for his
grotesquely humorous plays such as Right You Are If You Think You Are (1922), The
Pleasure of Honesty(1923), and Six Characters in Search of an Author(1922).
Pirandello won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1934.
2. About the writing
This story took place during wartime when boys of around twenty were sent to the front,
the most dangerous place, and indeed some of them died. At the beginning of the story,
the author brings in a couple, a bulky woman in deep mourning like a shapeless bundle
and her husband – a tiny man, thin and weakly with death-white face and small and
bright eyes. This distinctive contrast immediately draws the reader’s attention. The
husband then began to tell the traveling companions that his only son, a boy of twenty,
was going to be sent to the front and that hey were coming here to see him off. Both of
them felt very much in distress, which started a hot discussion on whether children
belonged to their parents or the country. They all approved that love of the country was
stronger than it was the love for children or parents. But still the children’s death for the
country could make their parents break into uncontrollable sobs.
3. About the text
Paragraph 2
hoist: to raise , lift, or pull up something, especially using ropes
Paragraph 6
nasty: very unpleasant to see, hear, smell, taste, touch or experience
Paragraph 7
wire: a message sent by using an electrical communication system
Paragraph 8
wriggle: to make small quick movements with the body, turning from side to side
in plight: in an unpleasant condition, esp. a serious, sad, or difficult one
Paragraph 13
get cross: get annoyed
Paragraph 15
pant: to breathe quickly and loudly through your mouth usually because you have been
187
doing something very energetic
Paragraph 17
distress: great mental or physical suffering such as extreme sadness, worry or pain, or
the state of being in great danger and therefore in urgent need of help
Paragraph 20
disillusion: to disappoint (somebody) by telling them the unpleasant truth about
something or somebody that they had a good idea of, or respect for
Paragraph 21
livid: (of marks on the skin) of an unpleasant purple or dark blue color
shrill: sounding loud and high in a way that is unpleasant or painful to listen to
Paragraph 24
resign: to make (yourself) accept (sth. unpleasant) calmly
Paragraph 26
stoically: slightly fml determined not to show any sign of the emotion you are feeling
Paragraph 28
incongruous unusual or different from the surroundings or from what is generally
happening
harrowing: extremely unsetting because connected with suffering
Weekly Quiz
I. Spelling
poststructuralist
paratrooper
bullet
traumatic
terminate strew
infantry sly hedgerows
colloquium
parallel
sordid
symptom
casualty
console
rhythmic
ammunition
division
carbine
II. Match the words and expressions
1.
Consequence or result of disaster or misfortune (aftermath)
2.
To have irregular involuntary muscular contractions (convulse)
3.
A dispute (usually lengthy and public)
4.
A military unit below the battalion
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(controversy)
(company)
sanity
5.
An academic seminar on some broad field of study (colloquium)
6.
To weigh down; to load or overload
7.
Assault; attack
8.
Self-composed; sensible
9.
Impossible to remedy, correct, or repair (irremediable)
(burden)
(onset)
(level-headed)
10. Dirty, filthy; morally degraded
(sordid)
III. Translation
1. The plan is subject to approval from higher authorities. 这个计划需经上级批准。
2. He was subjected to cruel torture.
他遭到了残酷地拷打。
3. The students all swept into the auditorium after supper to watch that new movie. 学
生们晚饭后都冲到礼堂去看那部新电影。
4. The backpack is stuffed with books and weighs at least thirty pounds. 书包里塞满
了书， 起码有三十磅重。
5. Please, no sea slugs or scorpions. I don’t care for that kind of weird stuff. 请别给
我海参或蝎子。 我不喜欢这类古怪的东西。
6. During an emergency, the streets will have to be cleared. 遇到紧急情况的时候，
所有街道都必须让出来。
7. The boy was cleared of suspicion as more evidence was presented in his favor. 由
于提出了更多的有利证据， 对那个男孩的怀疑排除了。
8. Twenty years ago, “Made in China” was still a catchword for shoddy goods. Today
our exports are comparable in quality to / with the world’s best. 20 年前， “中国
造” 还是劣质产品的标记， 但是现在我们的出口在质量上可以和世界最好的
相比了。
9. The devaluation of currency is usually good for exports, but bad for imports. 一种
货币的贬值通常对出口有利， 而对进口不利。
10. China is beginning to export more and more technology-intense products with high
added value.中国已开始出口越来越多高附加值的技术密集型产品。
IV.
Dictation
During the '20s, Dad worked hard to support our family, but was very little
money left over. // One day, I noticed the sole was almost off one of his shoes and // he
was putting cardboard in its place so he could go to work.//After he went to bed that
189
night, I quickly took his shoes and went out to the woodshed. // Using a small ax, I cut
an old inner tube into the shape of the sole and // put holes in the rims of the shoes with
an ice pick.（锄头）// I sewed the new soles to the shoes with copper wire and put the
cardboard back inside. //Then I shined them with soot （烟灰）from the stove lids.//I'll
never forget the look on Dad's face the next morning when he saw those shoes. // He
turned pale, and tears rolled down his cheeks. // He went to work without saying a
word.//That night, everyone kept looking at me. // Dad said we had all learned a
lesson--that as far as love is concerned, "Where there's a will, there's a way."// I'm now
in my 80s, but whenever I think of that look on Dad's face, // my heart still feels as if it
will swell up and burst.
Lesson 14
I. Objectives
1. Helping students understand the dispute about how to solve the drug problem
2. Consolidating grammar points or structures in this lesson.
3. Learning the main points of writing argumentative articles.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
16. The check of pre-class work and the oral work in the exercise; the study of the
first part of the text ( 1.5 hours)
17. The study of the second part & the vocabulary exercises. (1.5 hours)
18. The study of the last part of the text & the rest of the exercises. (1.5 hours)
III. Key Points
190
28. Key vocabulary as is indicated in the teaching notes
29. Key grammar as is indicated in the teaching notes
30. Important sentence as is indicated in the teaching notes
IV. Suggested class activities
13. Ask students to present their pre-class homework as well as their questions
about the text orally.
14. Try the selected oral work on P. 439 in the exercise.
15. Ask students to have group discussion about the harm of drug abuse and judge
for themselves which argument in the lesson they are for.
V. Assignment(s)
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Teaching Notes for Lesson 14
Text A: How Do We Deal with the Drug Problem
I. Morning Report
II. Weekly Quiz
III. In-class Teaching Procedures
In-class Task-cycle
A. Check Pre-class Task
Divide students into several groups, and ask them to report what they have found
to the class to better their understanding of the text. Also ask students to prepare their
questions about the text.
191
B. In-class Tasks
1. Presentation on what students have found about drug abuse as an overwhelming
problem in America and what solutions they can put forward about it.
2. Group discussion:

Have you watched any TV program about drug rehabilitation or seen any film like
PROTÉGÉ (门徒)?

If you have, can you say something about your impression of the film, esp. the
addicted couple in the film? Or addicts in the TV program?

What do you think of the slogan “YES TO LIFE, NO TO DRUG”

What damaging consequences does drug abuse have on society?

Do you agree with legalizing or deglamorizing drug as a solution?
3. Relevant material
Drug Abuse
The problem
Drug abuse in the Unite States has come to be regarded as one of the most
challenging social problems facing the nation. Indeed, the very word “drug” excites
strong emotion, and opinion polls since the late 1960s have shown that the “drug
problem” is perceived by most Americans as a major threat to our society, particularly
to its younger members.
We can define a DRUG as any chemical that is psychoactive, or capable of
modifying a person’s behavior through its effect on emotions, thinking, or
consciousness. Strictly speaking, many familiar substances such as aspirin or tea are
drugs, but when most Americans think of drugs, they have in mind only outlawed
substances such as heroin or LSD. A characteristic of many psychoactive chemicals is
that they lead to DEPENDENCE; that is, the user develops a recurrent craving for them.
Dependence may be psychological, physical, or both. In the case of psychological
dependence, the user feels psychologically discomforted if cut off from the drug. In the
case of physical dependence, or ADDICTION, bodily withdrawal symptoms may occur,
taking many forms and ranging in severity from slight trembling to fatal convulsions.
Users develop a TOLERANCE for some drugs; that is, they have to take steadily
increasing amounts to achieve a given level of effect.
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Drug use is almost universal in human societies. The only peoples who do not use
drugs belong either to religious communities that prohibit such substances or to groups
like the Eskimo, who live in places so barren that no drug yielding plants can be
cultivated.
Because
the
use
of
drug
may
have
socially
undesirable
effects—incapacitation of its user, for example—each society, through social norms and
often by law as well, regulates drug usage, specifying which drugs are acceptable, who
may legitimately use them, how much of a given drug it is permissible to consume, and
the circumstances under which drug use is appropriate. Failure to conform to these
norms constitutes DRUG ABUSE in the society in question. In many parts of North
Africa and the Middle East, for example, marijuana is acceptable, whereas alcohol is not
(in Saudi Arabia, alcohol users are still publicly flogged), in India, opium is freely
available in street bazaars, but alcohol is prohibited by the constitution in the United
States. Many countries impose severe penalties for the use of cocaine, but in parts of the
Andes Mountains its use is nearly universal. No reliable global estimate of the number
of marijuana smokers is currently available, but a rough United Nations estimate in the
1950s set the figure at more than 200 million. In modern industrialized societies,
alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine are the most commonly used drugs, and the use of’
synthetic chemicals, such as stimulants and sedatives, is also widespread.
The sociologist is interested in why people choose the drugs they do, why some
abuse drugs, and why particular societies permit certain drugs but not others. Also of
interest is the social reaction to various forms of drug use, because this reaction serves
to define the status of the drug-takers — in some cases, by labeling them as criminals.
The Social Cost of Drug Use
Drug abuse in the United States is a social problem because it has a wide range of
social costs—some obvious and measurable, some hidden and difficult to quantify.
Crime. There is a strong association between some forms of drug use and crime. The
use of alcohol, for example, is highly correlated with violent crime; more than half of
those committing murder and other violent assaults have consumed alcohol immediately
before the crime. Heroin addiction, too, is related to crime, although not so directly to
violence. Heroin addicts may need as much as $100 a day to support their habit, and
most addicts find that they must steal in order to raise these sums. In addition, users of
193
illegal drugs have to rely directly or indirectly on criminal networks that manufacture,
smuggle, and distribute these drugs. The profits from this illicit commerce are vast, and
Mafia and other criminal syndicates have become deeply involved in the supply of
heroin and, more recently, of cocaine. (Technically, the profits of the organized crime
are not an economic “cost” to society; they are business profits, no less than those of
General Motors, and are actually an unrecorded part of the nation’s gross national
product. But they are social cost in that this huge, untaxed income is generated by, and
used to support, a variety of criminal activities, thus diverting resources that might be
put to more socially useful ends.)
Not all drugs, however, are related to crime. Contrary to what some Americans
believe, marijuana is not associated with aggressive behavior of any kind. The drug’s
calming effects are not conducive to violent acts, and because marijuana is
non-addictive, there is little motive for the user to resort to theft to obtain it. LSD and
other hallucinogenic drugs, too, have little or no relationship to violent or criminal
behavior.
Automobile Accidents Alcohol use is directly responsible for tens of thousands of
highway accidents and injuries; the drug is blamed for half of the annual total of road
traffic fatalities. Some 60 percent of all drivers fatally injured in auto accidents have a
blood-alcohol concentration of over 0.05 percent, a level that the National Safety
Council considers sufficient to impair driving ability, and over 35 percent have a
concentration of over 0.15 percent, a level high enough to cause intoxication. The cost
of property damage and medical expenses due to alcohol related automobile accidents
totals about $1 billion each year.
There is little information on the effects of other drugs on highway accidents, but it
is reasonable to suppose that most psychoactive substances, taken in sufficient doses,
will impair driving ability. In stimulated driving tests, marijuana has been found to
affect performance by slowing down reaction time, reducing the driver’s attention, and
impairing judgment. Amphetamines, too, which are sometimes used by drivers to
increase alertness, can reduce driving performance when fatigue sets in as the effect of
the drug wears off.
Disrespect for the law. Existing laws that regulate drug use define millions of
194
American citizens as criminals. A majority of American students, for example, have
broken laws relating to marijuana use, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have
acquired criminal records and in some cases several jail sentences for acts that many do
not believe should be regulated by the criminal law at all. When laws applied that many
citizens regard as irrational, hypocritical, or outmoded, widespread disrespect for the
legal system may result.
Economic Losses. The cost of alcohol abuse alone totals over $43 billion a year in
accidents, medical ‘ills, lost production, and so on. It is difficult, however, to estimate
the total economic costs of drug use. One reason is that there are many indirect costs
society must pay to support drug-dependent persons. Treatment and control of drug
abuse constitute a major drain on law-enforcement and other public resources. Chronic
drug abusers, for example, may become unemployable and end up on the welfare rolls.
By the mid-1970s, federal and state governments were spending over l billion per year
on the treatment of various drug abusers. Another half billion dollars annually goes into
processing drug abusers through. the criminal justice system (well over a third of the
arrests in the United States each year are for alcohol and other drug-related offenses).
The economic losses resulting from criminal activities associated with drug use are also
enormous.
Effects on Individuals Drug dependence takes a significant toll in terms of personal
health and safety. The heavy user of drugs is much more likely than a member of the
general population to be killed or to commit suicide, either deliberately or accidentally.
Alcoholics, for example, have a death rate nearly three times higher than that of the
general population; they represent a third of all suicides and are seven times more likely
than non-alcoholics to suffer fatal accidents. Use of heroin increases one’s chances of
premature death through overdose, infectious diseases such as hepatitis and endocarditis,
or suicide. Barbiturates also cause several thousand deaths in the United States every
year. Many drugs have severe and sometimes irreversible effects on mental as well as
physical health. Drug dependency, too, may affect other areas of the individual’s life,
ranging from the home to the work place to personal relationships with friends.
Contemporary Patterns of Drug Abuse
The use of drugs remains almost universal in American society. The great majority
195
of Americans have at one time or another used psychoactive drugs. Each year we spend
over a billion dollars on more than 225 million prescriptions for stimulants, sedatives,
and tranquilizers. The alcohol industry sells over a billion gallons of spirits, wine, and
beer each year at a cost of more than $24 billion to some 100 million consumers.
Despite the acknowledged link between cigarette smoking and such illnesses as lung
cancer and heart disease, 54 million adults continue to smoke.
However, cultural patterns of drug use have shifted in one very important respect
— from legal to illegal drugs. In the past the use of illegal drugs was largely restricted
to small subcultures, primarily among minority groups. Today, the use of illegal drugs,
particularly marijuana, has become a norm among a substantial proportion of the
younger generation (although only 7 percent of adults over the age of 35 have used the
drug, it has been used by 8 percent of those aged twelve to thirteen, by 29 percent of
those fourteen to fifteen, by 47 percent of those sixteen to seventeen, and by 60 percent
of those aged eighteen to twenty-five.) In the late 1970s, it was estimated that a total of
42 million Americans had smoked marijuana and that approximately 8 million had
taken a psychedelic drug, such as LSD or mescaline. In addition, there are several
hundred thousand heroin users in the United States, many of whom are addicted to the
drug.
At present there are continual shifts in the specific drugs that are favored — LSD,
for example, was significantly more popular in the early 1970s than it is at present;
alcohol is far more commonly used by young people now than it was in the 1960s; and
cocaine, a drug that was little used in the 1960s, is more popular today.
Moreover, the use or abuse of any drug can take many forms. The National
Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse identified at least five distinctive
forms of use in which the motives and conduct of the user may differ:
EXPERIMENTAL use is short-term and of trial nature: a person uses a drug
once Or twice simply to experience its effects and may never use it again.
SOCIAL-RECREATIONAL use is occasional and occurs among friends or
acquaintances: a drug is taken as part of a shared experience to support and
enhance social interactiona1 among group members.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL-SITUATIONAL use is restricted to particular pressing
196
circumstances: a student may use a drug to keep alert for examinations; or a
person may take a drug because peer-group pressure.
INTENSIFIED use refers to long-term, patterned drug taking, as when a person
uses a drug habitually and regularly.
COMPULSIVE use refers to high frequency use of a drug: the individual has
great difficulty in facing life without the drug and becomes physiologically and /or
psychologically dependent upon it.
Social attitudes, and indeed the law, often fail to distinguish among these forms of
drug use. Disapproval or legal pena1ties may be applied indiscriminately to all types of
users, from the experimental to the compulsive. Public concern about drug use has also
been increased by the common belief that there is a relationship between crime and the
abuse of illegal drugs — either because the drugs cause people to commit crimes or
because users commit crimes to pay for the drugs. And the fact that the older generation,
as many surveys have shown, has little experience or even accurate knowledge of the
illegal drugs used by the young has made the problem more complex.
★ TB also provides good background information.
4. The Analysis of the text
A. Style: Argumentative writing
B. Important questions to consider when writing argumentative articles
1. What is the issue under discussion?
2. Are they having a serious, reasonable and free discussion or are they bickering
or gossiping or generally talking nonsense?
3. What are the difficulties confronting us on this issue?
4. What solutions are being offered?
5. What arguments are used to support each of these solutions?
6. What claim is made about the desirable results of each solution?
7. What is used to support the arguments? Logic or close reasoning? Facts?
Statistics? Source of authority? Commonsense? Experience? Basic principle?
8. Do these different solutions represent different vested interests?
9. Where would I stand if I were to make the decision?
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C. Parts of the text
Part I: Legalizing drugs as a solution to the drug problem. (Para. 1-10)
Part II: Legalizing drugs is not a cheap or easy solution because it will sharply
increase social cost. (Para. 11-20)
Part III: The only way to reduce drug consumption is to deglamorize the cultural
impression of taking drugs by mounting a propaganda campaign against
drugs on the scale of the antismoking campaign. (Para. 21-32)
D. Detailed study of the text (please also refer to the reference book)
Part I: Legalizing drugs as a drastic solution to the drug problem. (para. 1-10)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of part I of the text
1. What does Vidal suggest the U.S. government should do to stop most drug
addicts and solve drug-related problems in the country within a very short time?
2. What are the drug-related problems?
3. What does Vidal believe would happen to the drug takers, drug dealers and drug
producers once drug use was legalized?
4. What is his rationale?
5. Does that mean he believes that all addicts and drug abuse would disappear?
6. What does he propose to do for those who simply cannot kick the drug and are
obviously killing themselves?
7. Why does Vidal mention Prohibition in the U.S. history? What point is he
trying to make by making this analogy?
8. What does he mean when he says that the American government has a vested
interest in seeing the drug problem grow?
9. What is he talking about when he says that the American people are devoted to
the idea of sin and its punishment?
B. Paraphrase
1.This will require heroic honesty. (1)
Telling the truth about the effect of each drug on those who take it will require
courage and honesty on the part of those involved, the medical profession, the
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government, etc.
heroic honesty: an honesty that takes courage to put into action/practice
2.Don’t say that marijuana is addictive and dangerous when it is neither, unlike
“speed”, which kills most unpleasantly, or heroin, which is addictive and difficult to kick. (l)
Don’t exaggerate the harmful effect of marijuana. It is neither addictive nor
dangerous, as is often described. Differentiate it from “speed” and heroin. “Speed”
causes death while heroin is difficult to stop using once a person is addicted to it.
to kick: (slang) to give up or break (a drug addiction, a bad habit, etc)
3.For the record, I have tried almost every drug and liked none, disproving the
popular theory that a whiff of opium will enslave the mind. (2)
and I don’t think a person’s mind will be dominated by opium /1 don’t agree that a
person will become addicted to opium if he takes a small amount of it.
4. Along with exhortation and warning, It might be good for our citizens to recall
that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each man has
the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere
with his neighbor’s pursuit of happiness. (2)
While urging people not to take drugs and warning them of the dangers, we should
remind our citizen that their country was created by the early European settlers who
believed that a man has the right to do whatever he wishes to his own life as long as
what he does doesn’t prevent his neighbor from seeking happiness.
5. Now one can hear the warning rumble begin: if everyone is allowed to take
drugs everyone will and we shall end up a race of Zombies. (4)
Now we hear those people who are against legalization giving us warnings. They say
if drugs are legalized, everyone will become addicts, and our nation will become one
near to living death.
the warning rumble: the annoying voices opposing legalizing drugs
Zombie: (informal) someone who does not seem to know or care about what is
happening around them and moves very slowly, esp. because they are very upset or
tired
6. Alarming thought. Yet, it seems most unlikely that any reasonably sane person
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will become a drug addict if he knows in advance what addiction is going to be like.
(4)
This sounds frightening. However, this picture/situation is not likely to emerge,
because no sensible person will become addicted to drugs if he/she knows before it
is too late what harmful effects addiction will bring about.
7. Is everyone reasonably sane? No. Some people will always become drug addicts just
as some people will always become alcoholics, and it is just too bad. (5)
Surely, not everyone is so sensible as to refuse drugs. But this is nothing alarming.
There are always people who will become addicted to something. Some will
become drug addicts just as some others become alcoholics. It is unfortunate but we
can’t help it.
8. But since most men don’t, they won’t be mainliners either. (5)
Most people won’t become addicts even if they are allowed to take drugs, ust as
most people don’t kill themselves though they have the right to do so.
mainliner: (infml) a person who injects illegal drugs into his/her blood
9. This psychological insight is, for some mysterious reason, always denied our
governors. (5) Somehow, for some unknown reason, our leaders don’t seem to
understand this.
10. It is a lucky thing for the American moralist that we have no public memory of
anything that happened last Tuesday. (6)
Most Americans have a bad memory and don’t remember anything that happened in
the past. This is a lucky thing for those people who advocate forbidding drugs (for
if they remembered what Prohibition in the 1920s resulted in, they would see that
prohibition of drugs will not be feasible, either).
11.No one in Washington today recalls what happened during the years alcohol
was forbidden to the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission
to stamp out Demon Rum—launching, in the process, the greatest crime wave.
In the country’s history, causing thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and
creating a general (and persisting) contempt among the citizenry for laws of the
United States. (6)
Grammatical analysis of the sentence:
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No one in Washington today ‖ recalls ‖ what happened during the years ‖ alcohol was
Subject
Verb
Object .
Relative
forbidden by a Congress ‖ that thought it had a divine mission to stamp out Demon
Rum—
clause
Relative clause
‖launching in the process, the greatest crime wave in the country’s history, ‖ causing
present participle phrase (1)
present
thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and ‖ creating a general (and persisting) contempt
participle phrase (2)
present participle phrase (3)
among the citizenry for laws of the United States.
Paraphrasing
In order to make the structure of a long and involved sentence clear, we often break
it up into short ones, turning attributive clauses, participles into separate sentences.
Note how it is done in the following paraphrase.
.
No lawmakers and government officials remember what happened in the 1920s. At
that time Congress adopted a law forbidding people alcohol Congress thought it
was an order from God to put an end to drinking. But what did Prohibition result in?
It led to the worst crime rate in the country’s history; thousands of people died
because they drank bad alcohol; for thirty years thereafter, citizens lost all
confidence in and respect for US laws.
Demon Rum: “Rum” is a drink made from sugar. It symbolized to those in Congress all
alcoholic drinks, e. g. whiskey, brandy, gin. They called it a drink of the Devil or
Demon.
12. The same thing is happening today. But the government has learned nothing
from past attempts at prohibition. (7)
If today lawmakers and the government are again trying to forbid something people
think they might enjoy. They don’t see that their present attempt at prohibition of
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drugs will not succeed just as the past attempt at prohibition of alcohol
failed/collapsed/miscarried. The government has not drawn any lesson from the
nation’s past.
13.The bureaucratic machine has a vested interest in playing cops and robbers.(8)
The government (referring to the FBI and the Bureau of Narcotics) has a special
reason for playing the role of the police catching and punishing lawbreakers
(referring to drug smugglers, pushers and takers).
(The Bureau of Narcotic wants a law against drugs because if there was no profit in
selling drugs and drugs were legal, there would be no reason for the Bureau to exist
and all those bureaucrats would lose their jobs. The Mafia is deeply involved in
smuggling and selling drugs and makes a huge profit from them. The FBI is the
‘state organ-, which has to carry out the law, to ban drugs and punish pushers and
takers)
the bureaucratic machine: the government offices and agencies
to play cops and robbers: It is one of children’s favorite games in which some play the
good guys, others the bad.
14. Both the Bureau of Narcotics and the Mafia want strong laws against the sale
and use of drugs because if drugs are sold at cost there would be no money in it for
anyone. (8)
Both the Bureau of Narcotics and the Mafia are for tough measures against/getting
tough with the sale and use of drugs because legalization would deprive the Mafia
of the money they get from drug pushing and the Bureau would be disbanded.
15. If there was no money in it for the Mafia, there would be no friendly playground pushers, and addicts would not commit crimes to pay for the next fix.(9)
friendly playground pushers: people who sell drugs outside school playgrounds,
who are usually friendly to the buyers, probably they don’ t insist on immediate
payment from regular buyers
fix: (informal) the amount of a drug that sb feels they need to take regularly
16. Finally, if there was no money in it, the Bureau of Narcotics would wither away,
something they are not about to do without a struggle. (9)
Finally, if the Mafia couldn’t get money Out of legal drug dealing when drugs are
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legal, the Bureau of Narcotic~ would be disbanded. This is something the
government will surely try hard to prevent because the people working in the
Bureau would lose their jobs.
17.The American people are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as
they are to making money—and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as
pushing them. (10)
The American people work hard to become rich, to realize the American dream.
They work equally hard in their war against drugs because they firmly believe that
drug taking is a sin and that all sins should be punished.
the idea of sin and its punishment: the idea that sin must be punished
18.Therefore the situation will only grow worse. (10)
That is why the harsher the punishment for drug sale and use, the more serious the
drug problem will grow.
C. Language points
1.at Cost: for only the amount of money that is needed to make or get sth, without
any profit being added on, e. g. [1]
The corporation (Habitat for Humanity) would erect simple, decent houses
and sell them at cost.
When the salesman said they were selling their products at cost, I didn’t
believe him.
Cf.
at a cost/at what cost: used to say-that it may not have been worth doing sth
because so much has been lost or damaged as a result, e. g.
He obtained a professorship in tbe end, but at a cost to his
marriage.
at the cost of sth, e. g.
I don’t think you should work so hard at the cost of your health.
at all costs/at any cost: used for saying that sth must be done, however
203
difficult it is or however much damage it causes, e. g.
We were instructed that the man’s life be saved at all costs.
label sth with: to fix a label on sth or write information on sth, e. g. [1]
a) Each bottle of her homemade jam is labeled according to the ingredients and
date.
b) The secretary labeled each file with its contents.
2. for the record: declared openly and officially, so as to make known one’s
disagreement, e. g.[2]
a) “For the record,” said the Senator,” I think our effort to reduce crime is
afai1ure~”
b) For the record, I find parents are making a big mistake imposing their values on
their children.
3. a whiff of sth: (mainly literary) a small amount of sth or a slight sign or feeling
of sth, e. g. [2]
a) a whiff of onion!; a whiff of fear/danger/scandal/hypocrisy/success
4. to enslave the mind:affect people to the extent that they will lose control over
their own lives[2]
5. It might be good to do sth: used for making a suggestion, giving advice, etc
[3]
6. along with: in addition to sb/sth; in the same way as sb/sth[3]
7. to interfere with: to prevent sth from succeeding or from being done as
planne[3]
8. end up: (mainly spoken) be in a particular place or state after doing sth or
because of doing it, [4]
a) If you don’t mend your ways, you’ll end up a criminal.
b) At the party he (Stephen Hawking) threw on New Year’s Eve, he had difficulty
pouring a glass of wine, and most of the liquid ended up on the tablecloth.
9. in advance (of sth): before the time they become addicted to drugs[4]
10. too bad: (spoken) used for saying that you are sorry or sympathetic about sth, e.
g. [5]
204
a) Too bad the shoes don’t fit you.
b) You lost your job? That’s too bad.
c) Note: “Too bad” is often misunderstood. Often it is understood as “very bad”,
which is wrong.
11. to stamp out: to end sth bad or unpleasant by taking strong and determined
action[6]
12. be hooked of sth: find sth so attractive or interesting that you can’t stop
yourself from doing it[8]
13. to have a vested interest in (doing) sth: to have a special reason for wanting
sth to happen in a particular way, because you will benefit from this, e. g. [8]
a) It was difficult to end the system of slavery because many powerful people had
a vested interest in keeping it.
b) Silent Spring received great criticism from the chemical industry because the
latter had
c) a vested interest in DDT and other pesticides.
14. to wither away: to become weaker and then disappear, e. g. [5]
a) After leaving school, their friendship withered away.
D. Assignments for the first period
Vocabulary exercises on PPs 440-445
Part II. Part II: Legalizing drugs is not a cheap or easy solution because it will
sharply increase social cost. (Para 11-20)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of part II of the text
1. Why did the Baltimore mayor call for a national debate on the problem of
legalizing drug?
2. Where did he stand?
3. What did Friedman, the world-renowned economist, have to say about this?
4. Does Clarence Page agree or disagree with Vidal?
5. What does he mean when he says that Vidal’s logic has an ugly gaping hole?
6. Does he mean he agrees with Bennet, the drug czar, that there should be further
205
criminalization?
7. So where does Page stand?
B. Paraphrase
19. Such is the deliciously convenient reasoning that the drug problem can be resolved
by legalizing it. (11)
deliciously convenient reasoning: delightful, easy way of thinking (not requiring
effort)
20. Unfortunately, legalization sounds too good to be true and probably is.(11)
too good to be true: so good that you cannot believe that such a situation is possible, e.
g. The news is too good to be true.
probably is: (legalization) probably is too rational to be feasible
This is an understatement (a statement which is not strong enough to express
the full or true facts or feeling or meaning). The writer actually does not think
legalization can work.
21. It would immediately remove the immense profits drugs now pump into the
criminal underworld, it would reduce the forbidden-fruit attraction drugs have for
young people and it would take away the criminal stigma that prevents many
addicts from seeking help.(12)
If drugs were sold at cost and legally, no one would buy them from pushers
who sell them at high prices, and immediately the Mafia wouldn’t get huge
profits from illegal drug dealing. Drugs would become less attractive to young
people when they are not forbidden. Addicts would try to get help so as to kick
their physical dependency when there is no disgrace or shame attached to drug
taking.
the forbidden tree/fruit: a pleasure or enjoyment that is disapproved of or not allowed
and therefore made to seem more enjoyable.
22.Deep thinkers have long advocated lifting the prohibition on drugs. (13)
206
to lift the prohibition on drugs: to legalize sale and use of drugs/to officially end
the law forbidding drugs
23. Schmoke’ s advocacy was based on his experience as a drug prosecutor. He felt
as though he was bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon. (14)
Many years of experience as a drug prosecutor convinced him that fighting
drugs was an arduous and impossible task. (It was just like trying to empty the
ocean with such a small thing as a teaspoon.)
24.So let’s change the rules. (14)
So let’s lift prohibition of drugs/Let’s legalize drugs.
25. The simplicity of this prescription has proved irresistible to many.(16)
This proposed solution to the drug problem has become so attractive that many
people accept it simply because it is very simple.
26. Unfortunately, the simple beauty of such logic has an ugly gaping hole.(16)
Mayor Schmoke’s logic seems simple: if you can’t win the game, you should
change the rules, in other words, if you can’t solve the problem of drugs, you
should legalize it. Unfortunately, Mayor Schmoke fails to take into consideration a
lot of important aspects involved.
gaping hole: (fig.) a part of sth such as an idea or explanation where a lot of important
details are missing
27. Unfortunately, Bennett’s approach also misses the boat. (19)
Unfortunately, Bennett fails to grasp the essence of the drug problem.
28. Drugs are a symptom of deeper ills in certain segments of our society,
particularly the impoverished segments. (19)
Widespread use of drugs is a sign of more serious social problems for some groups
of the population, especially for the poor. *
29. You can call in all the troops you want and build more jails and drug boot
camps, but as long as demand remains, the traffic will find ways to get
through. (19)
but as long as there is a need for drugs/there are people who want drugs, pushers
will manage to get them to the users, in spite of more punishment
207
30. Bennett is right to say the nation’s drug problem is too multifaceted to be destroyed
with a “magic bullet”. (20)
Bennett is right in pointing Out that the drug issue is such a complicated problem
that there is no quick and easy solution.
31. But he is wrong to limit his targets. (20)
But he shouldn’t have limited his targets just to drug sale and abuse, without
looking deeper into many related social problems.
32. The proverbial quick fix that legalization would seem to provide is illusory.(20)
It seems as if legalization would be able to ‘offer the well-known quick fix for the
drug problem. However, though this solution appears attractive, it will not work
out/is not feasible.
33. But so is the slow fix offered by further criminalization. (20)
Further criminalization—.the opposite of legalization—which is a solution that
takes time to
implement,-is not feasible, either.
criminalization: harsher measures against drug sale and abuse, punishing more people
involved
C. Language points
1. deliciously: (mainly literary) in a very pleasant or enjoyable way,
e. g. He was deliciously tired. (Lesson 9, para. 39)
2. to lift: to officially end a rule or law that stops sb from doing sth
Common collocations: to lift a ban/blockade/curfew/restriction/sanction
3. to call for: to request/suggest/advocate
4. to bail out sth with sth else: to empty water from sth by lifting it out with a
container
5. to be alone in (doing) sth: (usually in negatives or questions) to be the only
person that does
Germany was not alone in opposing another UN resolution on the matter.
208
Am I alone in thinking that our boss could be wrong?
6. declare/wage war on sth: to make a determined effort to control or stop sth
Common collocations: to declare war on corruption / crime/ a disease /
poverty, etc
7. prescription (for sth): (fml) a plan or suggestion that will help you achieves sth
or that will r have a particular result, e. g.
a prescription for a happy marriage/economic recovery
8. the beauty of sth: the advantage or good quality that sth has, e. g.
The beauty of living close to where you work is that you save a lot of time
traveling.
9. to direct sth to sb: (fml) to turn (a comment, complaint, etc) to a particular
place or person,
If you have any comp1aints~ please direct them to the Public Relations
Department.
The correspondent directed his question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
not to the spokesman.
10. miss the boat to fail to understand sth
11. call in: to ask a person or organization that provides a service to come and deal
with :sth drug boot camp detention centers for drug addicts, probably, providing,
compulsory treatment
12. get through: to reach the end, to finish, to complete
D. Check vocabulary exercises on PPs 440-445
F. Assignments
Grammar exercises on PPs 446-451
Part III: The only way to reduce drug consumption is to deglamorize the cultural
impression of taking drugs by mounting a propaganda campaign against drugs on
the scale of the antismoking campaign. (21-32)
A. Questions to check students’ understanding of part III of the text
209
1. Does Charles Krauthammer agree that lifting the prohibition on drug would
save billions in law enforcement? What is his response?
2. What does he think of the analogy made by Vidal?
3. If the prohibition on alcohol failed in history, on what grounds does he believe
that the current prohibition on drugs will fare better?
4. What is his basic argument?
5. Is he also advocating tough laws and more severe repression?
6. What new solution is he offering?
7. What makes him seem so confident that this solution would work?
B. Paraphrase
34.What legalizers minimize is the catastrophic effect that legalization would have
on public health, an effect that would far outweigh the savings in law
enforcement. (23)
But legalization supporters/advocates make light of the serious harmful effects
legalization would have on people’s health. This effect would be a far more
important consideration than any money that might be saved in enforcement.
35.WeIl, you ask, if alcohol is now legal, what is the logic of prohibiting cocaine
and heroin?
Now that alcohol is legal, you ask, what is the point of forbidding cocaine and
heroin is it sensible to forbid cocaine and heroin? (24)
36.No logic, just history. Alcohol use is so ancient and so universal a practice that It
cannot be repealed. (24)
Here, there is no reason why one thing is allowed while another is forbidden. It is a
historical fact that alcohol has been used since ancient times and drinking is so
widespread that you
37. Alcohol is here to stay. To legalize other drugs is to declare that the rest of the
pharmacy is here to stay too. (24)
Alcohol (regarded as a drug) is generally accepted. But legalizing a fe~ other drugs
210
(such as cocaine and heroin) would mean all the other drugs (including lethal ones)
could be legally obtained.
38. With cocaine and heroin readily available, additional transportation deaths
alone would dwarf the current number of drug-related deaths. (25)
Once cocaine and heroin are easy to get (if they are made legal), the number of
deaths ii~ traffic accidents addicts would cause would be greater than all
drug-related deaths now.
39. First, legalization gives a social sanction. (26)
First, people generally regard anything legal as a kind of public approval.
40. Third, It makes them available at a price that must match or undercut the street
price—otherwise, the whole rationale for legalization is defeated (26)
Third, when drugs are legal, they can be got at a price that is equal to or even lower
than when they are sold illegally. That is what legalization is based on. If drugs are
still sold at a high price, what is the point of making them legal?
41. The great paradigm is the success of the now 25.year.old antismoking campaign.(27)
The success of the anti-smoking campaigns, which have been waged for 25 years,
is an excellent example of what painstaking and sustained effort can achieve.
42. This is not the image a person wants to project, and projecting an image is why
people start to smoke in the first place. (Addiction is why they continue.) (28)
The reason why people started to smoke in the past was to create a glamorous
image. Smoking is now seen as a sign of weakness. This is not the image a person
wants to create, so smoking has lost its glamour.
43. Do to them what was done to tobacco: deglamorize. (30)
Handle the problem the way tobacco was handled: take all the glamour out of
drugs/attach no
glamour to them.
44. You must start cracking down hard on users. (31)
You must start dealing with users much more harshly.
45. There you have it: four solutions. (32)
211
You have four solutions to choose from.
46. If you are desperate for a quick fix; either legalize drugs or repress the users.(32)
If you are eager to solve the problem and achieve immediate results, either you
make drugs legal, or you punish the users.
47. If you want a civilized approach, mount a propaganda campaign against
drugs on the scale of the antlsmoking campaign. (32)
If you want to adopt an appropriate and humane way, launch as extensive a
propaganda campaign against drugs as the one that was aimed at smoking.
48. And if you are just a politician looking for reelection, send in the Marines and
wave to the cameras.(32)
And if you are a politician seeking reelection and wishing to project a favorable
image, go all out and wave your hands before the camera so that your picture will
be carried in newspapers and TV.
C. Language points
1. (sth) to be here to stay/have come to Stay: used for saying that sth is generally
accepted and is part of all our lives, e. g.
Whether you like it or not, the generation gap is here to stay.
Exams are here to stay in our education system.
2. to crack down on sth/sb: to try hard to prevent an i1legaI activity, or to stop
people from getting involved in it and deal more severely with those who are
caught doing it
The university has decided to crack down on plagiarism.
The police are cracking down on car theft.
3. to be enough... to go around: to be enough so that everyone has one or some, e.
g.
Are there enough copies to go around?
Would you go to the next door and get a few chairs ? There aren’t enough
here to go around
212
4. to throw sth in: to include sth extra with sth that you are selling without asking
for a
higher price
5. to send in the Marines: here used figuratively meaning “do everything
possible” (The Marines are the toughest soldiers in the US army.)
D. Check vocabulary exercises on PPs 446-451
F. Assignments
1. Review the text and the vocabulary.
2. Summarize this text orally with partners.
3. Prepare the new lesson.
Text B: They Dared Cocaine-and Lost
1. About the author: Henry Hurt
Henry Hurt is a former newspaperman and presently a Roving Editor for Reader's
Digest. He lives with his wife and three children in rural Virginia. Henry Hurt the
investigative reporter published his book, Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the
Assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1986. He is also the author of Shadrin: The Spy
Who Never Came Back (1983).
About the writing:
2. About the writing:
Drug abuse in the Unite States has come to be regarded as one of the most
challenging social problems facing the nation. Indeed, the very word “drug” excites
strong emotion, and opinion polls since the late 1960s have shown that the “drug
problem” is perceived by most Americans as a major threat to American society,
particularly to its younger members. Drug abuse in the United States is a social problem
because it has a wide range of social costs—some obvious and measurable, some
hidden and difficult to quantify.
Henry Hurt, however, didn’t approach the problem from the comprehensive
perspective of its social cost: crimes or traffic accidents. Instead, he illustrated this
213
universal problem with the ruined lives of two successful professionals: Stan Belin and
Patrick Bissell. The former a dentist with spreading reputation, the latter a ballet dancer
at his best in career. Both of them distinguished themselves at very young age. Yet, both
turned to drug for a relief of the feeling of depression and pressure.
Stan, growing up in a poor and fractured family, formed his belief at a very young
age that money could buy everything in the world, including happiness, so he worked
very hard to achieved his dream of living a wealthy life. He made it. But he couldn’t
shake off the feeling of depression however luxurious his life was and however
prestigious a position he held. At last he fell a victim of drug. His dream shattered. He
lost everything he had strived for all these years. Luckily, he survived.
Patrick Bissell was not so lucky. He died of overdose of cocaine. He had had to
relied on drug to perform the most demanding ballet work. He was a perfectionist. He
competed against himself—and for a perfectionist this may be the hardest competition
of all. And finally he collapsed.
Although Henry Hurt didn’t put the two examples into their social context.
However, we can draw our conclusion from what Patrick’s mother said at the end of the
text. “Most of these problems begin at home, when children are being brought up.” If
Stan’s parents were poor but didn’t fight constantly, he might as well get the sense of
contentment from his family and won’t feel the depression in his later life. Likewise, if
Patrick’s mother hadn’t pushed him so hard and had nurtured in him the self-esteem he
had needed to deal with life, he wouldn’t have thought of drug as a solution.
Although the writer didn’t put it explicitly, he seemed to advise that we trace drug
problem to the early life of its victims and effect a permanent cure.
3. About the text:
Text B can be conveniently divided into three parts
Part I The introduction
Part II (para. 1～16) Drug destroyed Stan’s dream.
Part III (para. 17～34) Drug began Patrick’s dance of death.
Weekly Quiz
214
I. Spelling
1. smuggle
2. advocacy
3. sanction
6. stigma
7. cartel
11. czar
12 demon
16. illusory
17. intoxicant
8. cocaine
4. analogy
9. confiscation
13. enforcement
18. marijuana
5. bail
10. corruption
14. exhortation
15. glamorize
19. rationale
20. rebuttal
II. Word Derivation
1.Crack is the most _____drug on the market.(addict)
1. I support your ______of
free trade.(advocate)
2. He showed great courage by admitting on television that he is an _____ .(alcohol)
3. I think we lack a_____ that is adequately willing to take responsibility. (citizen)
4. The doctors want stricter_____ of existing laws, such as those banning sales of
cigarettes to children.(enforce)
5. Filmmakers have often been accused of ______organized crime.(glamour)
6. Universalists argue that freedom is______.(illusion)
7. His mastery of the French language was________.(proverb)
Keys: addictive // advocacy // alcoholic// citizenry// enforcement// glamorizing//
illusory proverbial
III. Translate the following phrases
A.
1. 戒毒
to kick a drug habit/drug addiction
2. 犯上了酒瘾
to get hooked on alcohol
3. 玩警察捉强盗的游戏
to play cops and robbers
4. 解除禁令
to lift the prohibition
5. 杯水车薪，力不从心
to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon
6. 使赌博合法化
to legalize gambling
7. 使香烟不再成为能出风头的东西 to deglamorize cigarettes
B. Translate the following sentences
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1. 他不知道他的女儿已经成为瘾君子了。
He didn’t know that his daughter had become a drug addict.
2. 很多经济学家现在提倡把重心转移到服务行业中去。
Many economists now advocate shifting our emphasis to the service industry.
3. 他们的政府已决定禁止珍稀鸟类和动物的出口。
Their government has decided to ban the export of rare species of birds and animals.
4. 示威者要求立即取消经济制裁。
The demonstrators demanded that the economic sanctions be lifted immediately.
5. 那时候我正处于破产的边缘，是他救了我一把。
At that time I was on the verge of bankruptcy; it was he who bailed me out.
IV. Dictation
Drug use is almost universal in human societies. // The only peoples who do not use
drugs belong either to religious communities that prohibit such substances // or to
groups like the Eskimo, who live in places so barren that no drug yielding plants can be
cultivated.
//
Because
the
use
of
drug
may
have
socially
undesirable
effects—incapacitation of its user, for example—// each society, through social norms
and often by law as well, // regulates drug usage, specifying which drugs are acceptable,
// who may legitimately use them, how much of a given drug it is permissible to
consume, //and the circumstances under which drug use is appropriate. // Failure to
conform to these norms constitutes drug abuse in the society in question. // The
sociologist is interested in why people choose the drugs they do, why some abuse drugs,
and why particular societies permit certain drugs but not others. (153 words)
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Lesson 15
I. Objectives
1. Through detailed explanation of the text, students are expected to grasp the general
idea of the author.
2. The students should have a perfect mastery of linguistic essentials as word and
phrase usage.
3. To make sure that the students grasp the basic facts and the logic of argument.
4. To make the students realize the difference in style.
II. Contents & Time Allotment
1. Checking pre-class work and general understanding of Text A（1.5 hours）
2. Detailed study of Text A（1.5 hours）
3. Exercises and Text B（1.5 hours）
III. Key Points
1. What devices does the author use to make the article interesting?
2. How is this essay organized?
3. This slightly abridged essay is organized like a paper to report results of a scientific
experiment. It has a thesis statement at the beginning and a brief summing-up at the end.
The main body is arranged according to the various straits and dispositions of human
beings as contrasted to the “higher animals”. However in the second part of the body the
author begins to use a polemic tone. He seems to be arguing principles and religion, and
love their neighbors and country.
4. What is the background of this essay which helps you to have a better
understanding of this essay?
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IV. Suggested Classroom Activities
1.
Task One: Organize the class into 5 groups and hold a discussion on the author
and the text.
And then ask each group to select one to present the result of their discussion in
THREE minutes.
Questions to cover:
 What is the main idea of this essay?
 What is Darwinian theory and how does the author come to doubt it?
 How does the author contrast human beings with other animals?
 Do you think we should take Mark Twain’s view seriously?
2.
Task Two: Organize pair work to talk about
 What devices does the writer use to make the essay interesting?
 What do you have to say about the diction of this essay?
V. Assignment(s)
4. Ask Ss to read Text A aloud at least twice.
5. Ask Ss to do exercises behind the text
6. Ask Ss to write an essay in imitation of the text
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Teaching Notes for Lesson 15
Text A: The Damned Human Race
Suggested Classroom Procedures for Period 1-2
I. Introduction to the Text
Both as a humorist and as an essayist of serious ideas, Mark Twain is a powerful writer.
He is an honest and thorough critic who always brings a fresh perspective to things
which are all too often taken for granted. True to this standard, “The Damned Human
Race” is wonderfully thought-provoking and humane. To have a better understanding of
this essay, it is perhaps necessary to go back to see the background of this essay.
Notice the way the author achieves humor. Mark Twain in this essay obviously talks
tongue-in–cheek about human traits. He pretends to be reporting on a scientific
experiment, imitating — indeed, one might even say mimicking — the formal language
(big words, long sentences, serious tone, etc) academics are fond of using.
II. The Structure of the Text
This essay is organized like a paper to report results of a scientific experiment.
1. at the beginning: It has a thesis statement
2. at the end: It has a brief summing-up
3. the main body: the essay is arranged according to the various straits and
dispositions of human beings as contrasted to the “higher animals”.
III. Detailed Discussion of the Test.
1. I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “ lower animals”, and
contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result
humiliating to me. （para 1）
I have been studying the characteristics of the so-called lower animals in comparison
with those of man. The result of this study makes me, as a man, feel terribly ashamed.
Traits and dispositions: characteristics; features; nature; qualities; personalities
Humiliating: making me feel ashamed; embarrassing; mortifying.
Notice the tongue-in-cheek way the author expresses his ideas. He makes it sound as if
he were conducting and reporting on the result of a scientific investigation. In other
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words , he is deliberately using a pompous style to achieve humor
2. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the
Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals and to name it the Descent of Man from
the Higher Animals. (para 1)
to oblige sb to do sth: to force sb to do sth; to make it necessary for sb to do sth
to renounce: t abandon or to give up; to reject or disown
That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of
actual experiment. (para 2)
that present itself: that happens or exists
When the opportunity presents itself you must seize it at once.
I think they are still waiting for a more favorable situation to present itself.
In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl---if any---I
caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. (para 3)
caused seven young calves to be turned into: to have seven calves turned the
anaconda’s cage (implying that it was done by assistants)
These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the
higher animals; he is avaricious and miserly, they are not. (para 4)
Avaricious: extremely fond of accumulating wealth
Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the
cat, has brought the cat’s looseness with him but had left the unconsciousness
behind---the saving grace which excuses the cat. (para 7)
Cats are immoral, but they do not know it. They just can’t help it. Man has inherited
cats’ looseness, but not their innocence, which is what excuses the cat for its low
morals.
No---man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it ---or has
occasion to.
To have occasion to do sth: to have the need or necessity to do sth (para 8)
Notice Mark Twain is saying here that only man needs to blush because he consciously
does bad, immoral things.
Man---when he is King John with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a
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red-hot iron;
To have occasion to do sth: to have the need or necessity to do sth
9. The cat is moderate---unhumanly moderate….she doesn’t dig out its eyes…or
drive splinters under its nails---man-fashion; when she is done playing with, she
makes a sudden meal oft it and puts it out of its trouble. (para 9)
man-fashion: like man; as man does
to be done doing sth: to finish doing sth
to make a meal of: to eat it up
to put sb out of his trouble: to end sb’s trouble
10.Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own
flag, ad sneers at the other nations, keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on
hand at heavy expense to grab slice s of other people’s countries. (para 13)
to set oneself apart from: to make oneself feel that he is different from and better than
other people.
to sneer at: to scorn at; to mock at; to laugh at contemptuously
uniformed assassins: murderers in uniform
to hand: available: lose by and ready for use
at heavy expense: costing a lot of money
11. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his
brother’s pat to happiness and heaven. (para 14)
To make a graveyard of: to cause the death of many people in this area
To smooth the path to: to make it easy for sb to do sth
12. Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
(para 15)
Human beings say that they are the only animals who have reasoning power (who can
think). But I think this is rather doubtful (or: debatable).
To be open to dispute: If sth is open to dispute, it means that it is not certain and you
can argue about it.
13. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is to a reasoning animal. (para 15)
It seems clear to me that he is anything but a reasoning animal.
Whatever he is: no matter what he is. This is an emphatic denial. More examples:
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He may be rich and powerful and famous, but whatever his is, he is not an honest an.
I did many stupid things in the past, but whatever I did, I never lied to you.
14. These reasoning animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the
matter to a Higher Court.
Higher Court: people who believe in Chritianity often think that there is a higher court
than all courts created by human beings, which is in Heaven, with God as the supreme
justice.
IV. Background Information on the Text:
Mark Twain [pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910), quintessential
American humorist, lecturer, essayist, and author wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1876);
“Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season
to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood and split the kindlings before
supper -- at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did
three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was
already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and
had no adventurous, trouble- some ways.”
Protagonist Tom Sawyer is introduced together with his friends Joe Harper and Huck
Finn, young boys growing up in the antebellum South. While the novel was initially met
with lukewarm enthusiasm, its characters would soon transcend the bounds of their
pages and become internationally beloved characters, inspiring numerous other author’s
works and characters and adaptations to the stage, television, and film. The second
novel in his Tom Sawyer adventure series, Huckleberry Finn (1885), was met with
outright controversy in Twain’s time but is now considered one of the first great
American novels. A backdrop of colourful depictions of Southern society and places
along the way, Huck Finn, the son of an abusive alcoholic father and Jim, Miss
Watson’s slave, decide to flee on a raft down the Mississippi river to the free states.
Their river raft journey has become an oft-used metaphor of idealistic freedom from
oppression, broken family life, racial discrimination, and social injustice. Ernest
Hemingway wrote “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
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Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
“We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.
It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up
at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we
laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general
thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next..”
Ch. 12
Missouri was one of the fifteen slave states when the American Civil War broke out, so
Twain grew up amongst the racism, lynch mobs, hangings, and general inhumane
oppression of African Americans. He and some friends joined the Confederate side and
formed a militia group, the ‘Marion Rangers’, though it disbanded after a few weeks,
described in “The Private History of a Campaign That Failed” (1885). His article “The
War Prayer” (1923) “in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country,
and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause” is Twain’s
condemnation of hypocritical patriotic and religious motivations for war. It was not
published until after his death because of his family’s fear of public outrage, to which it
is said Twain quipped “none but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.” Though he
never renounced his Presbyterianism, he wrote other irreligious pieces, some included
in his collection of short stories Letters From Earth (1962);
“Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low
grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and
last and all the time he is a sarcasm.”
Mark Twain grew to despise the injustice of slavery and any form of senseless violence.
He was opposed to vivisection and acted as Vice-President of the American
Anti-Imperialist League for nine years. Through his works he illuminates the absurdity
of humankind, ironically still at times labeled a racist. Though sometimes caustic “Of
all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable,” as a gifted public
speaker he was a much sought after lecturer “information appears to stew out of me
naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter.” —from his Preface to
Roughing It (1872). He is the source of numerous and oft-quoted witticisms and quips
including “Whenever I feel the urge to exercise I lie down until it goes away”; “If you
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don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes”; “Familiarity breeds
contempt — and children”; “The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” ; and “The
reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Twain is a master in crafting humorous
verse with sardonic wit, and though with biting criticism at times he disarms with his
renderings of colloquial speech and unpretentious language. Through the authentic
depiction of his times he caused much controversy and many of his works have been
suppressed, censored or banned, but even into the Twenty-First Century his works are
read the world over by young and old alike. A prolific lecturer and writer even into his
seventy-fourth year, he published more than thirty books, hundreds of essays, speeches,
articles, reviews, and short stories, many still in print today.
Early Years and Life on the River 1830-1860
Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri on 30 November 1835, the sixth child born
to Jane Lampton (1803-1890) and John Marshall Clemens (1798-1847). In 1839 the
Twain family moved to their Hill Street home, now the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and
Museum with its famous whitewashed fence, in the bustling port city of Hannibal,
Missouri. Situated on the banks of the Mississippi river it would later provide a model
for the fictitious town of St. Petersburg in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.
When Twain’s father died in 1847 the family was left in financial straits, so eleven year
old Samuel left school (he was in grade 5) and obtained his first of many jobs working
with various newspapers and magazines including the Hannibal Courier as journeyman
printer. “So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it, but I couldn't find honest
employment.” He also started writing, among his first stories “A Gallant Fireman”
(1851) and “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter” (1852). After traveling to and
working in New York and Philadelphia for a few years he moved back to St. Louis in
1857. It was here that the lure of the elegant steamboats and festive crowds drew his
attention and he became an apprentice ‘cub’ river pilot under Horace Bixby, earning his
license in 1858. As a successful pilot plying his trade between St. Louis and New
Orleans, Twain also grew to love the second longest river in the world which he
describes affectionately in his memoir Life on the Mississippi (1883).
“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book — a book that was a dead
language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve,
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delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it
was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every
day.”
An important part of a river pilot’s craft is knowing the waters and depths, which, for
the mighty Mississippi and her reefs, snags, and mud are ever changing. To ‘mark
twain’ is to sound the depths and deem them safe for passage, the term adopted by
Clemens as his pen name in 1863. In 1858 his brother Henry died in an explosion on the
steamboat Pennsylvania. Life on the river would provide much fodder for Twain’s
future works that are at times mystical, often sardonic and witty, always invaluable as
insight into the human condition.
Beyond the Banks in the 1860’s
With the outbreak of Civil War in 1861 passage on the Mississippi was limited, so at the
age of twenty-six Twain moved on from river life to the high desert valley in the silver
mining town of Carson City, Nevada with his brother Orion, who had just been
appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. He had never traveled out of the state but
was excited to venture forth on the stagecoach in the days before railways, described in
his semi-autobiographical novel Roughing It (1872). Twain tried his hand at mining on
Jackass Hill in California in 1864, and also began a prolific period of reporting for
numerous publications including the Territorial Enterprise, The Alta Californian, San
Francisco Morning Call, Sacramento Union and The Galaxy. He traveled to various
cities in America, met Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dickens
in New York, and visited various countries in Europe, Hawaii, and the Holy Land which
he based Innocents Abroad (1869) on. Short stories from this period include “Advice
For Little Girls” (1867) and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County”
(1867).
Marriage, Tramping Abroad, and Success
In 1870 Twain married Olivia ‘Livy’ Langdon (1845-1904) with whom he would have
four children. Three died before they reached their twenties but Clara (1870-1962) lived
to the age of eighty-eight. The Twain’s home base was now Hartford, Connecticut,
where in 1874 Twain built a home, though they traveled often. Apart from numerous
short stories he wrote during this time and Tom Sawyer, Twain also collaborated on The
225
Gilded Age (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
A Tramp Abroad (1880), Twain’s non-fiction satirical look at his trip through Germany,
Italy, and the Alps and somewhat of a sequel to Innocents Abroad was followed by The
Prince and the Pauper (1882). Hank Morgan, time traveler in A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court (1889) reflects Twain’s friendship with pioneering inventor and
electrical engineer Nikola Tesla and interest in scientific inventions. Twain also
continued to uphold a busy lecture series throughout the United States. In 1888 he was
awarded an honorary Master of Art degree from Yale University.
For some years Twain had lost money in various money making schemes like mining,
printing machines, the Charles L. Webster Publishing Co., and The Mark Twain
Self-Pasting Scrap Book though he never lost his sense of humour. In 1892, friend and
fellow humorist and author Robert Barr, writing as ‘Luke Sharp’ interviewed Twain for
The Idler magazine that he owned with Jerome K. Jerome. Twain’s novel The American
Claimant (1892) was followed by The Tragedy of Pudd'Nhead Wilson (1894), first
serialized in Century Magazine. Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) was followed by Tom
Sawyer, Detective in 1896. His favourite fiction novel, Personal Recollections of Joan
of Arc (1896) was first serialised in Harper’s Magazine. By 1895, unable to control his
debts, he set off on a world lecture tour to Australia, Canada, Ceylon, India, New
Zealand, and South Africa to pay them off. Following the Equator (1897) is his
travelogue based on his tour, during which he met Mahatma Gandhi, Sigmund Freud,
and Booker T. Washington.
With another successful lecture tour under his belt and now much admired and
celebrated for his literary efforts, Mark, Livy and their daughter Jane settled in New
York City. Yale University bestowed upon him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in
1901 and in 1907 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Oxford University.
The same year A Horse's Tale and Christian Science (1907) were published. While
traveling in Italy in 1904, Livy died in Florence. For Twain’s 70th birthday on 30
November 1905 he was fêted at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York, where he
delivered his famous birthday speech, wearing his trademark all-year round white suit.
That year he was also a guest of American President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt at the
White House and addressed the congressional committee on copyright issues. He was
226
also working on his biography with Albert Bigelow Paine. His daughter Jane became
very sick and was committed to an institution, but died in 1909 of an epileptic seizure.
In 1908 Twain had moved to his home ‘Stormfield’ in Redding, Connecticut, though he
still actively traveled, especially to Bermuda.
Mark Twain died on 21 April 1910 in Redding, Connecticut and now rests in the
Woodlawn Cemetery in Livy’s hometown of Elmira, New York State, buried beside her
and the children. A memorial statue and cenotaph in the Eternal Valley Memorial Park
of Los Angeles, California states: “Beloved Author, Humorist, and Western Pioneer,
This Original Marble Statue Is The Creation Of The Renowned Italian Sculptor
Spartaco Palla Of Pietrasanta.” Twain suffered many losses in his life including the
deaths of three of his children, and accumulated large debts which plagued him for
many years, but at the time of his death he had grown to mythic proportions as the voice
of a spirited and diverse nation, keen observer and dutiful reporter, born and died when
Halley’s Comet was visible in the skies.
“Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and
whose refuge are for all—the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and
the unloved.” —Twain’s last written statement
Text B: The Case Against Man
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) - psedonym Paul French
1. About the Author
Isaac Asimov was an American scientist and writer who wrote around 480 books
that included mystery stories, science and history books, and even books about the Bible
and about Shakespeare. But his best known work was his science fiction stories. Asimov
had both an extraordinary imagination that gave him the ability to explore future worlds
and an amazing mind with which he searched for explanation of everything, in the
present and the past.
Asimov’s life began in Russia where he was born on 2 January, 1920. It ended in
New York on 6 April, 1992 when he died as a result of an HIV infection that he had got
from a blood transfusion nine years earlier.
When Asimov was three, he moved with his mother, father and his one-year-old
227
sister to New York City. There his parents bought a candy store which they ran for the
next 40 or so years. At the age of nine, when his mother was pregnant with her third
child, Isaac started working in the candy store. He worked there through his school and
university years until 1942, a year after he had gained a Master’s degree at university in
chemistry. From 1942 to 1945 he worked as a junior chemist at the Philadelphia Navy
Yard. In 1948 he got his PhD in chemistry. The next year he became a biochemistry
teacher at Boston University School of Medicine. In 1958 he gave up teaching to
become a full-time writer.
It was when Asimov was eleven years old that his talent or writing became
obvious. He had told a friend two chapters of a story he had written. The friend thought
he was retelling a story from a book. This really surprised Asimov and from that
moment, he started to take himself seriously as a writer. Asimov began having stories
published in science fiction magazines in 1939. In 1950 he published his first novel and
in 1953 his first science book.
Throughout his life, Asimov received many awards, both for his science fiction
books and his science books. Among his most famous works of science fiction, one for
which he won an award was “The Foundation Trilogy” (1951-1953), three stories
about the death and rebirth of a great empire in a galaxy of the future. He is also well
known or his collection of short stories, “I, Robots” (1950), in which he developed a
set of three “laws” for robots. For example, the first law states that a robot must not
injure human beings or allow them to be injured. Some of his ideas about robots later
influenced other writers and even scientists researching into into artificial intelligence.
Asimov was married twice. He married his first wife in 1942 and had a son and
a daughter. Their marriage lasted 31 years. Soon after his divorce in 1973, Asimov
married again but he had no children with his second wife.
2. About the text
1. intricate (para 1): containing many detailed parts, thus difficult to understand
2. assume(para 2 ): to believe something is true without being able to prove it
e.g. I assume his intentions are questionable.
3. evaporation(para 3) :to change into steam and disappear
e.g. Be careful not to lose too much liquid by evaporation.
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4. versatile (para 4):
e.g. Wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and
versatile.
5. quiescent(para 10):
e.g. It is unlikely that such an extremist organization will remain quiescent for
long
6. multiply(para 11):
e.g. He was asked to multiply instances.
7. disrupt(para 12):
e.g. Network hardware and software failures disrupt business operations.
8. swarming(para 16):
e.g. The region is swarming with tropical diseases.
The crowd was swarming out through the gates.
9. cancerous(para 18):
e.g. Vandalism is increasing on the large housing estates like a cancerous
growth.
Weekly Quiz
I. Spelling
21. allegiance
22. assassin
23. avaricious
24. brethren
25. captive
26. concubine
27. conjecture
28. disposition
29. distinction
30. exterminate
31. harbor
32. heretic
33. interval
34. multitude
35. mutilation
36. obscenity
37. postulate
38. render
39. reptile
40. vulgarity
II. Word Derivation
11. ________can be found in every book except the telephone directory. (obscene)
12. They were denounced as ______and burned at the stake. (heretical)
13. His theory is bottomed on ___________assumptions. (question)
14. It was just a confused and __________phase anyway. (transition)
15. She is an_________ person and seldom helps others. (avarice)
(Key: Obscenity, heretic, questionable, transitional, avaricious)
III. Sentence translation
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6. 他管不住自己的舌头，所以你不能指望他保守秘密。
7. 男女之间的区别是人为的，而不是科学的。
8. 他是当代中国最主要的作家之一，发表过不少作品。
9. 你的翻译有点太随意了，你应该更加忠实原文才是。
10. 宏观经济和微观经济之间有什么差别？
IV. Dictation
I touched his hand. It seemed to me to be the hand of a new-born baby, then wrapped it
in mine. There was not the slightest indication of a pulse. I propped my head on an
elbow and watched him for a while then released his hand and lay flat for a few
moments, staring at the ceiling, remembering the boy he had been, the boy with the
giggles, the boy with all the laughter, the mischievous boy with a light in his eyes, the
boy with that marvelous, magnificent grin. And then those moments of remembering
with that boy on the screen of my mind, I found that lists the small shred of comfort. I
raised myself, leaned across and kissed his forehead. "So long, chap" I said. At the door,
I turned for what I knew was one last look and somehow I managed not to cry until I
was on the plane that night.
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