新世纪大学英语第四册教案unit718.pdf
黄石理工学院外国语学院 Unit 12 Teaching Points After learning this unit,students are required to 1)1)have a good understanding of the authors purpose of writing and appreciate the whole passage through an intensive reading of Text 1.2)2)comprehend the difficult sentences in Text 1 and be able to paraphrase them.3)3)master the new words and structures and try to employ them freely.4)4)be aware of how Christmas celebrated by westerners.5)5)learn a new rhetorical deviceoxymoron and be able to identify it in different texts.Topics for Discussion 1)1)What is the most important festival in China?2)2)What does the title of this text suggest to you?An Integrated Analysis of Text 1 Christmas Lost and Found Highlights When we look at this text more closely,we will find that it consists of three parts rather than two:Christmas found,Christmas lost and Christmas re-found,or to put it another way,joy and happiness brought by the coming of Christmas Boy,sorrow and sadness caused by the sudden death of Christmas Boy,and joy and happiness regained in the end.This story promises to touch hearts and lift spirits with the true meaning of Christmas,that is,the best of Christmas is in our hearts and the love harbored in our heart will unite people into a family and Christmas is just a chance for people to share love with each other.Structural Analysis of the Text The text can be divided into three parts.Part One(Paragraphs 1-5):This part introduces the writers dream of having a big family vibrating with energy,life and love,especially at Christmas.And her dream came true with the arrival of an adopted son,Christmas Boy,as well as two biological children.Part Two(Paragraphs 6-8):This part tells readers that Christmas Boy was killed in a car accident on his 26th Christmas after he decorated his parents tree as usual,which gave a heavy blow to his parents.Then they submerged in the sorrow of losing their son as well as Christmas for 17 years.Part Three(Paragraphs 9-24):This part tells us that 17 years later,the parents returned to the city,which brought back all kinds of memories of Christmas Boy.However,they gradually realized that they had found the joy of a noisy Christmas of a big family again and that the love harbored in everyones heart will unite people,biologically connected or not,into a family and Christmas is just a chance for people to share love with each other.Language Points and Difficult Sentences Comprehension reckon on:expect;dependent on e.g.1)We are reckoning on a large profit.2)Can I reckon on you to help?黄石理工学院外国语学院 Undaunted,we applied for adoption and,within a year,he arrived.Not discouraged by our infertility,we requested to adopt a child.Within a year,we succeeded in adopting one.in rapid succession:quickly and continuously e.g.His words came out in rapid pared with my quiet childhood,that made an entirely satisfactory crowd.with three children,my family was filled with a big crowd,which,quite different from my quiet childhood,completely satisfied my dream of having a big family.satisfactory:good enough to be pleasing,or for a purpose,rule,standard e.g.a satisfactory excuse for his absence cf.satisfaction:contentment;pleasure;fulfillment of a need,desire,etc.e.g.He took great satisfaction from playing the piano well.rush the season:make people prepare for Christmas hastily long before Christmas really comes He pressed us into singing carols,our froglike voices contrasting with his musical gift of perfect pitch.He forced all of us to sing carols,even though our voices,compared with his perfect voice with musical gift,were too harsh and husky to sing.Each holiday he stirred us up,leading us through a round of merry chaos.Each holiday,he tried to excite us and turned the whole family into a cheerful disorder.stir up:cause to move or excite merry chaos:This is an expression of oxymoron.“Chaos”refers to a state of complete and thorough disorder or confusion,which is,however,modified by an adjective incompatible to or contradictory with its original meaning.Our friends were right about adopted children not being the same.Our friends were right in saying that adopted children would usually be different from biological children.Through his own unique heredity,his irrepressible good cheer,his bossy wit,our Christmas Boy made our life colorful.With his unique ability inherited from his own parents,his cheerful personality,as well as his wit of ordering others to cooperate with him,he changed our life into a colorful one.bossy:having or showing fondness for giving orders stop by:make a short visit to(someones home)where memories clung to every room.where every room would make us recall the past.cling to:hold tight to;stick firmly to e.g.She clung tightly to her few remaining possessions.We slide into the city on the tail of a blizzard,through streets ablaze with lights.黄石理工学院外国语学院 We drove into the city at night just after a heavy snowstorm,in order not to be noticed by any acquaintance.slide:go slowly and unnoticed;pass smoothly or continuously;slip e.g.1)She slid out of the room when no one was looking.2)She slid over the question without answering it.on the tail of:following closely behind We settled into a small,boxy house,so different from the family home where we had orchestrated our lives.It was quiet,like the house of my childhood.We settled down in a small house,which was so different from our previous home where,with our Christmas Boy,we had changed our quiet life into a cheerful one.Now the small house reminded me of the quiet house of childhood,which I had disliked so much.snowcapped mountain:mountains covered with snow pull up:come to a stop e.g.The car pulled up outside the station.There stood our granddaughter,and in her gray-green eyes and impudent grin I saw the reflection of our Christmas Boy.Our granddaughter was standing there,her gray-green eyes as well as her rude smile reminded us of her father,our Christmas Boy.shape up:begin to do right e.g.Youd better shape up,young man,or you will be punished.in a whirl:in a confusing rush You sure as heck can.You certainly can.We had long ago given up the poignant Christmas services,but now under pressure,we sat rigid in the front pew,fighting back tears.After the death of our Christmas Boy,we had not expected to have any Christmas services any more.Now,at the demand of our granddaughters family,we sat in the front seat,but the sad memories stiffened our body and filled our eyes and heart with tears.In a rare emotional response,the congregation applauded in delight.Greatly touched by her singing,the audience gave a big applause to her delightedly.We had been alerted that there would be a whole mess of people for dinnerbut 35!We had been warned that there would be a large number of people attending dinner,but we had never expected that there would be 35 of them.assorted relatives:various types of relatives sort out:separate from a mass or a group 黄石理工学院外国语学院 e.g.Sort out the papers to be thrown away,and put the rest back.They took us in,enfolded us in joyous camaraderie.e.g.They received us and treated us like old friends.take in:receive and provide lodgings for e.g.The kind old lady offered to take in the poor homeless stranger.enfold:surround;envelop We sang carols in loud,off-key voices,saved only by that amazing soprano.We sang carols loudly,often in the wrong key,but every time we were led to the right key by our granddaughters perfect singing.it occurred to me that a true family is not always ones own flesh and blood.It is a climate of the heart.I suddenly realized that a family is not always made up by kinship and the hearts filled with love for others would surely make up a true family.Had it not been for our adopted son,we would not now be surrounded by caring strangers who would help us hear the music again.I felt grateful to my adopted son,without whom we would not have a chance to spend Christmas with these caring people and hear the Christmas carols again,which we had not had for so many years.zoom:move or travel quickly e.g.Jack went zooming past in his new car.Once more that day her voice,so like her fathers,lifted in song,and the mountainside echoed the chorus of“Joy to the World”,on and on into infinity.e.g.After hearing her carols at the Christmas party,for a second time she sang with a voice similar to her fathers.Her song“Joy to the World”echoed among the mountains as if it would be passed on unlimited by time and space.I felt a sense of peace,of the positive continuity of life.I resumed a peaceful state of mind free of sorrow,realizing that life would be infinite with continuing love,and I began to hold a new faith in and hope for life.The real meaning of Christmas had been restored to us.I found the real meaning of Christmas again,that is,hearts with love,which I had had when my family was filled with energy and love with all my three children around me,but later I had mistakenly lost after my adopted sons death.Questions for Consideration 1)1)A proverb goes like this:“Blood is thicker than water.”Do you think that there is any contradiction between this proverb and the way the author of the text looks at human relationship?2)2)Nowadays Christmas is celebrated in China.Does it mean that Christianity is getting popular in China?Main Ideas of Text 2 One Small Stone,Unforgetton The author,whose father was a groundskeeper for cemeteries,enjoyed his visits to the 黄石理工学院外国语学院 cemeteries when he was a child.To him,cemeteries were quiet,calm places full of life stories.When he was in his teens,he felt dissatisfied with his life in the rural Indiana.As he found the life in his home area too quiet and sheltered.He believed he needed an escape from it and a new way of life.But later he changed his attitude toward life.On a particular visit home,his father asked him to take his truck out to one of the cemeteries and lay some of the stones on several of the markers.From his stone-leaving experience,he came to realize that what his father did all the years in the cemeteries,which seemed to be tedious and insignificant,gave the relatives of the dead people a lot of comfort and warmth.A Topic for Discussion What do you learn from the authors stone-leaving experience?
