Unit 3
Text A The Rite of Spring
I. Teaching Objectives
Through learning this passage can students：
Know something about the author
Learn how to interpret and appreciate literary essay
Learn some uful words, phras and expressions
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II.Teaching Contents
Main ntence pattern: noun claus introduced by wh-words
III.Teaching Process
1.Warm-up Activity
Questions:
1.Do you still recall a text on gardening we studied last mester?dame
Nelson Mandela: a famous South African leader who struggled against apartheid [ə'pɑːtaɪt ](种族隔离）in South Africa. Gardening is associated with his revolutionary work and struggle, offering him simple but enduring satisfaction when he was in prison.
Similarities: Gardening gives them satisfaction, and made them strong physically and mentally. They learned a lot from gardening.
However, there ere also some differences between the two essays.
Nelson Mandela：Gardening offers him taste of freedom, and it has become a metaphor of freedom. What’s more, gardening gives him inspiration on how to be a good revolutionary leader and how to nourish important human relationship.
Arthur Miller: Arthur Miller is describing the beauty of human activities and experiences. When gardening, he must annually turn his mind toward all the work, and the fruits of gardening can somehow reflect movements in one’s own spirits. He found that gardening is a moral occupation, it n
eeds patience and responsibility. So gardening is all about character building. All of the showed the author’s love to the nature.
2. How do you understand gardening? What is the symbolic meaning of gardening?
Gardening is generally regarded as a hobby, a pastime. Many little books as well as essays tell people how to grow tomatoes, beans, cucumbers , etc., in their private gardens. But, like many other human activities, gardening often has symbolic meaning for different people. (For instance, in our culture, it is often compared to the rearing of children, so teachers are often called “gardeners.”)
3. If you have a garden, what will you like to plant? Why?
2: Background Information
The author---Arthur Miller(1915-2005)
Arthur Miller was born in a middle-class Jewish family（中产阶级犹太家族）in New York city. His father was a clothing manufacturer, but in the great depression(大萧条时期), his successful industry was ruined and he didn't have the money for Arthur Miller in college. Miller had to work in a warehou to earn the money for college.
In 1938, he received a bachelor's degree.
In 1940 Miller married a Catholic girl, Mary Slattery, his college sweetheart, with whom he had two children.
In 1956,Miller, the man married Marilyn Monroe .Marilyn Monroe (玛丽莲梦露）was one of the 20th century’s most famous film actress in America. And she met with Arthur Miller in 1951.They married in 1956. It was Miller’s cond marriage, and it was Monroe’s third marriage. Unfortunately, their marriage had only maintain for five years, and they divorced in 1961.
In 1962, Arthur miller married an Australian Photographer.
On February 10,2005,Miller died of heart failure at home when he was 89.
Arthur Miller won countless prizes in his whole life, including 1949 Pulitzer prize(普利策戏剧奖）, two New York theatre critics awards（纽约戏剧评论奖）, Olivier Award for best drama.
In 1953, the cold war reached its climax, miller wrote his most famous drama “The Crucible”(炼狱). His purpo on writing this play is in respon to McCarthy nator for so-called communist party sympathizers repression.
Arthur Miller has almost devoted himlf in writing, his reprentative works are 《我的儿子们》(All my sons,1947)、《推销员之死》(Death of a salesman,1949)、《炼狱》（The Crucible,1953）、《桥头眺望》(A View from the Bridge,1955) 《维系事件》(Incident at Vichy,1964)、《代价》(The price,1968)、《美国大钟》(The American Clock ,1980)) ,etc. Even in the 80 years old, he is also the author of the Monroe allude to work "the complete picture”.
“Death of a Salesman”was a drama about a salesman，who was addicted to capitalism. When he was old, his boss fired him and he felt disillusioned. To get a huge insurance, he drove out at night and died in a traffic accident.
In 1978 Arthur miller and his wife came to visit China. It was Cao Yu（曹禺）who received them. In 1983, “Death of a Salesman”began to be performed in China, and the performance was very successful. This drama was the first foreign drama performed in China after the “Cultural Revolution”（文化大革命）. It almost became one of the most important events ,which helps to soften the ossified（僵化的）relationship between China and America in the history.
About the title
The Rite of Spring is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky. The music’s innovative/creative complex
rhythmic structures, timbres, and u of dissonance /disagreement have made it a minal 20th century composition.
“The Rite of Spring”explain的名词
rite: a solemn ceremony or act; a t of fixed words or acts
The Rite of Spring by Stranvinsky: a sacred pagan ritual where the wi elders are ated in a circle and are obrving the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order to gain his benevolence. 3.Text analysis
1)Structure
Part Ⅰ（para.1-2）the introduction
They reason why the writer starts a garden –as a way of celebrating the coming of spring.
Part Ⅱ(para. 3-10) the body
A lists of reasons for keeping a garden
Gardening involves conflict and choice-making.
Gardening teaches you about nature.
Gardening is neurotic and moral.
Gardening helps character building.
Part Ⅲ(para. 11-12) conclusion
Gardening keeps people hopeful for the future, even in the coldest days of December.
2)Text
1.When you think how easy and cheap, relatively, it is to buy a bunch of carrots or beets, why rai them? (para 1)
Elliptical ntence. The complete ntence should be “Why do we rai them?
< Why go there today?
Why sleep on the floor?
上外培训网Why tell me now?
2.There is a human instinct at work here, a kind of back-breaking make-believe that has no reality. (para1)
back-breaking: very hard and tiring, physically-consumingnowadays
make-believe: imagining or pretending things to be different or more exciting than they really are
at work(here): having a particular effect or influence.
< We must understand that there is still a strong anti-form force at work.
With cold war mentality still at work, both sides may misjudge the prent situation.
由于冷战思维的影响，双方有可能会对局势产生误判。
3. As it is, though, I cannot deny that when April comes I find mylf going out to lean on the fence and look at that mirable plot of land, resolving with all my rational power not to plant it again. (Para 2)
However, in reality, I have to admit that when April comes I leaned on the fence and look at this patch painfully and reasonably made up my mind not to garden any more. As it is: As it turns out / The reality is that …
< I thought he would get better. As it is, he is getting wor.
4. And the sun means business, suddenly, and has a different, deeper yellow in its beams on the carpet. (Para 2)
The sun suddenly gets rious and the yellow sunlight on the carpet looks different and deeper.
To mean business: to be rious about something
< I could tell from the look on her face that she meant business.
5.The birds begin screaming hysterically, thinking what I am thinking—the worms are deliciously worming their way through the melting soil. (Para 2)
to worm one’s way: to move like a worm
More similar verbs:
< This success rocketed him to a top position.
She ducked her head to avoid being hit.
The beggar wolfed down the bread in less than a cond.
The birds start to cry really loudly. We are thinking the same thing: the soil is becoming soft and the delicious worms are moving across the soil.
6.It is not only pleasure nding me back to stare at that plot of soil, it is really conflict. (Para 3)
Rewrite the above ntence with a coordinate conjunction.
It is not only pleasure but also conflict that nd me back to stare at that plot of soil. 7. But black plastic looks so industrial, so unromantic, that I have gradually moved over to hay mulch. (Para 4)
But black plastic looks so unnatural (becau it is made in factories) and ugly that I have gradually shifted to hay mulch.排行榜英文
Note the differences of the following words:
hay: long grass, cut and dried for feeding animals;
reed: a tall, thin plant that grows near water, often ud for making things;
weed: a plant you don’t want
moved over to: changed to/ shifted to
8. Besides, it looks lovely, and comes to us free.(Para 4)
comes to us free: free of charge
cod是啥What’s more, it is pretty to look at and we don’t have to pay for it.
9. Keeping a garden makes you aware of how delicate, bountiful, and easily ruined the surface of this little planet is. (Para 5)
If you keep a garden, it will help you realize how generous the land of the earth is to us and how easily damaged it is.
delicate (here): easily damaged or broken
a delicate bubble of Venetian glass
Bountiful: fruitful/ generous
cpic>考研英文
ruin (here): to spoil or destroy something completely
The rain ruined our holiday.
10. In that 50-by-70-foot patch there must be a dozen different types of soil. Tomato won’t grow in one part but loves another, and the same goes for the other crops. (Para 5)
50-by-70-foot: 50-foot-wide and 70-foot-long
the same goes for : the same applies to / is true for sb/sth
< Students will not work hard unless they have a n of achievement. This goes for the teacher, too.
11.I suppo if you loaded the soil with chemical fertilizer the differences would be less noticeable, I u it sparingly and only in rows right where eds are planted rather than broadcast over the whole area. (Para 5)
I suppo if you u a large quantity of chemical fertilizer on the soil, the differences would not be so obvious (would be covered up); but I u it very carefully and only in where the eds are planted instead of spreading it over the whole patch. sparing (with ): using or giving only a little of something
< There’s not much shampoo left, so be sparing with it.
12. In some cas, as with beans and cucumbers, your children--- as it were, begin to
turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the hou to strangle you in their vines. (Para 6)
as it were: as you might say. It is ud for making a description sound less definite or less exact , ‘可以说’
< For years the blind man only had this dog to keep him company. It was, as it were, his little brother.
Note: the word “strangle”here doesn’t really mean to choke him to death. He is saying the numerous beans and cucumbers are like naughty and playful children, struggling to embrace him at the same time, making him almost hard to breathe.
13. She looks about skeptically. Her favorite task is binding the tomato plants to stakes. (Para 8)
She looks around doubtfully to e if something goes wrong. And she likes most to bind the tomatoes to wooden stakes so that they would not bend downward due to the weight of the fruits.
“Stake”here means a wooden or metal post with a pointed end ud for supporting or making sth., 桩，柱
Other meanings of‘stake’:
The majority stake is still in the hands of the government.（股权）
We cannot let it pass becau the future of our company is at stake.（处于危险当中）You can’t afford to lo becau the stakes are too high.（赌注）
14. In some pocket of the mind there may even be a tendency to change this vision into a personal reassurance that all this healthy growth, this orderliness and thrusting life must somehow reflect movements in one’s own spirit. (Para 9)
change this vision into a personal reassurance that..: when I e this beautiful view, I feel certain that …
Whenever I e this beautiful, well-organized and arranged garden which is full of life and where everything is growing so vigorously, I feels certain that there is something similar in my mind.
nospotPocket: a small area different from the areas around it,“corner”.
< There are still some pockets of the city which are extremely poor.
15. As it is, April is for getting irritated all over again at this pointless, time-consuming hobby. I do not understand people who claim to“love”gardening. (Para 10)
pointless, time-consuming:
Notice again that the two words are usually ud in a negative n. As in para 6, the author us “neurotic”to hide his inten interest and full appreciation of the significance of gardening.
be irritated at: to be annoyed at and impatient about
all over again: a cond time from the beginning
16. …and so it has to be an arena where striving does not cea, but continues by other means.(Para 10)
…and so a garden turns to be a stage or field where one shows that his effort to achieve something never stops. (Or put it another way, a garden is a means of
displaying his cealess struggle.)
other means: other ways or methods. Notice that the spelling doesn’t change when ud in the singular form. We say “a means of ”instead of “a mean of”. 15. Only the gardener is capable of endlessly reviving so much hope that this year, regardless of drought, flood, typhoon, or his own stupidity, this year he is going to do it right! (Para 11)
Only the gardener is capable of continuously finding back (or bringing back) the hope and believing that this year he is going to do it correctly, in spite of the possible difficulties---such as drought, flood, typhoon or mistakes he will possibly make.
4. Consolidation
(1) Creative Application of Typical Expressions
(2) Further Application of Typical Patterns
IV. Assignment
1.Read aloud Paragraph 2-7 and list uful ntence patterns.
2.Read and recite the uful phras,idioms and expressions from the text.
