现代大学英语精读1 (第三版)教师用书 Unit 2.pdfVIP

Unit 2 Text A Message of the Land Pira Sudham I Introduction 1 Background 1. Genre (type of writing) This text is different from the previous two, which are both stories. In teaching stories, we must first help students to follow the plot and find out what the author intends to get across to the reader —the thesis, which is often implied, and not directly stated. Readers often have different ideas about the thesis of a story. The present text is an essay in a very broad sense of the word, for it was written down by the writer who interviewed a farmer and his wife. Since the end of World War II it has become popular for writers to interview people, record what they say and, after some, not too much, editing, publish these people’s stories in book form. 2. Style The style of such writing is colloquial, the language straightforward, and the sentences generally short. When we read the text, we feel as if we were sitting face to face with the couple, listening to their stories and experiences, sharing their joys and sorrows. Note the figures of speech the farmer and his wife use. They are vivid, expressive and appropriate. Here are a few examples: ... and it is like a knife piercing my heart. (para. 2) ... and it is no longer fertile, bleeding year after year, and like us getting old and exhausted. (para. 3) When each of them has a pair of jeans, they are off like birds on the wing. (para. 9) 3. Urbanization Urbanization is the process by which more and more people leave the countryside to live and work in cities. We find in the farmer and his wife qualities that are shared by many who till the land—love of the land, love of physical labor, and above all, love of family. We are also impressed by their honesty and kindness and by their simple life. Their children, however, are quite different. The way the