Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Where did the author spend her childhood? Why did the author always feel that she ought to be somewhere else? Why was it “a stiff and awkward lunch”? What did this show about the author? How should the author have benefited from reading the six novels in Paragraph 2? What did reading mean to the author when she was young?
Questions for thinking:
• • • In what ways was the author restless? Do you agree with this statement? How do you understand Mark Twain‟s saying, “Almost all of the writers are „addicts.‟”?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
7. Why does the author mention these three novels?
8. What are the common features of these three novels?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Paraphrase
2. There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. (para. 7)
under- + past participle: not enough
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Exercise
Fill in the blanks.
sat In one corner of the living room______ a club chair. I used to sprawl on it, reading with my skinny legs ___________one slung over _______ of its arms. Of course, I had clear memories of normal childhood, lifting the rocks in the creek that ____________ trickled through Naylor‟s Run ______ to _______ search for crayfish and laying pennies on the tracks of the fetch them when the trolley ___________. had passed trolley and running to _____
Questions for thinking:
Why did the author parallel waking, sleeping and reading?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Words & Expressions (1)
• •
wander the world commit sth to memory He committed the notes of that meeting to memory and then burned them. aspire to sth; aspire to do sth Different people aspire to different things. Mary is ambitious enough to aspire to conversational fluency in Chinese in two months. We aspire to be the best within our field.
How Reading Changed My Life
Anna Quindlen
How Reading Changed My Life
Unit 2
W arming up
B ackground
T ext Analysis R einforcement
How Reading Changed My Life
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
10. Why does the author read? • • • • • Trips to other worlds; Journey into my own world; Perfect island (alone to not alone); Home, sustenance, great invincible companion Simply because she loves reading!
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
9. Why did the author prefer reading to playing? • Traveled across the physical world; • Traveled into my own spiritual world: identity, aspiration, morality →Books are my perfect island!
A Tale of Two Cities
Moby-Dick Pride and Prejudice Kill a Mockingbird
Warming up
Objectives
1. Understand in which ways reading has changed the author‟s life. 2. Discuss the meaning of reading. 3. Identify the problems facing reading and work on possible solutions.
• You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.
How Reading Changed My Life
Unit 2
Theme
Text Analysis
Structure
Detailed Analysis
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
6. What were the features of Victorian England? peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and self-confidence
Why do you read? Do you ever read simply because you love reading?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Paraphrase
1.
Perhaps restlessness is a necessary corollary of devoted literacy. (para.5)
How Reading Changed My Life
Author
Unit 2
Background
Background
Author
Her Life
Anna Quindlen the Journalist • The New York Times columnist until 1994 • Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992 • Newsweek columnist 1999-2009 Anna Quindlen the Novelist • Full-time novelist since 1995 • Author of five best-selling novels, three of which made into movies
Text Analysis
Structure
2 Paras. 10-15 A crisis faced by reading. 3 Paras. 16-18 There is still hope for reading.
1 Paras. 1-9 Reading has been an important part of my life.
Warming up
Check-on Preview
Please define the following words in their respective context. 1. 2. 3. 4. …a small but satisfying spread of center-hall colonials… (para.1) …all those great houses, with their high ceilings and high drama… (para.2) America is also a nation that prizes sociability and community… (para.11) …a kind of careerism in the United States that sanctioned reading… (para.12)