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Overview of Unit 5 • In unit 5, we will touch upon the topic of parent-child relationships. Every happy family has something in common, but every unhappy family has its own reasons. As for parent-child relationships, communications skills, coupled with love and devotion, can not be emphasized any more. In passage A, we can feel the mother’s deep concerns about her daughter’s fate; and how to improve parent-child relationships in passage B is very informative and instructive; and passage C poses all the readers a question how to help those imaginative boys to cope with the unknown in life.
Warm up • Listen to the recordings in the Pre-reading Activities and answer the relevant questions. • Who are the characters in this story and what is their relationship to each other? • What are the effects of smoking? • What does “victory” mean in this story?
Tape scripts A mother weeps. Her daughter is smoking the same kind of cigarettes that killed her grandfather. Tobacco advertising and film actors had attracted the grandfather to smoking but he never looked well like them. His health was poor when his daughter was only sixteen; his breathing was difficult; he rested often when climbing stairs; he often coughed for an hour. Now his daughter is deeply hurt; she was so careful raising her own daughter. For what purpose? To see all her care thrown away as her sixteen-year-old daughter slowly kills herself? The mother feels smoking is self-injury. It also injures others who watch a loved one die. The mother watched her father’s slow death; that one victory for the rich tobacco companies is enough.
Narrator • A mother
List some brand names of cigarettes or tobacco • Camel, Marlboro, Players • Prince Albert tobacco
Description of her daughter’ s smoking • While she is doing her homework, her feet on the bench in front of her and her calculator clicking out answers to her geometry problems, I am looking at the half-empty package of Camels tossed close at hand.
Her feelings about her daughter’s smoking • She feels terrible. She wants to weep and she does weep a little.
Reasons • Smoking could cause her daughter’ death.
Exemplification • Her own father, her daughter’s grandfather, died from pneumonia, due to his smoking. • Many people like her father and daughter in the Third World countries.
Different Images of advertisements and her father • In her memory, her father smoked Prince Albert tobacco in cigarettes he rolled himself; and she remember the bright-red tobacco tin, with a picture f Queen Victoria’s partner, Prince Albert, dressed in a black dress coat and carrying a cane.
The tobacco industry, together with Hollywood movies in which both male and female heroes smoked like chimneys, completely won over people like her father.
Her father was hopelessly hooked by cigarettes. He never looked as fashionable as Prince Albert, though; he continued to look like a poor, overweight, hardworking colored man with too large a family, black, with a very white cigarettes stuck in his mouth.
her father’s images at different stages Young and very poor, he has glowing eyes. When she was sixteen, her daughter’s age, her father’ breath was a wheeze, embarrassing to hear; he could not climb stairs without resting every third or fourth steps. It was not unusual for him to cough for an hour.
Her father had so little breath that, during his last years, he was always leaning on something.Near the very end of his life, and large because he had nor more lungs, he quit smoking. He gained a couple of pounds, but by then he was so slim that no one noticed. Her father died from pneumonia, one hard winter when his lung illnesses left him low.
Reasons for the detailed, negative effects by smoking cigarettes on her father Emphasis of negative, ever lethal effects of smoking cigarettes upon smokers’ health. Her father’s fate is somewhat foreshadowing her daughter’s. The deep feeling of her hurt and loss as a daughter and a mother. A feeling of uselessness.
Topic-related Presentation Retell the story of the writer’s father. When he was young and poor roll cigarettes oneself Hopelessly hooked by die from pneumonia Light his first cigarette upon getting out of bed leaning on something Smoke like chimneys make him low have no more lungs quit smoking
Different images of advertisement signs and smokers in Third World countries. Large advertisement signs intended mainly for many people like her father and daughter: the tough, confident or fashionable older man, the beautiful, “worldly” young woman, both dragging away.
The effects: in those poor countries, money that should be spent for food goes instead to the tobacco companies; over time, people starve themselves of both food and air, effectively weakening and hooking their children, eventually killing themselves.
Her viewpoint of smoking “Every home is a no smoking zone.” Smoking is a form of self-battering that also batters those others who must sit by.
Text A: A Structural Study. • Do EX.XII on page 128 with reference to sample Para. 6. 2. Provide students with some clues of Structured Writing on the basis of Para 4 and Para.6.
Homework assignments • Recitation. • Do the EX. Of Structured Writing. • Finish the Story Summary and then retell the story in your own words..
While she is doing her homework, her feet on the bench in front of her and her calculator clicking out answers… (Para 1) Her feet on the bench in front of her: The expression describes the behavior or a minor event which goes together with the major event in the clause. E.g.
The man sat in the front row, his hands on the table. This type of expression can be rewritten by adding “with” or by using the “and +finite verb” structure. The man sat in the front row, with his hands on the table. The man sat in the front row, and his hands were on the table. “…her calculator clicking out answers” performs a similar function and can be rewritten in a similar way.
close at hand • …tossed carelessly close at hand. (Para 1) • Meaning: …thrown carelessly near her. • (close) at hand: within reach; near • When Betty writes, she always keeps a dictionary at hand. • 贝蒂写作时, 手边总放着一本词典。 • The end-of-term examination is close at hand. • 期末考试近在眼前。
I picked them up…(Para. 1) • pick up: lift sth or sb. up from a surface • The boy picked up a stone and throw it at the window. • I picked up the telephone and rang her number. • It is difficult for a short-sighted person to pick up a needle from the ground. • The woman picked the baby up in her arms and held it tight. • Refer to sentence 4 in the C-E translation on page 126.
for which • …they’re filtered, for which I m grateful. (Para 1) • Which: pron. The word “which” is used here to refer back to the idea expressed by the whole previous clause. • He went through a red light, for which he was fined $50. • The police arrived, after which the situation became calmer. • Do EX VII. On page 125.
be grateful to sb for sth. • Grateful : a. wanting to thank sb. for sth. • We are very grateful to you for your help when are in trouble. • The old man was most grateful to his neighbors for sending foe a doctor for him.
So…(that)… • …holding one of the instruments, so white, so precisely rolled, that could cause my daughter’s death. (Para. 1) • He gained a couple of pounds, but by then he was so slim no one noticed. (Para 5)
So…that: to such an amount as to produce a particular result/cause a particular situation; in such a way that… • He came into the classroom so quickly (that) no one noticed him. • Notice the difference between “so…that” and “so that +can (or may, will, etc.)”. The latter structure is used to mean “ in order that…” or “with the aim that…”. • Work hard so that you will pass the exam. • Do EX VIII on page 125.
harden • …I hardened myself against feeling so bad;… (Para 1) • Meaning: …I made myself become less sympathetic and less easily affected emotionally;…
Make sb. Less conscious of; (cause sb. To ) become stronger, severe, unkind, or lacking in human feelings.e.g. He became hardened to the suffering around him. For her own good, she hardened her heart against her aunt. Rough living in the desert hardened the young men a lot. 2. (cause sb. To ) become hard, strong, etc. The food hardens as it cools. The paint takes a few minutes to harden.
…coupled with Hollywood movies…(Para 3) • Couple with: (usu. Pass.) link/ associate sth with sth. Else; join one thing to another • The bad light, coupled with the wet ground, made the game very difficult. • The writer wrote with plain words coupled with humor.\
…who were hopelessly hooked by cigarettes. (Para 3) Hooked: a. depending or relying on sth., addicted or used to; accustomed Get hooked on computer games. He is hooked on jogging Be hooked on alcohol.
…dressed in a black dress coat and carrying a cane. (Para 2) Dress: vt. (often pass.) provide( oneself or someone else) with clothes of the stated type. Eg. The children were dressed in their Sunday best. A young man dressed in a blue suit.
…upon getting out of bed. (Para. 4) Meaning: …immediately after he got out of bed. Upon/on: prep. Immediately after the occasion of sth. Upon asking for information I was told I must wait. I saw them on my return.
not unusual It was not unusual for him to cough for an hour. (Para 4) Meaning: It was usual for him to cough for an hour. Nowadays it is not unusual for a girl to wear her hair short. It is not unusual for the boy to be up very early in the morning.
My father died from “the poor man’s friend”, Pneumonia,… Meaning: My father died from a serious lung diseases called “pneumonia” and this disease was regarded as one that poor people were mostly likely to develop,… Pay attention to the rhetorical device, Personification. (See reading skills in Section B)
…he was always leaning on something.(Para.5) Always: ad. The word normally means “ at all times”, “ with no exception” and is used with simple tenses. However, when we want to say that something happens again and again in an annoying way, we can use “always” with a verb in the progressive tense. E.g.
这孩子总在要钱。 The boy is always asking for money. 我的祖父总是很健忘。 My grandfather is always forgetting thing. 你什么总在咬指甲? Why are you always biting your nails? Refer to Sentence 1 in the C-E Translation on page 126.
…both dragging away. (Para 6) Meaning: …both smoking continuously. drag:vi. (slang) smoke ( a cigarette) He waited and dragged at the cigarette. Away: ad. All the time, continuously. 他整天不停地工作。 They worked away all day. 我听见他不停地用锤子敲东西。 I heard him pounding away
starve…of… …people starve themselves of both food and air…(Para 6) Starve: v. (cause a person or an animal to ) suffer seriously or die from hunger. They got lost in the desert and starved to death. She’ s staring herself to try to lose weight. Starve…of…: This verb also has the sense of suffering because of lacking sth.other than food. e.g. People in the region are starved of drinking water. The plant was starved of light and died.
For what, I sometimes wonder;… (Para 7) Meaning: I sometimes whish to know why I have done those things;…
…so that she can struggle to breathe through most of her life feeling half her strength, and then die of self-poisoning, as her grandfather did?
Meaning: …in order that she make great efforts to breathe f or most of her life, feeling weak, and then die by poisoning herself (that is, by way of smoking cigarettes), just as her grandfather did? 难道是为了她今后大半辈子有气无力地挣扎着呼吸, 然后再像她外公那样自己把自己毒死?
…surely one such victory in my family, for the prosperous leaders who own the tobacco companies, is enough. (Para 8)
Meaning: ..surely one victim of the tobacco industry in my family means that the prosperous owners of the tobacco companies have won a victory in my family, but one such victim is enough (otherwise it would be too much for my family). Notice the use of the periodical sentence. 对那些生意兴隆的烟草公司的巨头们来说,能在我家取得这样一种胜利, 肯定是够满意了。