新世纪英语专业本科生(修订版)综合教程4(第2版)电子教案 Unit 4
UNIT 4 A VIEW OF MOUNTAINS
Section One Pre-reading Activities .................................................................................................... 2
I. Audiovisual supplement ......................................................................................................... 2 II. Cultural Background .............................................................................................................. 2 Section Two Global Reading .............................................................................................................. 4
I. General analysis of the text .................................................................................................... 4 II. Structural analysis of the text................................................................................................ 4 III. Rhetorical features of the text ............................................................................................. 4 Section Three Detailed Reading ........................................................................................................ 6
I. Questions ............................................................................................................................... 7 II. Words and Expressions ......................................................................................................... 8 III. Sentences ........................................................................................................................... 11 Section Four Consolidation Activities .............................................................................................. 13
I. Vocabulary ............................................................................................................................ 13 II. Grammar ............................................................................................................................. 15 III. Translation .......................................................................................................................... 17 IV. Exercises for Integrated Skills ............................................................................................. 19 V. Oral Activities ...................................................................................................................... 20 VI. Writing ............................................................................................................................... 20 Section Five Further Enhancement ................................................................................................. 23
I. Text II .................................................................................................................................... 23 II. Memorable quotes .............................................................................................................. 27
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新世纪英语专业本科生(修订版)综合教程4(第2版)电子教案 Unit 4
Section One Pre-reading Activities
I. Audiovisual supplement
From On Native Soil
Watch the movie clip and answer the following questions.
Questions for discussion
1. Why did Sally Regenhard say that 9/11 was “a shattering of faith”?
Answer: She believed in the system, and now that the system was shattered by the terrorist activity, so she thought the event is faith-shattering.
2. Why did Carol Ashley think that there must be an investigation?
Answer: 3000 people were killed. And the surviving family members had very right to know the truth about the 9/11. So there needed to be an investigation.
3. What do you know about the 9/11 attacks and what influences have the events exert? (Open)
Script:
Policeman: Move back! Move back! Policeman: Move it! Go back!
Eunice Hanson: I knew we had enemies, naturally, but I always felt pretty safe here. I never, never,
in a million years dreamed that anything like this could happen to us.
Sally Regenhard: We believed in the system and you know, 9/11 was a shattering of faith.
Carol Ashley: 3000 people were killed. It was a mass murder. And there needed to be an
investigation.
Max Cleland: The surviving family members, nobody can deny that they had the ultimate claim to
the truth about 9/11.
II. Cultural Background
1. Atomic Bomb
Atomic bomb or A-bomb is a weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei.
The first atomic bomb was produced at a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and successfully tested on July 16, 1945. This was the culmination of a large U.S. army program that was part of the Manhattan Project. It began in 1940, two years after the German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission.
On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima with an estimated equivalent explosive force of 12,500 tons of TNT, followed three days later by a second, more powerful, bomb on Nagasaki. Both bombs caused widespread death, injury, and destruction, and there is still considerable debate about the need to have used them.
2. Nuclear Weapon
Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction powered by atomic, rather than chemical, processes. Nuclear weapons produce large explosions and hazardous radioactive byproducts by
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新世纪英语专业本科生(修订版)综合教程4(第2版)电子教案 Unit 4
means of either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. After World War II, the proliferation of nuclear weapons became an increasing cause of concern throughout the world. At the end of the 20th century the vast majority of such weapons were held by the United States and the former Soviet Union; other countries that possess known nuclear capabilities are the Great Britain, France, China, Pakistan, and India. Israel also has nuclear weapons but has not confirmed that fact publicly; North Korea has conducted a nuclear test explosion but probably does not have a readily deliverable nuclear weapon; and South Africa formerly had a small arsenal. Over a dozen other countries can, or soon could, make nuclear weapons.
3. The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb attack occurred over Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9, Nagasaki, Japan was bombed. The bombing of Nagasaki was the last major act of World War II and within days, on August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered.
In estimating the death toll from the attacks, there are several factors that make it difficult to arrive at reliable figures: inadequacies in the records given the confusion of the times, the many victims who died months or years after the bombing as a result of radiation exposure, and not least, the pressure to either exaggerate or minimize the numbers, depending upon political agenda. That said, it is estimated that by December 1945, as many as 140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the bomb and its associated effects. In Nagasaki, roughly 74,000 people died of the bomb and its aftereffects.
In both cities, most of the casualties were civilians. The intentional killing of civilians by the Allies of World War II - who claimed that their cause was just—raised moral questions about the just course of the war.
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新世纪英语专业本科生(修订版)综合教程4(第2版)电子教案 Unit 4
Section Two Global Reading
I. General analysis of the text
Through introducing Yamahata’s pictures, the author aims at bringing to people’s attention what kind of catastrophic consequences nuclear threat may lead to and that the unpredictability of nuclear attack might make any city in the world become the next target. Therefore, the only way to keep this world safe from nuclear peril is for people to take action to dispel nuclear weaponry from the earth.
II. Structural analysis of the text
This argumentative essay describes nuclear destruction through a Japanese photographer’s pictures. The text comprises three parts.
Part I (Paragraph 1): the writer describes the photographs and how a view of mountains in the background of one picture powerfully captures how thoroughly the city was destroyed by the atomic bomb.
Part II (Paragraphs 2 – 3): the author argues that the bombing of Nagasaki is more representative of the nuclear peril threatening the world than that of Hiroshima, because it suggests that nuclear weapons can be used again and threaten everyone, so we need to take action to dispel the nuclear threat from the Earth.
Part III (Paragraph 4): he restates his main idea, i.e. we should not just worry about the nuclear peril but take action to eliminate it to create a safer world.
III. Rhetorical features of the text
In English, information can be organized in various ways. One of the effective ways of emphasizing some information is to put it after the word but in the “(not) A but B” structure. In the text, the author uses this rhetorical device many times. For instance,
The photographs display the fate of a single city, but their meaning is universal ... (Paragraph 2)
Practice:
Pick out some other sentences with the same structure and analyze the effect they achieve.
1) The true measure of the event lies not in what remains but in all that has disappeared. (Paragraph 1)
2) … the challenge is not just to apprehend the nuclear peril but to seize a God-given opportunity to dispel it once and for all. (Paragraph 3)
3) … one showing not what we would lose through our failure but what we would gain by our success. (Paragraph 3)
Apart from the “A but B” sentence structure, we can also find the “A yet B” type:
4) Nagasaki has always been in the shadow of Hiroshima ... Yet the bombing of Nagasaki is in certain respects the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger that still hangs over us. (Paragraph 2) 5) Yamahata’s pictures afford a glimpse of the end of the world. Yet in our day, ... (Paragraph 3)
And we can find a sentence that organizes information in a similar way without the use of the conjunction but or yet:
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新世纪英语专业本科生(修订版)综合教程4(第2版)电子教案 Unit 4
6) Arriving a half-century century late, they are still news. (Paragraph 2)
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