新世纪⼤学英语（第⼆版）综合教程第4册Unit7Electronic Teaching PortfolioBook FourUnit Seven: Reading and ReflectionPart I Get StartedSection A Discussion▇Sit in pairs or groups and discuss the following questions.1Why do you think we need to read?2What do you prefer to read — poems, novels or plays?3What role do you think literary works play in our lives?▆Answers for reference:1Hints:●Reading broadens our horizons.●Reading enriches our knowledge.●Reading puts us in contact with the best minds of human history.●Reading enriches our experience.●Reading empowers us with knowledge.●Reading improves our character and taste.●Reading is a good pastime.2Some hints:a)Different people read literature for different reasons and purposes because of their differentbackgrounds, tastes, experiences and educational background.b)Those who prefer reading novels may think novels are more interesting and easier to read probablybecause novels usually have plots. They can take readers to other places and times, real or imaginary, allowing them to meet people and experience life in many different ways. A good novel makes readers think, laugh, cry or wonder.3Reference:Literary works play an important role in our life. They can broaden our horizons. They help us experience a kind of life which we cannot have in real life. They help us see the things which we tend to ignore in our daily life. They can also help us escape from reality.Section B Quotes▇Study the following quotes about reading and reflection and discuss in pairs what you can learn from them.Francis Bacon⊙Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested.— Francis Bacon Interpretation:There are different ways of reading books. To taste a book, one can read it in a state of relaxation. To swallow a book one can glide his eyes across the lines of a book. To chew or digest a book one should read it actively. And when he has finished reading a book, the pages are filled with his notes. Only when good books are chewed and digested can they have a lasting influence on one’s life.About Francis Bacon (1561-1626): an English politician, philosopher, and writer. Francis Bacon graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the founder of English materialist philosophy, as well as of modern science in England. He is especially famous for his Essays, in which his practical wisdom is shown through his reflections and comments on rather abstract subjects.Benjamin Franklin◎Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.— Benjamin FranklinInterpretation:Reading broadens our horizons, molds our temperament and enlightens our minds. Reading provides us with the possibility of opening ourselves up to the world, which helps us to become learned and knowledgeable persons. Thinking deeply helpsus gain an insight into human life. Having scholarly conversations with others helps us become wiser.About Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): a US politician, writer, and scientist. He was involved in writing two historically significant documents, the Declaration of Independence (《独⽴宣⾔》) and the Constitution of the United States (《美国宪法》). He is famous for proving that lightning is a form of electricity by doing a scientific test in which he flew a kite during a storm, and he invented the lightning conductor. He is also well known for his literary works such as Poor Richard’s Almanac (《穷理查德年鉴》1732-1757；亦译作《格⾔历书》、《穷理查历书》) and Autobiography (《⾃传》1790).Denis Parsons Burkitt◎It is better to read a little and ponder a lot than to read a lot and ponder a little.— Denis Parsons BurkittInterpretation:What really counts is not how many books we have read but whether we spend time thinking over what we have read. So we should read selectively and reflectively.About Denis Parsons Burkitt (1911–1993): an accomplished British surgeon. His major contribution to medical science was the description, distribution, and ultimately, the etiology (病因学；病源论) of apediatric (⼩⼉科的) cancer that bears his name Burkitt’s lymphoma (伯基特⽒淋巴瘤).Louisa May Alcott◎Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.— Louisa May AlcottInterpretation:Books and friends should be few but good. We should be highly selective in reading books, and our greatest pleasure in reading comes from the best books.About Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888): an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women (《⼩妇⼈》）. Section C Watching and Discussion▇Watch the following video clip “Reading Really Matters” and do the tasks that follow.Introduction of the video:Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is talking about arts education.First he mentions a problem in the United States: People are reading less and employers are facing a serious problem that their new employees can’t read and can’t write.According to Dana Gioia, those people who read do exercise more and do more volunteering charity work.Then he comes to talk about how reading actually matters to a person.1 Now fill in the note form according to what you hear.Topic: Reading Awakens Something inside the Reader1) reading increases your sense of your own personal destiny.2) reading makes the lives of other people more real to you.In summary, reading makes you understand that other people have an inner life as complicated as your own.Reading builds a society with not only imaginative capability, intellectual capability, but compassion, and humanity.2Discuss the following questions.Do you agree that Chinese people are reading less?Do you think modern technology has influenced the way people read?Open.▇Script：Americans are reading less. Because they read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do less well in the educational system. We are in the process in the United States of producing the first generation in our history that’s less well-educated than their parents. Now, I mean, to me, this is, you know a…an abandonment of the whole American misroutes of self improvement. Because they do less well in school, they do less well in the job market and economically. The number one problems for new employers in the United States: new employees can’t read, new employees can’t write. And in fact, for those people who can’t even read above the basic level, 55% of those people end up unemployed.And even on a further level, they overwhelmingly are like, you know, are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. Only 3% of the people in U.S. prisons read at a proficiency level. Because they read less well, you know, because in a sense they don’t develop these things, they are a lso less likely to be engaged in personal positive behavior however you wanna measure it.We can measure it many different ways. You would not think it, but it is overwhelmingly demonstrable: that people that read exercise more; people that read join, play sports more. They belong to civic organizations more. They do volunteering charity work nearly 4 times the level of non-readers.Well, when I saw these data, I said, well, wait. We have to be measuring something else. W e’re measuring income, and we’re measuring education. If you take the poorest people in the United States who read, they do volunteering charity work at twice the level of people who don’t read. So what does it say to us? It says something we know, each of us knows this: when you read, when you’re engaged in the arts, it awakens something inside of you. That does two things: the first is that it increases your sense of your own personal destiny. But, secondly, it makes the lives of other people more real to you. It creates a heightened sense of yourself as an individual, but it also brings you, maybe, especially when you’re reading novels or imagin ing the literature in which you follow the stories, the lives of the people in the dailiness of their existence, socially, economically. Maybe understanding, a man understanding how a woman thinks, and a man understanding how a man thinks, a person understanding how somebody from a different country, from a different race thinks and feels. This imaginative exercises, this meditative exercise, makes you understand that other people have an inner life as complicated as your own. And so, if you have a society, in which tens of millions of people guided by pleasure no less, undertake these types of contemplations and meditations, you have a society which builds… not only it’s imaginative capability, it’s intellectual capability, b ut it’s compassion, and it’s humanity.Part II Listen and RespondSection B Task One: Focusing on the Main Ideas▇Choose the best answer to each of the following questions according to the information contained in the listening passage. 1What does the speaker mean by efficient reading or reading efficiently?A)Reading a book for pleasure.B)Writing between lines while reading.C)Remembering the author’s thoughts.D)Scanning a book for facts.2What is the advantage of marking up a book according to the speaker?A)Marking up a book helps readers take in the brilliant ideas in the book.B)Marking up a book enables readers to know what they read.C)Marking up a book makes readers feel like the owner of the book.D)Marking up a book makes readers conscious of the fact that they are reading actively.3What is the true sense of owning a book?A)Marking it through active reading.B)Purchasing it with one’s own money.C)Writing one’s name on it.D)Understanding every word in it.4How do people read books for pleasure?A)They read them consciously.B)They read them in a state of relaxation.C)They read them passively.D)They read them actively.5How do people know they have read actively when they finish reading a book?A)They establish a relationship with the author.B)They gain possession of the book.C)The pages are full of their notes.D)Their spoken language has been improved.▇Key:1) B 2) D 3) A 4) B 5) CSection C Task Two: Zooming In on the Details▇Listen to the recording again and fill in each of the blanks according to what you have heard.Why is mar king up a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you 1) ________. And I don’t mean merely 2)________; I mean wide awake. In the second place, reading, if it is 3) ________, is thinking, and thinking tends to 4)________ itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the thought-through book. Finally, writing helps you remember the 5) ________ you had, or the thoughts the author expressed.If reading is to 6) ________ anything more than passing time, it must be active. You can’t let your eyes glide across the lines of a book and come up with an 7) ________ of what you have read. The books you read for pleasure can be read in a state of 8) ________ and nothing is lost. But a great book, rich in ideas and beauty, a book that 9) ________ and tries to answer fundamental questions, 10) ________ the most active reading. When you’ve finished rea ding a book, and the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively.▇Answers:1)awake 2) conscious 3) active 4) express 5) thoughts6) accomplish 7) understanding 8) relaxation 9) raises 10) demands▇Script:Reading EfficientlyYou know you have to read ―between the line s‖ to get the most out of anything. I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading, that is: ―write between the lines‖. Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading. I contend that marking up a book is an act of love.There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it.Why is mar king up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake. And I don’t mean merely conscious; I meanwide awake. In the second place, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the thought-through book. Finally, writing helps you remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author expressed.If reading i s to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active. You can’t let your eyes glide across the lines of a book and come up with an understanding of what you have read. The books you read for pleasure can be read in a state of relaxation and nothing is lost. But a great book, rich in ideas and beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer fundamental questions, demands the most active reading. When you’ve finished reading a book, and the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively.Part III Read and ExploreText ASection A Discovering the Main IdeasExercise 1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text A.1What is the difference between the lives of those who read and those who do not?2Can reading newspapers be categorized as reading? Why or why not?3What is the art of reading according to the author?4What does the author think of ―the taste for reading‖?5Can people benefit from reading the same books at different ages? Why or why not?▇Answers for reference:1According to the author, those who do not read are just like prisoners confined to their immediate world in respect to time and space. Their life falls into a set of routines and they see only what happens in their immediate neighbourhood with few friends and acquaintances to communicate with. In contrast, those who read have the privilege to escape temporarily from the present world and enter a different country ora different age as soon as they pick up a book. Good books put them in touch with the best minds inhistory and they are always carried away into a world of thought and reflection. Books broaden their horizons and their life is never a set of dull routines.2According to the author, reading newspapers does not belong to the category of reading because the average reader of a newspaper is mainly concerned with getting reports about events and happenings without contemplative value. The best reading does not merely offer a report of events, but is able to lead readers into a contemplative mood.3According to the author, only reading with the object of enriching one’s charm and flavor can be called an art. The charm here is not related to one’s physical appearance, but one’s inner aura of elegance which canonly be acquired through reading. And flavor here refers to the flavor in speech, and its cultivation entirely depends on one’s way of reading.4The author thinks that taste is the key to all reading and is individual and selective. Each person has his own taste in the kinds of books he enjoys reading. Forcing one to read books that he dislikes will achieve no positive results.5Yes. People can benefit from reading the same book at different ages and get different flavors out of it.According to the author, people at different ages should read different kinds of books and good books can be read more than once at different ages.Exercise 2 Text A can be divided into four parts with the paragraph number(s) of each part provided as follows. Write down the main idea of each part.Section B In-depth StudyIn the following text, Lin Yutang, the Chinese writer, translator, linguist and inventor, shares with us his insight into reading as an art. He not only addresses such questions as why to read, what to read, and when to read, but also convinces us of the beauty and benefits of reading as an art.The Art of ReadingLin Yutang1 Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselves that privilege. This is easy to understand when we compare the difference between the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does.2 The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood. From this prison there is no escape. But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked like and what type of person he was. Both Mencius and Ssema Ch’ien have expressed the same idea. Now to be able to live two hours out of twelv e in a different world and take one’s thoughts off the claims of the immediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison.3 Such a change of environment is really similar to travel in its psychological effect. But there is more to it than this. The reader is always carried away into a world of thought and reflection. Even if it is a book about physical events, there is a difference between seeing such events in person or living through them, and reading about them in books, for then the events always assume the quality of a spectacle and the reader becomes a detached spectator. The best reading is therefore that which leads us into this contemplative mood, and not that which is merely occupied with the report of events. The tremendous amount of time spent on newspapers I regard as not reading at all, for the average readers of papers are mainly concerned with getting reports about events and happenings without contemplative value.4 The best formula for the object of reading, in my opinion, was stated by Huang Shanku, a Sung poet. He said, ―A scholar who hasn’t read anything for three days feels that his talk has no flavor, and his own face becomes hateful to look at.‖ What he means, of course, is that reading g ives a man a certain charm and flavor, which is the entire object of reading, and onlyreading with this object can be called an art. One doesn’t read to ―improve one’s mind,‖ because when one begins to think of improving his mind, all the pleasure of read ing is gone. He is the type of person who says to himself: ―I must read Shakespeare, and I must read Sophocles, and I must read the entire Five Foot Shelf of Dr. Eliot, so I can become an educated man.‖ I’m sure that man will never become educated. He will force himself one evening to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and come away, as if from a bad dream, with no greater benefit than that he is able to say that he has ―read‖Hamlet. Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.5 Reading for the cultivation of personal charm of appearance and flavor in speech is then, according to Huang, the only admissible kind of reading. This charm of appearance must evidently be interpreted as something other than physical beauty. W hat Huang means by ―hateful to look at‖ is not physical ugliness. As for flavor of speech, it all depends on one’s way of reading. Whether one has ―flavor‖ or not in his talk, depends on his method of reading. If a reader gets the flavor of books, he will show that flavor in his conversations, and if he has flavor in his conversations, he cannot help also having a flavor in his writing.6 Hence I consider flavor or taste as the key to all reading. It necessarily follows that taste is selective and individual, like the taste for food. The most hygienic way of eating is, after all, eating what one likes, for then one is sure of his digestion. In reading as in eating, what is one man’s meat may be another’s poison. A teacher cannot force his pupils to like what he likes in reading, and a parent cannot expect his children to have the same tastes as himself. And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted.7 There can be, therefore, no books that one absolutely must read. For our intellectual interests grow like a tree or flow like a river. So long as there is proper sap, the tree will grow anyhow, and so long as there is fresh current from the spring, the water will flow. When water strikes a cliff, it just goes around it; when it finds itself in a pleasant low valley, it stops and meanders there a while; when it finds itself in a deep mountain pond, it is content to stay there; when it finds itself traveling over rapids, it hurries forward. Thus, without any effort or determined aim, it is sure of reaching the sea some day. There are no books in this world that everybody must read, but only books that a person must read at a certain time in a given place under given circumstances and at a given period of his life. I rather think that reading, like matrimony, is determined by fate or yinyuan. Even if there is a certain book that every one must read, there is a time for it. When one’s thoughts and experience have not reached a certain point for reading a masterpiece, the masterpiece will leave only a badflavor on his palate. Confucius said, ―When one is fifty, one may read the Book of Changes,‖ which means that one should not read it at forty-five. The extremely mild flavor of Confucius’ own sayings in The Analects and his mature wisdom cannot be appreciated until one becomes mature himself.8 Furthermore, the same reader reading the same book at different periods gets a different flavor out of it. For instance, we enjoy a book more after we have had a personal talk with the author himself, or even after having seen a picture of his face, and one gets again a different flavor sometimes after one has broken off friendship with the author. A person gets a kind of flavor from reading the Book of Changes at forty, and gets another kind of flavor reading it at fifty, after he has seen more changes in life. Therefore, all good books can be read with profit and renewed pleasure a second time.9 Reading, therefore, is an act consisting of two sides, the author and the reader. The net gain comes as much from the reader’s contribution through his own insight and experience as from the author’s own. I regard the discovery of one’s favorite author as the most critical event in one’s intellectual development. There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among the authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author whose spirit is akin with his own. Only in this way can one get any real good out of reading.▇课⽂参考译⽂读书的艺术林语堂1 读书或书籍的享受素来被视为有修养的⽣活上的⼀种雅事，⽽在⼀些不⼤有机会享受这种权利的⼈们看来，这是⼀种值得尊重和妒忌的事。
