现代大学英语第一册教案unit6

1 Lesson 6 The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Author

Rod Serling is one of the leading television playwrights today in the

United States, best known for his science fiction TV series, The Twilight

Zone. This little play, adapted from Tomorrow Scholastic Literature

Anthology is a kind of science fiction(科幻小说). The author obviously

is not just telling us an interesting story. He has sth. else to tell us, and it

is important for us to understand his message. The present text is Act One

of the play, which will be studied intensively. The climax(高潮)，however,

will be reached in Act Two, which is printed here as TextB.

Text Analysis

• Plot: Chaos on Maple Street due to the suspicion of the attack of

ETs as being called Monsters

• Setting: Maple Street in a typical American town

• Protagonists: Residents

• Language style: go to Writing Devices

Ellipsis: Ellipsis is common in speaking. Some elements in a sentence are

dropped.

e.g. “Guess it was…” should be”I guess…”

“Came awful close…” should be”I came awful close…”

Introduction: This is a short 2-act play. In reading a play, first we should

learn about the setting or background, and get to know the characters and

their relations to each other; then we must find out what is happening (the

plot and the dramatic conflict), and understand how the drama leads to

the climax or how the dramatic conflict is resolved. For language, plays

are particularly good for learning spoken English. Students should pay

particular attention to the pronunciation and intonation, as well as such

special features of oral English as contractions, ellipses and colloquial

expressions. Students are strongly advised to act out the whole play.

Theme of the story:

In this play, the author seems to emphasize three fatal human

weaknesses: our deep suspicion and distrust of one another, our eagerness

to find a scapegoat替罪羊, and our readiness to turn into a mob乌合之众. It implies that if we human beings want to be really safe, we must kill 2 those monsters in our hearts: we should try to understand and trust each

other, to be less eager to assign blame, and to resist the kind of group

(mob) mentality which too often results in violence and tragedy.

Morality:

This text is written in the tradition of science fiction. Science fiction

usually describes imaginary future developments in science. But unlike

“Round the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne, today’s science fiction

often tries to give a moral message. Therefore, they are more “fiction”

than “science”. The present text is a good example.

Questions:

How do you understand the title of the text?

How did the story take place?

What were people’s first reactions to this?

Why did Tommy try to stop Steve from going away?

How did Goodman become the first suspect?

Detailed Discussion of the Text

 The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street(title)

to be due: to be expected to happen or arrive at a particular time预期的

The train is due in exactly 20 minutes.

on Maple Street: 美国英语中，街道名称前用on; 英国英语中用in.

Q: Who are the monsters? Are they really responsible for all the

troubles that happen on Maple Street? Where are the real monsters?

The title of the play: the “monsters” seem to refer to those ETs

(extraterrestrial[′ɛkstrətə′rɛstrɪəl] 外星人beings) who are out to

destroy us human beings on earth (the earthlings（科幻小说中，尤指相对外星人的）地球人 or earth people ). Or simply to say, the monsters refer to

the aliens from the outer space.

While they trigger a chain of reactions on Maple Street, they are not

really responsible for all the troubles they happen there.

When we finish the play, however, we realize that monsters actually

live in our own hearts and lie in the weakness of human nature,

namely, the deep suspicion and of one another, the eagerness to find a

scapegoat替罪羊, and the readiness to turn into a mob. Because of our

weaknesses or wicked ways, we tend to destroy each other or seek our 3 own destruction. This, and not the ETs, is our real enemy and real danger.

 It is Maple Street, a quiet, tree-lined, residential street in a typical

American town. (Para. 1)

The sequence of adjectives:

Opinion: beautiful，horrible，lovely，nice, etc.

Shape: long，short，round, narrow, etc.

Age: old，new，young, etc.

Colour: red, black, orange, etc.

Origin: British, Canadian, German, etc.

Material: plastic，metal，aluminum, etc. [ə′lu′mɪnəm] 铝

residential: adj.住宅的

residence n. 居住

resident n. 居民, 住户

reside [rɪ′zaɪd] vi. 居住; 定居dwell , inhabit, live

Their residential building is located next to the park.

The reality resides in the people.

the resident population 现住人口