Transcript Document

Teaching demo
-A Short Story
By
Wang Wenli
08/09/06 WANG
play
08/09/06 WANG
Importance of the work
Best-remembered
and Memorial
• (1924) winning
the O’Henry
Prize, themost-studied，
top short story prize in
America One of the world’s best
short stories
• Included as a classic into American
primary school and high school
textbooks and the world’s best short
fiction anthologies
• Adapted into a dozen of films--- the
latest one: Lethal Woman (1998);
the best-known one: The Most
Dangerous Game (1932)
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Objectives: genre study
(review)
Elements of the short story:
•
•
•
•
•
moral/theme 
plot
character & characterization 
setting 
point of view
(reading technique：close reading)
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Objectives: language &
writing
• style: verbs, syntax, imagery, irony,
personification…
• suspense
• step-up: repetition, comparison and
contrast
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Outline: day 1
• Lead-in activities: task sheets
• Objectives
• Background information
• Plot, characterization, setting,
themes
• Further questions for discussion: (for
day 3)
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Day 2
• Check on preview: language
• Detailed study: part by part
Activities: blank filling,
paraphrasing,
translation, etc.
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Day 3:
• Discussion
• Sum-up
• Extra exercise/ Quiz
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Preclass work
•
Group Work:
 Please draw a map of the ship-trap
island and mark out Rainsford’s
escape route according to the text.
 Study para. 27 and para. 36
carefully. Try to figure out how
Rainsford’s tricks work.
Demonstrate them in class.
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Preclass work
• Individual work:
1) Produce a Venn Diagram to
compare Rainsford and Zaroff. Do
you think the villain and the hero
are radically different? If not, what
do they have in common?
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Preclass work:
Venn Diagram
Rainsford
Zaroff
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Preclass work
• Individual work:
2) stylistic analysis:
This hunting story is described as a
gripping horror narrative loaded with
action. What stylistic features can you
find in the text to support this
description?
(verbs, syntax variation, imagery in
setting and characterization, suspense,
etc.)
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Preclass work
• Individual work:
2) stylistic analysis:
This hunting story is described as a
gripping horror narrative loaded with
action. What stylistic features can you
find in the text to support this
description?
(verbs, syntax variation, imagery in
setting and characterization, suspense,
etc.)
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Lead-in Activities: student representative
Order the Events
_____ Rainsford uses a Ugandan trick and kills Ivan.
_____ General Zaroff invites Rainsford to join his game.
_____ One of Zaroff’s dogs falls into the Burmese tiger pit and dies.
_____ Rainsford and Whitney talk about “Ship Trap Island.”
_____ Rainsford goes back to the chateau and kills General Zaroff.
_____ Rainsford spends the night in a tree.
_____ Rainsford jumps off a cliff
_____ Rainsford falls into the water and swims to the island.
_____ Rainsford makes a Malay man-catcher which hurts General
Zaroff on the shoulder.
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N
W
E
S
Ship-trap
Island
Ugandan trick
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Death
swamp
Background information
I: Introduction to the author &
his work
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Richard Connell
(1893 - 1949)
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
Age 10: covered baseball
games for his father’s newspaper at the
payment of 10 cents for each game
Age 16: became city editor of the paper
Age 22: graduated from Harvard
Age 26: married and turned a professional
writer
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Achievements




One of the most prolific short story
writers of the 20th century--- over
300 short stories published in top
magazines of the time
Successful screenwriter and novelist
Dozens of movies and TV series
based on his stories
http://www.intercoursewiththedead.
com/concrit.htm
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Evaluation of the story
‘On one level it is adventure and
high drama. On another it tackles
questions about man's relation to
the lower animals. On still another it
evaluates
existentialism.’
Characterized
by
lofty or thrilling
--- Dave McCourt
events/themes

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Historical background: 1920s


Big game hunting in African and
South American countries is popular
with wealthy Europeans and
Americans. In 1909, Theodore
Roosevelt and his son killed 512
animals on an African safari.
Right after WWI, “a war to end all
wars”, the Bolshevik revolution that
topples the old hierarchy of classes.
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Plot
• How many parts can we divide the
story into?
• In which part is the climax reached?
• The conclusion/resolution consists of
only one sentence. Why?
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Plot
• How is tension built up?
suspense (study para.19)
sentence length and type
(compare paras. 18, 34--36, 38 )
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Characterization
Stereotype,
Zaroff
Cossack
Russian,
aristocratic,
military,
maniac,
demonic
KindredRainsford
spirits
志趣相投
Professional
hunter,
American,
Obsessed with
hunting,
civilian
Privileged class,
Classist,
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(democratic)
Still “normal”,
human
Characterization:
the general
• Why is the general so obsessed with
hunting?
• How do you understand his choice of
men as prey?
• Do his profession and social class
help to explain his belief and
behavior?
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Characterization: Rainsford
• Do you think Rainsford is better
than the general?
• How is he different from traditional
heroes?
 ambivalence: similarity to Zaroff
 vehicle of irony: hunter-turned
huntee
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Irony
• “The world is made up of two
classes--the hunters and the huntees.
Luckily, you and I are hunters.”
• “Who cares how a jaguar feels?"
"Bah! They've no understanding."
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Characterization: techniques
• Zaroff
speech
• Rainsford
thought
What does the
difference suggest?
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Setting
• Where is the story
set?
a Caribbean island
a Gothic chateau
a jungle and a
swamp
• Do you find any
symbolic meaning
in this setting?
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Themes
• The hunter and the hunted
• Social Darvinism
• Classism, racism, elitism
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Questions for further discussion
(day 3)
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What will happen after Rainsford kills the general?
Will he become another Zaroff?
Why does the general lose the game? Is he
deliberately courting his own destruction?
What do you think of hunting, or, war in general,
after learning the story?
In association with what we have learned in U3 &
4, what does this story say about history and
racism?
(History is written by the winner/the stronger.
Racism is discrimination based on the
classification of people)
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Detailed study: Part 1 (1-14)


In what way does the general speak? What is
told by the discrepancy between what he says
and what he does?
What kind of man is he, judged from his
speech? (para. 13)
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Language

Rest with, rest on (para. 6):
Success in management ultimately
rests on sound judgment.
_________
rests with
The final decision __________
the President.
rests with the jury to decide the prisoner’s
It ________
fate.
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Language

Venture (para. 6):
to ~ + n.
如果我能冒昧地说一下我的看法，我觉得这个计划需要进
一步的审核。
If I may venture an opinion, I’d say the plan needs closer
examination.
to ~ + to-v.
我能斗胆提几个改进的建议吗？
May I venture to suggest a few improvements?
to ~ + prep.
非典时期大家都不敢出门。
Nobody ventured out of doors during the period of SARS.
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Paraphrase

Night found him legweary…
when night came, he was too tired to walk…
二十一世纪中国抱着前所未有的乐观态度
拓宽了对外开放的尺度。
The 21st century has found China
opening wider to the outside world with an
unprecedented optimism.
___________________________________
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Part 2 (15-28)


What animals are the two characters
compared to separately? (paras. 18, 20, 24, 27)
How does Rainsford’s awareness of his
situation change step by step?
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Language

Verbal phrases:
plunge along, strike off, stretch out, throw down,
spur on
___________ by a sharp sense of shame, he had
___________, giving no heed to the passers-by who
looked at him strangely. To get away from the
hideous scene as far as possible, he _________ from
the main street and blundered into one of those dark
alleys, at the end of which he ___________ himself
behind a trash can and finally ___________in a rest.
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Strike (para.18)




发现新的办法
approach
strike _______
a new ___________
on
想到这个可能，他心里突然充满了恐惧。
prospect
into his heart.
The __________struck
terror _____
他们都惊呆了，说不出话来。
struck dumb with amazement
They were _________________________.
我觉得很奇怪他居然不愿说出自己的名字。
It struck me as rather odd that he refused
__________________________________________.
to give his name
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Ring (para.27)
To blow a smoke ring
 His laugh rings through the jungle
(review: echo, buzz, thunder)
屋子里充满了孩子们欢乐的笑声
The room rang with the laughter of happy children.
整个城市到处流传着坏消息
The whole city rang with bad news.
他说的那些同情的话听上去空洞无力。
His words of sympathy ring hollow.

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Part 3 (29--45)



Why does the general identify each of his
rival’s tricks? Where have you read of a
similar plot?
How does his estimation of Raisford change
gradually?
What are the details that hint at his coldbloodedness?
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Language

Paraphrase:
The pointed stakes found their mark. (para.31)
hit their target--- “It found the spot all
right”(L2)
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Language

To come upon or discover,
especially by chance
Hit (para. 36)
We finally hit the exit after blundering about in the
darkness for a long time.
我偶然发现了有个办法可以解决我们的问题。
I hit upon a solution to our problem.
很多跨国公司深受经济萧条的影响。
Many multinational companies were hit hard by the
recession.
上个月的销售再创新高。
Last month’s sales hit a new high.
a Broadway hit 百老汇热门的戏剧
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Part 4 (para.46)
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Who won the game in the end?
What might have happened to the general?
What moral does the general’s end tell?
How would you take up the story?
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Sum-up


Summarize the elements of the short story by
comparing the lesson with the other short
stories we have learned during the year.
Find out how the writer steps up the tension
by different techniques:
study paras. 15, 25, 38; paras.16, 24, 33;
paras. 22-23, 30
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
His first thought made him feel sick and
numb…
His second thought was even more terrible. It
sent a shudder of cold horror through his
whole being.

He had dug himself in in France when a
Havemeant
you read
similar
minute’s delay
death.
That had been a
writing
somewhere
placid pastime
compared
to his digging now.
else?
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Writing assignment


What good writing techniques have you
learned from the story?
Can you produce a short story with suspense
and a surprising ending?
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T
H
A
N
K
Y
O
U
！
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Check on preview

Definition
1) a wild chance (34)
a bit of wild grapevine (36)
2) the dead black eyes (3)
the trees dead ahead (38)
3) the baying of the hounds (37)
a beast at bay (44)
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Lacking animation, dull

wild accusations; a wild guess.
Based on little or no evidence
 The
party being
dead, we
or probability;
ungrounded
left early.
dead
silence, dead sure, the dead of winter/night

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Usage of PPT in Intensive Reading
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
Advantages:
interest, language learning, global understanding
Disadvantages:
distraction, over-reliance, overloading
Key points:
size, text, pictures/audio-visual materials
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