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Unit 4 American Dream

By 魏华

Objectives:

1.Understand the main idea (Tony Trivisonno realized his American Dream through his own

efforts) and structure of the text (one part telling the story of Tony’s life and the other giving the author’s comments on it);

2.Learn to describe a person by his/her characteristic features, together with supporting details

which demonstrate the features;

3.Grasp the key language points and grammatical structures in the text;

4.Conduct a series of listening, speaking and writing activities centered upon the theme of the

unit.

Focuses:

1.Understand the main idea and structure of the text;

2.Learn to describe a person by his/her characteristic features;

3.Grasp the key language points and grammatical structures in the text

Outline:

Pre-reading activities

1.Asks several Ss the following questions to check if they have listened to the taped interview

with Dr. Hertz. (5 mins)

2.Ss do Cloze B in after-text exercises to have a better understanding of the American Dream;

when they finish T and Ss will discuss what they have filled in those blanks. (15 mins)

3.Based on the above two activities, T asks Ss’ opinion on the essence of the American Dream.

(10 mins)

4.T sums up the things mentioned above and leads in to the text. (5 mins)

While-reading activities:

1.Story narrated according to time sequence. (15 mins)

2.T explains the language points and gives Ss practice. (2 periods)

Post-reading activities

1.Ss read Writing Strategy and instructions for Theme-related Language Learning Tasks. (15

mins)

2. T guides Ss through several after-text exercises. (20 mins)

3. Theme-related Language Learning Tasks (1 period)

Pre-reading activities

1.T asks several Ss the following questions to check if they have listened to the taped interview with Dr. Hertz:

---- What did American Dream mean to Dr. Hertz’s grandparents? (hint: it first meant getting out of poverty; later it meant the chance for their children to succeed)

---- Why does Dr. Hertz say that the American Dream is in one’s head and in one’s pocket? (hint: it is in one’s head because one wants to live as well as or better than others; it is in one’s pocket because one has to keep on spending money so as to have things other people have). (5 mins)

2.Ss do Cloze B in after-text exercises to have a better understanding of the American Dream; when they finish T and Ss will discuss what they have filled in those blanks. (15 mins)

3. Based on the above two activities, T asks Ss’ opinion on the essence of the American Dream.

(10 mins)

4. T su ms up and leads in to the text by saying: We’ve often heard about the American Dream, and by now we know it means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. Of course, we must realize that here success is narrowly defined as financial success. In this unit you will read how such a dream came true. (5 mins)

While-reading activities:

1.A story narrated according to time sequence

(1)Ss scan the text to circle all the time words, phrases or sentences in this text. (They are: one

evening, The next two days, Summer passed into fall, The months passed, one day, A year or two passed, After about two years, Sometime later, Then , during the war, After he passed away.). By this they will see that the text is written according to time sequence.

(2)T explains to Ss that Tony fulfilled his American Dream step by step, and that the time phrases

serve as transitions between steps.

(3)T draws Ss’ attention to Text Organization Exercise 2. Here they will see that, between the

first time phrase –― one evening‖—and the time sentence –― Summer passed into fall‖, Tony took the first step by working as a help at Mr. Crawford’s house.

(4)T lets Ss know that they are to complete Text Organization Exercise 2 as he/she goes through

each step, which is similarly defined by the appearances of time phrases.(15 mins)

2.T explains the language points from Line1 to Line 21 and gives Ss practice. (15 mins)

3. Pairing: What does a gardener do?

(1)T copies down the following two columns on the blackboard;

A B

To mow the garden

To weed the yard

To sweep the lawn

To clean up any little tasks

To take care of heavy objects

To lift the walks

To fix things

(2)Ss try to pair the verbs in Column A with objects in Column B. For some verbs, more than one

collocation is possible. (Possible pairings: to mow the lawn, to weed the garden, to

Sweep the walks, to clean up the yard, to take care of any little tasks, to lift heavy objects, to fix