新世纪大学英语第四册教案unit 2

Unit 2

Text I Space Invaders

Background information:

➢➢ 1. About the text:

This text was originally published in New Yorker on July 24, 1993. later in 2001 it appeared again in The Princeton Anthology of Writing: Favorite Pieces by the Ferries Writers at Princeton University.

➢➢About the author: Richard Stengel is a senior writer working for Time magazine.

➢➢ 3. malthusian logic: the theories of the British economist Thomas Robert Malthus(1766-1843), which state that population increases faster than the means of subsistence unless war, famine, or disease intervenes or efforts are made to limit population.

➢➢ 4. long island: an island in southeastern New York. The New York city boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens are at its west end.

Analysis

➢➢The writer points out that nowadays people are more and more concerned about themselves and want to have a larger personal space than decades ago, and then he analyses the cause of space invasion.

It can be divided into three parts

Part I paragraph 1-2

➢➢The following question may be asked:

1.How did the author describe the violation of personal space that happened in a

bank?

Part II paragraph 3-7

➢➢The following questions could be asked :

1.Is “personal space” a p hrase of the seventies? Is it out of date nowadays? Why

or why not?

2.Do you agree with the author about the reasons of space invasion given in

Paragraph 4? What other factor have caused it?

3.What does the author mean by saying “personal space is mostly a p ublic

matter”?

4.Do space invaders respect other people’s personal space?

Part III paragraph 8-9

➢➢Questions to be asked:

1.Do you agree with the writer’s view that the contraction of the outer, personal

space is proportion to the expansion of the inner space of modern man?

2.Do you think we Chinese people have comparatively more personal space or

less? Is Chinese personal space now the same as it was decades ago?

3.Why does the author decide to expand his contracting boundaries of personal

space?

Language Work

➢➢snake : move in a twisting way

the train was snaking its way through the mountains.

➢➢Some tired velvet ropes : some slackened velvet ropes

➢➢inch: move very slowly and carefully

Howard inched the van forward.

➢➢Shuffle: walk by dragging one’s feet along or without lifting them fully from the ground

He slipped on his shoes and shuffled out of the room.

shuffle sth. off: avoid talking or thinking about sth. because it is not considered important

He shuffled the question off and changed the topic.

shuffle out of sth. Try to avoid some unpleasant task by acting dishonestly

I mistrust the way in which they shuffle out of

sustained efforts.

➢➢Ring: a quality, or an impression of having the quality that is mentioned Her story has a ring of truth about it.

The books he mentioned had a familiar ring about them.

➢➢Penetrate: succeed in forcing through sth.

They penetrated into the territory where no man had ever been before.

➢➢Wedge: force into a narrow space

Open the door wide and wedge it with a pad of newspaper.

➢➢“don’t tread on me” could have been coined only by someone with a spread: “don’t step into my space”. This could have been said only by a person who has a large personal space.

➢➢Personal space is psychological, not physical: it has less to do with the space outside us than our inner space: personal space is more a psychological matter than a physical one.

➢➢Be proportional to: increase or decrease at the same rate as the other thing The output should be proportional to the input.

As a rule the suicide rates are proportional to the size of the city.

Structural Analysis

➢➢The author looks at the causes of space invasion in Paragraph 4. He attributes this phenomenon to population explosion first, then to the hot weather and the stimulation of caffeine.

➢➢He examines the nature of space invasion and thinks that space invasion is

a public matter. It is more psychological than physical.

Rhetorical Features

➢➢Listed below are the verbs used by the author to give a vivid and accurate description of the behavior of the space invaders

1) Verbs used to described the behavior of space invaders:

inch, wedge, zigzag, jostle, refuse, press, bump, etc.

2) Verbs used to describe the reaction of those whose space is being invaded:

advanced, sidle, shuffle

Text II space and distance