Lecture Notes.doc

UNIT 1 THE FOURTH OF JULYLearning Objectives2Section One Pre-reading Activities2I. Picture activation2II. Pre-questions2Section Two Global Reading2I. Text Introduction3II. Culture Notes3III. Author3IV. Structural Analysis3Section Three Detailed Reading3I. Analysis:5II. Questions for Paragraphs6III. Language Work of Paragraphs8IV. Chinese Translation of Paragraphs14Section Four Consolidation Activities15I. Text Comprehension15II. Writing Strategies16III. Language Work16IV. Translation19V. Oral Activities21VI. Writing22VII. Listening Exercises (Optional)23Section Five Further Enhancement25I. Lead-in Question27II. Text II27III. Text II: Comprehension29IV. Notes of Text II30V. Fun Time & Memorable Quotes31Learning Objectivesl Rhetorical skill: elements of narrative writingl Key language & grammar pointsl Writing strategies: flashback and symbolisml Minority writers and racism in their livesSection One Pre-reading ActivitiesI. Picture activationCan you name the objects in following pictures? Are they important clues of the story? Tips:Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Lincolns statue in Washington, and the ice-cream the author wanted to eat.II. Pre-questionsl What is special with the date, the Fourth of July in the United States? What do you think of the title and the content of the text?The title and the content create a satirical effect. As we all know, the 4th of July is kept as a national holiday on which the American people commemorate and celebrate their winning of freedom and independence. But on this very day, the writer and her family were treated badly and unjustly in the capital of the country when they entered an ice-cream store, ordered a dish of vanilla ice cream and got ready to enjoy it. They were not allowed to eat it inside.l What is the writers purpose?The writer intends to lay bare or bring to light the white domination or racial discrimination and segregation by vivid specific examples, and consequently to convey her fury and indignation.Section Two Global ReadingThis text is a piece of narrative writing in which the first-person narration is employed. l What is Narrative Writing?A narrative is a story containing specific elements that work together to create interest for not only the author but also the reader. This type of writing makes the reader feel as if he or she were part of the story, as if it were being told directly to him or her.I. Text Introductionl Elements of Narrative Writing-Plot, character, setting, style, conflicts, themel Plot Structure of Narrative Writing-Beginning, middle, climax, endl Different Points of View-First Person point of view-Third Person point of view: limited-Third Person point of view: omniscientII. Culture Notes1.The Liberty Bell 自由钟（位于费城）, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is one of the most prominent symbols of the American Revolutionary War. It is a familiar symbol of independence within the United States and has been described as an icon of liberty and justice. 2.Lincoln Memorial 林肯纪念堂, is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and was dedicated on May 30, 1922. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther Kings I Have a Dream speech 3.Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 April 8, 1993) was an American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. She possessed a rich and vibrant voice with an intrinsic quality of beauty.III. AuthorAudre Lorde (1934-1992) was born in New York City, and she attended Hunter College and Columbia University and later became a professor of English at Hunter College in New York. Her writings included Between Ourselves (1976) and Chosen Poems (1982). The Fourth of July is taken from her autobiography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982).IV. Structural AnalysisPart 1 (P 1) background: characters, place and time, major eventPart 2(P2-6) preparations, especially the different kinds of food the writers mother had prepared for their Washington tripPart 3(P7-17) the injustice the writer and her family had encounteredPart 4(P18-19) a brief account of the different effects of the injustice on the black familySection Three Detailed ReadingTHE FOURTH OF JULYAudre Lorde1The first time I went to Washington D.C. was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child. At least thats what they said to us all at graduation from the eighth grade. My sister Phyllis graduated at the same time from high school. I dont know what she was supposed to stop being. But as graduation presents for us both, the whole family took a Fourth of July trip to Washington D.C., the fabled and famous capital of our country. Detailed Reading2It was the first time Id ever been on a railroad train during the day. When I was little, and we used to go to the Connecticut shore, we always went at night on the milk train, because it was cheaper.3. Preparations were in the air around our house before school was even over. We packed for a week. There were two very large suitcases that my father carried, and a box filled with food. In fact, my first trip to Washington was a mobile feast; I started eating as soon as we were comfortably ensconced in our seats, and did not stop until somewhere after Philadelphia. I remember it was Philadelphia because I was disappointed not to have passed by the Liberty Bell. 4.My mother had roasted two chickens and cut them up into dainty bite-size pieces. She packed slices of brown bread and butter, and green pepper and carrot sticks. There were little violently yellow iced cakes with scalloped edges called marigolds, that came from Cushmans Bakery. There was a spice bun and rock-cakes from Newtons, the West Indian bakery across Lenox Avenue from St. Marks school, and iced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jar. There were sweet pickles for us and dill pickles for my father, and peaches with the fuzz still on them, individually wrapped to keep them from bruising. And, for neatness, there were piles of napkins and a little tin box with a washcloth dampened with rosewater and glycerine for wiping sticky mouths.5.I wanted to eat in the dining car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me for the umpteenth time that dining car food always cost too much money and besides, you never could tell whose hands had been playing all over that food, nor where those same hands had been just before. My mother never mentioned that Black people were not allowed into railroad dining cars headed south in 1947. As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention. 6.I learned later that Phylliss high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis would not be happy, meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. We still take among-you to Washington, ourselves, my father had avowed, and not just for an overnight in some measly fleabag hotel. 7.In Washington D.C., we had one large room with two double beds and an extra cot for me. It was a back-street hotel that belonged to a friend of my fathers who was in real estate, and I spent the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial where Marian Anderson had sung after the D.A.R. refused to allow her to sing in their auditorium because she was Black. Or because she was Colored, my father said as he told us the story. Except that what he probably said was Negro, because for his times, my father was quite progressive. 8.I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood summers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about by my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness.9.I viewed Julys through an agonizing corolla of dazzling whiteness and I always hated the Fourth of July, even before I came to realize the travesty such a celebration was for Black people in this country.10.My parents did not approve of sunglasses, nor of their expense.11.I spent the afternoon squinting up at monuments to freedom and past presidencies and democracy, and wondering why the light and heat were both so much stronger in Washington D.C., than back home in New York City. Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back home.12.Late that Washington afternoon my family and I walked back down Pennsylvania Avenue. We were a proper caravan, mother bright and father brown, the three of us girls step-standards in-between. Moved by our historical surroundings and the heat of early evening, my father decreed yet another treat. He had a great sense of history, a flair for the quietly dramatic and the sense of specialness of an occasion and a trip.13.Shall we stop and have a little something to cool off, Lin? 14.Two blocks away from our hotel, the family stopped for a dish of vanilla ice cream at a Breyers ice cream and soda fountain. Indoors, the soda fountain was dim and fan-cooled, deliciously relieving to my scorched eyes.15.Corded and crisp and pinafored, the five of us seated ourselves one by one at the counter. There was I between my mother and father, and my two sisters on the other side of my mother. We settled ourselves along the white mottled marble counter, and when the waitress spoke at first no one understood what she was saying, and so the five of us just sat there.16.The waitress moved along the line of us closer to my father and spoke again. I said I kin give you to take out, but you cant eat here, sorry. Then she dropped her eyes looking very embarrassed, and suddenly we heard what it was she was saying all at the same time, loud and clear.17.Straight-backed and indignant, one by one, my family and I got down from the counter stools and turned around and marched out of the store, quiet and outraged, as if we had never been Black before. No one would answer my emphatic questions with anything other than a guilty silence. But we hadnt done anything! This wasnt right or fair! Hadnt I written poems about freedom and democracy for all?18. My parents wouldnt speak of this injustice, not because they had contributed to it, but because they felt they should have anticipated it and avoided it. This made me even angrier. My fury was not going to be acknowledged by a like fury. Even my two sisters copied my parents pretense that nothing unusual and anti-American had occurred. I was left to write my angry letter to the president of the United States all by myself, although my father did promise I could type it out on the office typewriter next week, after I showed it to him in my copybook diary.19.The waitress was white, and the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington D.C., that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and the white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the whole rest of that trip and it wasnt much of a graduation present after all.I. Analysis:1. Paragraph 1 AnalysisThe first paragraph presents the background information, which tells us the circumstances under which the authors family were going to take the Washington trip and why.2. Paragraph 2-6 AnalysisThis part mainly tells the readers the preparations made for the trip, in particular, the large amount and variety of food the authors mother had prepared for the family, which actually turned their first trip on a passenger train to Washington into a real mobile feast. 3. Paragraph 7-17 AnalysisThis part is the core of the whole narration. It can be further divided into two sections:l Paragraphs 7-11The authors mental reaction to the suffocating white domination she felt in Washington D.C.l Paragraphs 12-17The climax of the narration. It relates their most agonizing experience at an ice cream and soda fountain store.4. Paragraph 18-19 AnalysisThis part presents a brief account of the different effects of the injustice on the black family. The writers fury did not seem to be shared by family members, who pretended that nothing unusual or anti-American had ever happened.II. Questions for Paragraphs:Paragraph 1: questions1. When and where did the writers family go for a visit?The writers family went to Washington D.C. at the beginning of the summer when the writer graduated from the eighth grade and her elder sister from high school.2. Why did the family go on a Fourth of July trip?The writer and her sister had just graduated from school and the trip was taken as an event to mark their graduation and regarded as their graduation present. The Fourth of July is the National Day in the USA, the day on which America won independence and freedom. As a way of celebration, most Americans will take trips to various places.Paragraph 2: questionWhy had the family always gone on the milk train when they used to go to the Connecticut shore?Because the milk train was cheaper. The fact that the family had always traveled on the cheap milk train implies that the family was rather poor.Paragraph 3: questionWhy did the writer say that her first trip to Washington D.C. was a mobile feast? Because the writer started eating as soon as they were ensconced in their seats on the train and she did not stop eating until somewhere after Philadelphia. Paragraph 4: questionWhy did the writers mother prepare a variety of foods for the trip?There were probably two reasons. On the one hand, by taking a variety of food with them on the trip, the family members could save some money, for dining car food was too expensive. On the other hand, as black people, they were not allowed into railroad dining cars at that time.Paragraph 4: activityGive a list of the different foods the writers mother had prepared and packed.two roasted chickensslices of brown bread and buttergreen pepper and carrot sticksiced cakes with scalloped edgesa spice bun and rock cakesiced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jarsweet picklesdill picklespeaches with the fuzz still on themParagraph 6: questionWhy had the writers elder sister been prevented from going to Washington D.C. with her high school classmates?Because she was black and all her classmates were white and they would be staying in a hotel which did not rent rooms to “Negroes”.Paragraph 7: questionWhy did the writer spend the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial? And why had Marian Anderson sung at the Lincoln Memorial after D.A.R. refused to allow her to sing in their auditorium because she was black?Both the writer and Marian Anderson were black. The writer spent the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial because it was Lincoln, the American President, who liberated the blacks in America, who advocated freedom for the colored and who even sacrificed his life for the emancipation of the black people. Both the writer and Marian Anderson cherished the memory of this great man. Marian Anderson had sung at the Lincoln Memorial, also because she wanted to spread Lincolns noble ideas, to show that his noble ideas had not been realized and to call on people to fight against racial discrimination and segregation so as to make Lincolns noble thought come true and win liberation and freedom for the black people. Paragraph 8: questionWhy was the writer squinting?The writer was squinting because she was in that silent agony that characterized all of her childhood summers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about by her dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness. In other words, she was squinting because she was suffering realistically from the dazzling sunlight and mentally from the suffocating white domination.Paragraph 10: questionWhy didnt the authors parents approve of sunglasses? Was it just because they were too expensive?Evidently not just the expense, though her parents were not well off. We all know that wearing sunglasses will make the dazzling light milder. It might be surmised that what her parents were really saying was that they wanted their children to realize to the fullest extent the injustice that was inflicted upon the black people. However, such an interpretation does not sit easily with various other aspects of the story. From an alternative perspective, her Christian parents are reputed to have set strict standards (against which the author was later to rebel) and may well have frowned on sunglasses as suggestive of a sinful vanity.Paragraph 11: questionDo you find some symbolic meaning in Paragraph 11?Here, most probably, the white light and heat and the white pavement on the streets symbolize the white domination. Actually, the writer was wondering why the white domination or racial discrimination was even stronger in Washington D.C. than back home in New York City.Paragraph 12: questionWhy did the writers father decree another treat?Moved by their historical surroundings and the heat of the early evening, her father decreed yet another treat. Also, it was because he had a great sense of history, a flair for the quietly dramatic and a strong sense of a special occasion and a trip.Paragraph 17: questionWhat can you infer from the authors words “as if we had never been Black before?”As blacks they should have expected this and had no reas