21世纪读写教程1第5-8单元A、B课文.doc

21世纪读写教程1Unit 5Text AThe Language of Compromise“Let me give you one piece of advice, I said to Ted and Mary just before they get married a few years ago. If you want to stay happily married, always be prepared to compromise. When you have different opinions about something, you each give way a little. You take the middle course. That is compromise. And Im glad to say that the young couple seemed to take that advice.I remember when they took their first holiday together. Ted wanted to do something energetic, because he didnt usually get much exercise during the year. Marys job meant that she was on her feet most of the time. All she wanted to do was lie in the sun. Ted hated the idea of lying on a beach; Mary hated the idea of being too active. They compromised, and took their holiday in mid-summer, high in the Alps. Mary was able to lie in the sun by the hotel swimming pool, while Ted went off for long walks in the mountains with a group of hikers. In the evening they met at the hotel, both content with their day, happy to eat a leisurely meal together and dance a little afterwards.They compromised over everything and they were very happy.To complete their happiness, they had a baby when they had been married for three years - a son. But that, strangely, was when the problem arose. They had to name their son, of course, and each had a name in mind; not the same name, unfortunately. It seemed that a situation had arisen where compromise was impossible. Ted wanted to call their son Robert, Mary wanted to call him Lawrence. How can you compromise with names like that? No, this time one of them would have to give way, it seemed. There would have to be a winner, and a loser. That was how they saw things, at least.Mary told me all about it when I called at the hospital two days after the babys birth.Ted wants to call him Robert, Mary said, because theres a tradition in his family. The eldest son is always Robert or Edward. His father was Robert, his grandfather Edward, his great-grandfather Robert, and soon.That seems reasonable, I said.I dont want my son to be named after someone in the family, Mary said. Hes a unique individual, and I want him to have a name that no one else in the family has had. !want to call my son Lawrence.That seems reasonable, too, I said.Everyones been giving me advice, Mary said. Then she told me who had given her advice, and what advice she had been given, (but not in the same order). I had to guess who gave what advice. Maybe youd like to try to do that as well?These were the people:1) Uncle Fred, who was a painter, and liked vivid colours.2) Aunt Sybil, who spent every spare minute in her garden.3) Cousin John, who spent far too much of his time at horse races and simply couldnt resist a gamble.4) Marys friend, Sue, who was very active in the Womens Liberation Movement.5) Teds brother David, an actor with a high opinion of himself.6) Marys father, a music professor.7) Marys mother, who loved Shakespeare.8) Marys friend, Catherine, known to be rather snobbish.Here, in a different order, is the advice they gave Mary:a) Spin a coin, and decide that way.b) Davids rather a nice name. That would be a good compromise.c) Tell your husband that you had the child so you have the right to choose his name.d) Ive always liked the names Johann Sebastian.e) Call him William. Hell be a sweet William. What a pity you didnt have a girl. There are such lovely names for girls - Heather, Rosemary, Lily, Fern, Daisy.”f) Hes got blond hair. You could call him Boyd -which means yellow.g) Charles is rather a refined name, dont you think? Not Robert, though, or Lawrence. Too ordinary, my dear.h) Hamlet would make an unusual, but attractive name.Well, I soon sorted out who suggested what, then I gave my own advice, Compromise!How? said Mary.In the same way as my parents, I said. My father felt that should be named after his father, and my mother felt the same way about naming me after her father. So, Im named after both of them.You mean, they were both called Samuel? said Mary.No, One was George, the other was Albert. Samuel is the compromise. Im named George Albert Samuel, but called Samuel.And so it was that my nephew was named Robert William Lawrence, but is called Lawrence.Text BEasy Ways to Avoid an ArgumentMy five-year-old son and I stopped at our local ice-cream store to get dessert for his birthday party. The place was crowded with people. A high-school girl was alone behind the counter. Though working as fast as she could, she seemed to be falling further and further behind.At last she called our number, and I asked for three quarts of chocolate ice-cream. Three quarts! she said. Do you know how hard it is to scoop three quarts?I was tempted to let loose with Well, excuse me! I thought this was an ice-cream store ! Instead I held my tongue and asked myself a question I often raise when rm on the brink of an argument: Why would she say something like that? Realizing then how overwhelmed she must have felt, I asked, Has it been one of those days?”Her hostility melted. Its been nonstop since this morning. Im all alone, and I was supposed to get off at one oclock, but. She continued to unburden herself as she packed our ice-cream. When we left, she gave us a big smile and a friendly wave.Its natural to take offense if someone is rude. You may think: What a jerk! But blurting out how you feel will only make matters worse. Dealing with difficult people is a part of everyday life, and there are ways you can stand up for yourself without starting an argument. I call these techniques Tongue Fu!”Handle arguments with humor. All of us tend to lose our temper. If you find yourself in a difficult situation, try having fun with it.AS an IRS worker explained to me, Almost everyone who comes in here is hostile. Instead of taking offense, weve posted bulletin boards with comic strips that poke fun at the IRS, which we jokingly call the Income Removal Service. When taxpayers see these, their attitudes change for the better.When people complain, dont explain. The phone rings at work, You pick up and the caller launches into a complaint: 1 asked for a catalogue three weeks ago and I still dont have it! What kind of business are you running, anyway?Dont bother explaining that half the staff is out with the flu. Well-intentioned though they may be, such explanations usually add to the complainers anger because they come across as excuses. Avoid explaining in detail what went wrong. Instead, agree, apologize and then move on to what can be done about it. Simply say: Youre right. Im sorry you havent received it yet. If I can have your name and address again, Ill personally put it in the mail to you today.Agree to disagree. A man I know said he and his wife went to her parents house for dinner one night. While we were eating, he recalled,”I mentioned that the highway construction was stared again. My father-in-law said he was glad. That highway never shouldve been built! Itsdestroying an important historical valley.Well, I spend over an hour each way commuting to work. I told him I thought the highway was a necessary evil because there are four times as many cars as there were ten years ago, on the same number of roads. My wifes dad grumbled that it was typical of my selfish generation to think more about our commuting time than a significant archeological site.I lost my patience and said, You cant stop progress. That did it. My father-in-law stood up and walked away, saying, 1 dont have to sit here and listen to this at my own dinner table.I wish the whole thing had never happened. If I had been alert to his feelings about the matter, I could have prevented the whole unfortunate incident by saying, Lets agree to disagree about this, and politely directing the conversation to something else.One effective way to avoid an argument is to say, Were both right! and move on to a safer topic. For example, you and your wife disagree about how to discipline your teenager, and your discussion is turning into an argument. Just because you arent seeing eye to eye doesnt mean youre enemies. Saying Hey, we both want the same thing can get you out of the quarrelsome mode and get you working together again.No matter what the situation, arguments are a waste of, or at best, a misuse of time. By avoiding meaningless arguments, everybody wins.Unit 6Text ANerds and GeeksThere is something very wrong with the system of values in a society that has only unkind terms like nerd and geek for the intellectually curious and academically serious.We all know what a nerd is: someone who wears thick glasses and ugly clothes; someone who knows all the answers to the chemistry or math homework but can never get a date on a Saturday night. And a geek, according to Websters New World Dictionary, is a street performer who shocks the public by biting off the heads of live chickens. It is a revealing fact about our language and our culture that someone dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge is compared to such a freak.Even at a prestigious educational institution like Harvard, anti-intellectualism is widespread: many students are ashamed to admit, even to their friends, how much they study. Although most students try to keep up their grades, there is but a small group of undergraduates for whom pursuing knowledge is the most important thing during their years at Harvard, Nerds are looked down upon while athletes are made heroes of.The same thing happens in U.S. elementary and high schools. Children who prefer to read books rather than play football, prefer to build model airplanes rather than idle away their time at parties with their classmates, become social outcasts, Because of their intelligence and refusal to conform to societys anti-intellectual values, many are deprived of a chance to learn adequate social skills and acquire good communication tools.Enough is enough.Nerds and geeks must stop being ashamed of what they are. Those who dont study hard must stop teasing those who do, the bright kids with thick glasses. The anti-intellectual values that have spread throughout American society must be fought.There are very few countries in the world where anti-intellectualism runs as high in popular culture as it does in the U.S. In most industrialized nations, not least of all our economic rivats in East Asia, a kid who studies hard is praised and held up as an example to other students.In many parts of the world, university professor-ships are the most prestigious and materially rewarding positions. But not in America, where average professional ballplayers are much more respected and better paid than professors at the best universities.How can a country where typical parents are ashamed of their daughter studying mathematics instead of going dancing, or of their son reading Weber while his friends play baseball, be expected to compete in the technology race with Japan? How long can America remain a world-class power if we constantly put social skills and physical strength over academic achievement and intellectual ability?Do we really expect to stay afloat largely by importing our scientists and intellectuals from abroad, as we have done for a major portion of this century without making an effort to also cultivate a pro-intellectual culture at home? Even if we have the political will to spend a lot more money on education than we do now, do we think we can improve our schools if we laugh at our hardworking pupils and fail to respect their impoverished teachers?Our fault lies not so much with our economy or with our politics as within ourselves, our values and our image of a good life. Americas culture has not adapted to the demands of our times, to the economic realities that demand a highly educated workforce and innovative intelligent leadership.If we are to succeed as a society in the 21st century, we had better do away with our anti-intellectualism and teach our children that a good life depends on exercising ones mind and pursuing knowledge to the full extent of ones abilities.Not until the words nerd and geek become terms of praise rather than insults do we stand a chance.Text BOur Changing Lifestyle: Trends and FadsThese days lifestyles seem to change very fast, It is more than just clothing and hairstyles that are in style one year and out of date the next; its a whole way of living. One year people wear sunglasses on top of their heads and wear jeans and boots; they drink white wine and eat sushi at Japanese restaurants; for exercise they jog several miles a day. However, the next year they notice that everything has changed. Women wear long skids; people drink expensive water from France and eat pasta at Italian restaurants; everyone seems to be exercising at health clubs.Almost nothing in modern life escapes the influence of fashion: food, music, exercise, books, slang words, movies, furniture, places to visit, even names go in and out of fashion, Its almost impossible to write about specific fads because these interests that people follow can change very quickly.In the United States, even people can be “in” or out. Like people in any country, Americans enjoy following the lives of celebrities: movie stars, sports heroes, famous artists, politicians, and the like. But Americans also pay a lot of attention to people who have no special ability and have done nothing very special. In 1981, for example, an unknown elderly woman appeared in a TV commercial in which she looked at a very small hamburger and complained loudly, Wheres the beef? These three words made her famous. Suddenly she appeared in magazines and newspapers and on TV shows. She was immediately popular. She was in. In 1987 an exterminator in Dallas, Texas decided that he would be very happy if he could find more customers for his small business; he needed more people to pay him to kill the insects and rats in their houses. He put an unusual advertisement in a Dallas newspaper: He offered to pay $1,000 to the person who could find the biggest cockroach. This strange offer made him suddenly famous. However, this kind of fame does not last long. Such people are famous for a very short time. They are fads.What causes such fads to come and go? And why do so many people follow them? Although clothing designers and manufacturers influence fads in fashion because they want to make a profit, this desire for money doesnt explain fads in other areas, such as language. For example, why have teenagers in the past twenty-five years used - at different times - the slang words groovy or awesome in conversation, instead of simply saying wonderful? According to Jack Santino, an expert in popular culture, people who follow fads are not irrational; they simply want to be part of something new and creative, and they feel good when they are part of an in-group. Fads are not unique to the United States. Dr. Santino believes that fads are common in any country that has a strong consumer economy, e.g., Britain, Japan, and Germany. However, in the United States there is an additional reason for fads: Most Americans seem to feel that something is wrong if there isnt frequent change in their lives.Dr. Santino points out that its sometimes difficult to see the difference between a fad and a trend. A fad, he says, lasts a very short time and is not very important. A social trend lasts a long time and becomes a true part of modern culture. A trend might be the use of personal computers; a fad might be certain types of computer games. A recent trend is the nationwide interest in good health, but many fads come from this trend: aerobic dancing, special diets, imported water, and the like.An exciting trend began in Europe in the mid-1990s: the cultural borders between countries began to break down. Travelers from other parts of the world noticed that Eurokids, from Lisbon to Stockholm, from London to Athens, seemed to be very similar to each other. All followed the same fads in fashion, music, and food. These Eurokids had the same lifestyles and values. For example, they were worried about the environment, concerned more about rain forests than clothes. Some of the Eurokide fads wilt certainly disappear and others will come along, but it will be interesting to see if the environmental trend continues and becomes a true part of European culture.Unit 7Text AI Became Her TargetMy favorite teachers name was Dead-Eye Bean. Her real name was Dorothy. She taught American history to eighth graders in a junior high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was the fall of 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president; American troops were battling their way across France; I was a 12-year-old black newcomer in a school that was otherwise all white, When we moved in, the problem for our new neighbors was that their neighborhood had previ0usty been all-white and they were ignorant about black people. The prevailing wisdom in the neighborhood was that we were spoiling it and that we ought to go back where we belonged. There was a lot of angry talk among the adults, but nothing much came of it.But some of the kids were quite nasty during those first few weeks. They threw stones at me, chased me home when I was on foot and spat on my bike seat when I was in class. For a time, I was a pretty lonely, friendless and sometimes frightened kid.I now know that Dorothy Bean understood most of that and deplored it. So things began to change when I walked into her classroom. She was a pleasant-looking single woman, who looked old and wrinkled to me at the time, but who was probably about 40.Whereas my other teachers approached the problem of easing in their new bla