综英Unit 2 Bards of the Internet.ppt

1、Unit 2 Bards of the Internet,Contents Page,Contents,Learning Objectives Pre-reading Activities Global Reading Detailed Reading Consolidation Activities Further Enhancement,objectives,Learning Objectives,Rhetorical skill: evidence and quotation Key language pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835

2、1910). After gaining a reputation as a humorist with his early works, he wrote his best-known novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885); both give a vivid evocation of Mississippi frontier life.,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-

3、R: culture note-7,Tom Paine (Paragraph 3) Thomas Paine (17371809), 18th century English political writer. His pamphlet Common Sense (1776) called for American independence and The Rights of Man (1791) defended the French Revolution.,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture

4、 note-7,Revolutionary War (Paragraph 3) indicating the war of American Revolution from 1775 to 1783 in which the American colonists won independence from British rule. The Revolutionary pamphleteers were not professional writers but common citizens engaged in the debate of ideas.,Text Introduction |

5、 Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture note-8,Elizabethan era (Paragraph 3) Elizabeth (15331603), queen of England and Ireland (15581603); daughter of Henry VIII. She re-established Protestantism as the state religion. The phrase indicates the period of time reigned by Elizabeth.,Text Intr

6、oduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture note-9,Gutenberg (Paragraph 3) （古腾保） Johannes Gutenberg (c. 14001468), 15th century German printer. He was the first in the West to print by using movable type and to use a press.,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: c

7、ulture note-10,Canterbury Tales (Paragraph 7) A collection of stories in poetic form written by Geoffrey Chaucer and published by William Caxton in 1478. Today, a visit to The Canterbury Tales, one of Kents most popular attractions, with its stunning reconstruction of 14th century England, is just l

8、ike stepping into the Middle Ages. Here it refers to a very old-fashioned dressing style.,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture note-11,WELL (Paragraph 9) “井” a pioneering online community known for engaging conversations and intelligent debates,Text Introduction | Cult

9、ure Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture note-12,Sausalito (Paragraph 9) （索萨利托） a small city in northwestern California, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, a noted artists colony with a population of about 8,000,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Structure,G-R: culture note-13,N

10、ew York Times (Paragraph 9) one of the most important papers in the history of American newspapers, which was founded on September 18, 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones. Raymond was also a founding director of the Associated Press in 1856.,Text Introduction | Culture Notes | Author | Str

11、ucture,G-R: culture note-14,Wall Street Journal (Paragraph 9) Founded in 1889, the Wall Street Journal, the flagship publication of Dow Jones dial into CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or the Internet; and start typing E-mail, bulletin-board postings, chat messages, rants, diatribes, even short s

12、tories and poems. Just when the media of McLuhan were supposed to render obsolete the medium of Shakespeare, the online world is experiencing the greatest boom in letter writing since the 18th century.,Detailed Reading,DR-p3a-text,3.“It is my overwhelming belief that E-mail and computer conferencing

13、 is teaching an entire generation about the flexibility and utility of prose,” writes Jon Carroll, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Patrick Nielsen Hayden, an editor at Tor Books, compares electronic bulletin boards with the “scribblers compacts” of the late 18th and early 19th centuries,

14、 in which members passed letters from hand to hand, adding a little more at each turn. David Sewell, an associate editor at the University of Arizona, likens netwriting to the literary scene Mark Twain discovered in San Francisco in the 1860s, “when people were reinventing journalism by grafting it

15、onto the tall-tale folk tradition.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p3b-text,Others hark back to Tom Paine and the Revolutionary War pamphleteers, or even to the Elizabethan era, when, thanks to Gutenberg, a generation of English writers became intoxicated with language.,Detailed Reading,DR-p4-text,4.But such c

16、omparisons invite a question: If online writing today represents some sort of renaissance, why is so much of it so awful? For it can be very bad indeed: sloppy, meandering, puerile, ungrammatical, poorly spelled, badly structured and at times virtually content free. “HEY! 1 !” reads an all too typic

17、al message on the Internet, “I THINK METALLICA IZ REEL KOOL DOOD! 1 !”,Detailed Reading,DR-p5-text,5.One reason, of course, is that E-mail is not like ordinary writing. “You need to think of this as written speech,” says Gerard Van der Leun, literary agent based in Westport, Connecticut, who has eme

18、rged as one of the preeminent stylists on the Net. “These things are little more considered than coffeehouse talk and a lot less considered than a letter. Theyre not to have and hold; theyre to fire and forget.” Many online postings are composed “live” with the clock ticking, using rudimentary word

19、processors on computer systems that charge by the minute and in some cases will shut down without warning when an hour runs out.,Detailed Reading,DR-p6-text,6.That is not to say that with more time every writer on the Internet would produce a sparkling copy. Much of the fiction and poetry is second-

20、rate or worse, which is not surprising, given that the barriers to entry are so low. “In the real world,” says Mary Anne Mohanraj, a Chicago-based poet, “it takes a hell of a lot of work to get published, which naturally weeds out a lot of the garbage. On the Net, just a few keystrokes sends your wr

21、iting out to thousands of readers.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p7a-text,7.But even among the reams of bad poetry, gems are to be found. Mike Godwin, a Washington-based lawyer who posts under the pen name “mnemonic,” tells the story of Joe Green, a technical writer at Cray Research who turned a moribund dis

22、cussion group called rec.arts.poems into a real poetry workshop by mercilessly critiquing the pieces he found there. “Some people got angry and said if he was such a god of poetry, why didnt he publish his poems to the group?” recalls Godwin. “He did, and blew them all away.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p7b

23、-text,Greens Well Met in Minnesota, a mock-epic account of a face-to-face meeting with a fellow network scribbler, is now revered on the Internet as a classic. It begins, “The truth is that when I met Mark I was dressed as the Canterbury Tales. Rather difficult to do as you might suspect, but I want

24、ed to make a certain impression.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p8-text,8.The more prosaic technical and political discussion groups, meanwhile, have become so crowded with writers crying for attention that a Darwinian survival principle has started to prevail. “Its so competitive that you have to work on you

25、r style if you want to make any impact,” says Jorn Barger, a software designer in Chicago. Good writing on the Net tends to be clear, vigorous, witty and above all brief. “The medium favors the terse,” says Crawford Kilian, a writing teacher at Capilano College in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Short

26、 paragraphs, bulleted lists and one-liners are the units of thought here.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p9-text,9.Some of the most successful netwriting is produced in computer conferences, where writers compose in a kind of collaborative heat, knocking ideas against one another until they spark. Perhaps the

27、 best examples of this are found on the WELL, a Sausalito, California bulletin board favored by journalists. The caliber of discussion is often so high that several publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have printed excerpts from the WELL.,Detailed Reading,DR-p10a-tex

28、t,10. Curiously, what works on the computer networks isnt necessarily what works on paper. Netwriters freely lace their prose with strange acronyms and “smileys,” the little faces constructed with punctuation marks and intended to convey the winks, grins and grimaces of ordinary conversations. Someh

29、ow it all flows together quite smoothly. On the other hand, polished prose copied onto bulletin boards from books and magazines often seems long-winded and phony. Unless they adjust to the new medium, professional writers can come across as self-important blowhards in debates with more nimble networ

30、kers.,Detailed Reading,DR-p10b-text,Says Brock Meeks, a Washington-based reporter who covers the online culture for Communications Daily: “There are a bunch of hacker kids out there who can string a sentence together better than their blue-blooded peers simply because they log on all the time and wr

31、ite, write, write.”,Detailed Reading,DR-p11-text,11. There is something inherently democratizing perhaps even revolutionary about the technology. Not only has it enfranchised thousands of would-be writers who otherwise might never have taken up the craft, but it has also thrown together classes of p

32、eople who hadnt had much direct contact before: students, scientists, senior citizens, computer geeks, grassroots (and often blue-collar) bulletin-board enthusiasts and most recently the working press.,Detailed Reading,DR-p12-text,12. “Its easy to make this stuff look foolish and trivial,” says Tor

33、Books Nielsen Hayden. “After all, a lot of everyones daily life is foolish and trivial. I mean, really, smileys? Housewives in Des Moines who log on as VIXEN?”,Detailed Reading,DR-p13-text,13.But it would be a mistake to dismiss the computer-message boards or to underestimate the effect a lifetime o

34、f dashing off E-mail will have on a generation of young writers. The computer networks may not be Brook Farm or the Globe Theatre, but they do represent, for millions of people, a living, breathing life of letters. One suspects that the Bard himself, confronted with the Internet, might have dived ri

35、ght in and never logged off.,Detailed Reading,DR:p1-2 Analysis,Paragraphs 1-2 Analysis The first two paragraphs are an introductory lead-in that presents an analytical comparison between what happened to writing when the telephone was invented and what is happening on computer networks now.,Detailed

36、 Reading,DR:p3 Analysis,Paragraph 3 Analysis In this paragraph a number of peoples remarks are quoted. These quotations serve as evidence of the fact that deviations from the traditional medium of letter writing are not rare in history. The implication is that we should not be surprised by the boom

37、in netwriting.,Detailed Reading,DR:p4 Analysis,Paragraph 4 Analysis In this paragraph the author concedes the most serious problem of netwriting its poor quality.,Detailed Reading,DR:p5-6 Analysis,Paragraphs 5-6 Analysis In these two paragraphs the author explores the reasons why the quality of netw

38、riting is so poor. Once again the author quotes some remarks made by other people.,Detailed Reading,DR:p7 Analysis,Paragraph 7 Analysis In this paragraph the author begins to cite examples in defense of netwriting. He first points out that there are actually some really good writings (gems) on the I

39、nternet.,Detailed Reading,DR:p8-9 Analysis,Paragraphs 8-9 Analysis In these two paragraphs the author discusses two reasons why there are some “gems” on the Internet: one is that the “Darwinian survival principle has started to prevail,” which means that only good writing will survive; and the other

40、 is the “collaborative” work in computer conferences, at which ideas are knocked against one another “until they spark.”,Detailed Reading,DR:p10 Analysis,Paragraph 10 Analysis In this paragraph the author explains one of the distinguishing features of netwriting (i.e. Netwriters freely lace their pr

41、ose with strange acronyms and “smileys”), which, however, does not detract from its quality.,Detailed Reading,DR:p11 Analysis,Paragraph 11 Analysis In this paragraph the author mentions another merit of the Internet, that is, it allows thousands of common people to take up the craft of writing.,Deta

42、iled Reading,DR:p12-13 Analysis,Paragraphs 12-13 Analysis The last two paragraphs present a counter-argument to one of the criticisms against netwriting, that is, “Its easy to make this stuff look foolish and trivial.” According to Nielsen Hayden, “a lot of everyones daily life is foolish and trivia

43、l,” and besides, netwriting represents “for millions of people, a living, breathing life of letters.”,Detailed Reading,DR-Question-p1,Paragraph 1: Question Why does the author relate what happened to the telephone with what is happening to the computer?,Detailed Reading,By doing so, the author seems

44、 to suggest that writing, which went out of style with the invention of the telephone, is experiencing an unexpected comeback with online letter writing.,DR-Question-p2,Paragraph 2: Question What is implied when the author says “. the media of McLuhan were supposed to render obsolete the medium of S

45、hakespeare .”?,Detailed Reading,The phrase “the media of McLuhan” refers to the new media that became popular in the 20th century such as radio, television and movies, while “the medium of Shakespeare” refers to the traditional way of “letter writing” in the main clause of this sentence. The sentenc

46、e implies that, instead of being rendered obsolete, letter writing is experiencing the fastest development since the 18th century, though it is in the “online” form.,DR-Question-p3a,Paragraph 3: Questions 1. What does the author mean when he says “. E-mail and computer conferencing is teaching an en

47、tire generation about the flexibility and utility of prose”?,Detailed Reading,The author means that E-mail and computer conferencing demonstrate to a whole generation of people that the language we use does not have to be always so formal as in traditional letter writing; it can be used in a casual

48、manner while still serving its purpose effectively.,DR-Question-p3b,Paragraph 3: Questions 2. What does the author wish to convey in his comparison between netwriting with “scribblers compacts,” Mark Twains discovery of new journalism in San Francisco, Revolutionary War pamphleteers and the achievem

49、ents of the Elizabethan era? And what does he find with his comparison?,Detailed Reading,The author uses these examples to tell the readers that there are some similarities between netwriting and those experimental, even innovative writing modes in history, and so netwriting could be regarded as a k

50、ind of renaissance.,DR-Question-p3c,But he finds in this comparison that much of netwriting is awfully bad sloppy, meandering, ungrammatical, poorly spelled, badly structured and even content free.,Detailed Reading,DR-Question-p5-6,Paragraphs 5-6: Question What are the reasons that could account for

51、 the poor quality of netwriting?,Detailed Reading,First, things (such as E-mail) written on the Internet have little literary value, so theyre not meant to be permanent. They just come and go and no one will ever remember them, once they are read. Second, many online postings are produced under grea

52、t time pressure. Third, there is actually no threshold on the Internet, so that anyone can log on and send out what they have written.,DR-Question-p7b,Paragraph 7: Question What is implied in the sentence “. when I met Mark I was dressed as the Canterbury Tales. Rather difficult to do as you might s

53、uspect, but I wanted to make a certain impression”?,Detailed Reading,In the sentence “Mark” refers to the fellow network scribbler mentioned in the preceding sentence. “I was dressed as the Canterbury Tales” means “I was dressed in a very old-fashioned medieval style.” The whole sentence suggests th

54、at Green wanted to attract attention.,DR-Question-p8a,Paragraph 8: Questions 1. What are the criteria for good writing favored by the Internet?,Detailed Reading,Good writing on the Net should be clear, witty and brief. Units of thought are to be found in short paragraphs, bulleted lists and one-line

55、rs.,DR-Question-p8b,Paragraph 8: Questions 2. Why does the author say that “a Darwinian survival principle has started to prevail”?,Detailed Reading,There are three reasons that are assumed to be responsible for the poor quality of netwriting. The first has to do with the nature of the writing which

56、 is regarded as “written speech” and is of little value. The second has to do with the fact that some netwriting such as E-mail is written in a hurry. The last reason is the low barriers to entry of the online world, which is responsible for much second-rate fiction and poetry that would otherwise n

57、ot have been exposed to the readers.,DR-Question-p10a,Paragraph 10: Questions 1. What does the author mean by “. what works on the computer networks isnt necessarily what works on paper”?,Detailed Reading,The author is referring to different features between netwriting and published papers. Netwrite

58、rs can freely lace their writings with strange acronyms and “smileys,” while the published prose copied onto bulletin boards from books and magazines often seems long-winded and phony.,DR-Questions-p13,Paragraph 13: Question Who does “the Bard” refer to in the last sentence? And how does it differ f

59、rom the “Bards” in the title?,Detailed Reading,In the last sentence “the Bard” (with capital B) refers to William Shakespeare, while “Bards” in the title refers to the people who write on the Internet. It appears that the author suggests by the title that the medium of netwriting, like that of Shakespeare, is perfectly justifiable. The medium changes with the time, so does the “bard.”,LPT- one of the unintended side effect,“One of the unintended side