Unit Three
I. Lead-in
Movie Clip
Watch the following video and then do the exercise. You can find the interpretation of some words and phrases in \"Word Bank\". Book 6 Unit 3.mp4 (00:00 – 02:40)
Script
Elephant survival depends on profiting from the experience of many lifetimes.
This baby elephant was born last night, and the whole herd seems to welcome this new addition. But the mother is young and inexperienced. This is her first baby. If she is to produce milk, a mother must drink. And the newborn calf must keep up with her, as the herd continues on their long journey to find water.
After eight kilometers, the calf is flagging. Enough is enough. The young mother encourages her calf to continue, but there is still a long way to go and the calf is already getting dehydrated.
The elephants are now so close to water that they can smell it. Water, at last. (From BBC Documentary Life: Mammals)
Word Bank
1. herd:
a large group of animals, in the video it refers to the group of elephants
e.g. The truck could not move because a herd of buffaloes was blocking the road.
2. flag:
become limp, tired, or weak
e.g. If you begin to flag, there is an excellent café to revive you.
3. dehydrate:
to lose water from the body
Exercise
1. The baby elephant's mother is _________________.
A. old B. inexperienced C. sick D. impatient
2. It seems the baby elephant cannot walk any longer because ___________.
A. it was just born
B. it hasn't drunk any milk C. it has walked a long way
D. it has been abandoned by the herd
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Key: 1. B 2. C
Inspirational Quotes
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
— Abraham Lincoln
Discussion
Do you agree that the best way to protect an endangered animal is to keep it in a zoo and take good care of it? Why?
II. Text I
Pre-reading Questions
1. If you have ever witnessed the sufferings of a dying person, tell us the feelings that the scene
evoked from you.
2. Do you think doctors and nurses should do everything within their means to try to save a
terminally ill patient even when they know clearly all their efforts would mean nothing more than prolonging his suffering?
General Reading
I. Determine which of the following best states the purpose of the writing. A. To recount her horrifying experience of caring for a terminally ill patient. B. To make an appeal for a terminally ill patient's right to die.
C. To demand that nurses be given the right to issue a \"no-code\" order.
Key: B
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II. Judge whether the following statements are true or false.
1. When Mac entered the hospital, he was apparently a normal person except for an
enduring cough.
2. Despite his worsening condition, Mac still had a strong wish to live.
3. The medical community is divided on whether a patient's life should be extended as
long as possible under all circumstances.
4. It can be inferred from the essay that doctors, not nurses, have the right to give a
\"no-code order\".
5. In Maura's eyes, Huttmann was a murderer for not pushing the code blue button in time.
Key: 1. T 2. F 3. T 4. T 5. F
Background Notes
1. the Phil Donahue show: The Phil Donahue Show, also known as Donahue, is an American
television talk show that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast in Dayton, Ohio, and it was broadcast nationwide between 1967 and 1996.
2. code blue: Hospital emergency codes are used in hospitals worldwide to alert staff to various
emergency situations. The use of codes is intended to convey essential information quickly and with a minimum of misunderstanding to staff.
Text Study Text
A Crime of Compassion Barbara Huttmann
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1 \"Murderer,\" a man shouted. \"God help patients who get you for a nurse.\" 2 \"What gives you the right to play God?\" another one asked. 3 It was the Phil Donahue show where the guest is a fatted calf and the audience a 200-strong flock of vultures hungering to pick at the bones. I had told them about Mac, one of my favorite cancer patients. \"We resuscitated him 52 times in just one month. I refused to resuscitate him again. I simply sat there and held his hand while he died.\"
4 There wasn't time to explain that Mac was a young, witty macho cop who walked into the hospital with 32 pounds of attack equipment, looking as if he could single-handedly protect the whole city, if not the entire state. \"Can't get rid of this cough,\" he said. Otherwise, he felt great. 5 Before the day was over, tests confirmed that he had lung cancer. And before the year was over, I loved him, his wife, Maura, and their three kids as if they were my own. All the nurses loved him. And we all battled his disease for six months without ever giving death a thought. Six months isn't such a long time in the whole scheme of things, but it was long enough to see him lose his youth, his wit, his macho, his hair, his bowel and bladder control, his sense of taste and smell, and his ability to do the slightest thing for himself. It was long enough to watch Maura's transformation from a young woman into a haggard, beaten old lady.
6 When Mac had wasted away to a 60-pound skeleton kept alive by liquid food we poured down a tube, i.v. solutions we dripped into his veins, and oxygen we piped to a mask on his face, he begged us: \"Mercy ... for God's sake, please just let me go.\"
7 The first time he stopped breathing, the nurse pushed the button that calls a \"code blue\" throughout the hospital and sends a team rushing to resuscitate the patient. Each time he stopped breathing, sometimes two or three times in one day, the code team came again. The doctors and technicians worked their miracles and walked away. The nurses stayed to wipe the saliva that drooled from his mouth, irrigate the big craters of bedsores that covered his hips, suction the lung fluids that threatened to drown him, clean the feces that burn his skin like lye, pour the liquid food down that tube attached his stomach, put pillows between his knees to ease the bone-on-bone pain, turn him every hour to keep the bedsores from getting worse, and change his gown and linen every two hours to keep him from being soaked in perspiration.
8 At night I went home and tried to scrub away the smell of decaying flesh that seemed woven into the fabric of my uniform. It was in my hair, the upholstery of my car — there was no washing it away. And every night I prayed that Mac would die, that his agonized eyes would never again plead with me to let him die.
9 Every morning I asked his doctor for a \"no-code\" order. Without that order, we had to resuscitate every patient who stopped breathing. His doctor was one of several who believe we must extend life as long as we have the means and knowledge to do it. To not do it is to be liable for negligence, at least in the eyes of many people, including some nurses. I thought about what it would be like to stand before a judge, accused of murder, if Mac stopped breathing and I didn't call a code.
10 And after the fifty-second code, when Mac was still lucid enough to beg for death again, and Maura was crumbled in my arms again, and when no amount of pain medication stilled his moaning and agony, I wondered about a spiritual judge. Was all this misery and suffering supposed to be building character or infusing us all with the sense of humility that comes from impotence?
11 Had we, the whole medical community, become so arrogant that we believed in the illusion
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of salvation through science? Had we become so self-righteous that we thought meddling in God's work was our duty, our moral imperative and legal obligation? Did we really believe that we had the right to force \"life\" on a suffering man who had begged for the right to die?
12 Such questions haunted me more than ever early one morning when Maura went home to change her clothes and I was bathing Mac. He had been still for so long, I thought he at last had the blessed relief of coma. Then he opened his eyes and moaned, \"Pain ... no more ... Barbara ... do something ... God, let me go.\"
13 The desperation in his eyes and voice riddled me with guilt. \"I'll stop,\" I told him as I injected the pain medication.
14 I sat on the bed and held Mac's hands in mine. He pressed his bony fingers against my hand and muttered, \"Thanks.\" Then there was one soft sigh and I felt his hands go cold in mine. \"Mac?\" I whispered, as I waited for his chest to rise and fall again.
15 A clutch of panic banded my chest, drew my finger to the code button, urged me to do something, anything ... but sit there alone with death. I kept one finger on the button, without pressing it, as a waxen pallor slowly transformed his face from person to empty shell. Nothing I've ever done in my 47 years has taken so much effort as it took not to press that code button.
16 Eventually, when I was sure as I could be that the code team would fail to bring him back, I entered the legal twilight zone and pushed the button. The team tried. And while they were trying, Maura walked into the room and shrieked, \"No ... don't let them do this to him ... for God's sake ... please, no more.\"
17 Cradling her in my arms was like cradling myself, Mac, and all those patients and nurses who had been in this place before, who do the best they can in a death-denying society. 18 So a TV audience accused me of murder. Perhaps I am guilty. If a doctor had written a no-code order, which is the only legal alternative, would he have felt any less guilty? Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient who has requested the right to die, we will all of us risk the same fate as Mac. For whatever reason, we developed the means to prolong life, and now we are forced to use it. We do not have the right to die.
Words and Phrases
1. self-righteous adj. having a certainty, especially an unfounded one, that one is totally correct
or superior
2. meddle in: interfere in
e.g. Young people today do not like their parents to meddle in their lives. meddle with — touch or handle sth. without permission
e.g. You can use my room but you're not supposed to meddle with my stuffs, especially my computer.
Notes
1. to play God: to function as God, i.e. to decide when to terminate a person's life. Christians
believe that only God has the right to decide when a person's life should end.
2. When Mac had wasted away to a 60-pound skeleton: When Mac had been reduced to a
60-pound skeleton
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waste away — (of a person or a part of the body) become progressively weaker and more emaciated
e.g. She is dying of AIDS, visibly wasting away.
3. i.v. solutions: \"i.v.\" is the abbreviation of \"intravenous\
solutions\" refers to the liquid substances infused directly into the vein of a patient for therapeutic purposes.
4. irrigate the big craters of bedsores: The verb \"irrigate\" normally means \"to supply water to
land or crops to help growth.\" In medicine, the word can be used to mean \"to apply a continuous flow of water or medication to an organ or a wound.\"
5. suction the lung fluids that threatened to drown him: drain the excessive lung fluids that
threaten his life
6. that seemed woven into the fabric of my uniform: that seemed to have become an element
of the fabric of my uniform
weave sth. into — include sth. as an integral part or element (of a fabric); include an element in a story, an artistic work, etc.
e.g. Some golden threads are woven into the fabric.
Argumentative paragraphs are naturally woven into Huttmann's narration.
7. to be liable for negligence: to be held responsible for failing to perform my duty
be liable for — to be responsible for by law, to be legally answerable to
be liable to — be likely to do or to be something, likely to experience sth. (unpleasant)
e.g. Once you have contacted the credit card protection scheme, you are no longer liable for any loss that might occur.
He is suffering from hypertension and thus is liable to fall if he gets up too suddenly. The low-lying areas are liable to floods during the rainy season.
8. when no amount of pain medication stilled his moaning and agony: when his pain was so
acute that no matter how much pain-relieving medication was used, his suffering could not be eased
still vt. & vi.
e.g. He clapped his hands to still the agitated audience.
When night fell, the village which was boisterous with tourists in the daytime stilled.
9. I wondered about a spiritual judge.: I wondered if there was a spiritual judge (as against a
legal judge), who would be supportive of my decision not to push the code blue button, thus to put an end to all this.
10. building character: developing his personal qualities (so that he could face up to the
adversity better)
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11. the blessed relief of coma: Coma refers to a state of deep unconsciousness that lasts for a
prolonged period, caused especially by severe injury or illness. When in a coma, the patient is not conscious of any pain. That's why Huttmann thinks it is a blessed relief.
12. riddled me with guilt: filled me with a strong sense of guilt
The verb riddle here means \"fill or permeate sb. or sth. esp. with sth. unpleasant or undesirable\".
13. A clutch of panic banded my chest: I was so seized by panic that I felt simply suffocated
clutch n. — grasp
band v. — surround (an object) with sth. in the form of a strip or ring, typically for reinforcement or decoration (usu. be banded )
e.g. The doors to the warehouse are all banded with iron to make them stronger.
14. a waxen pallor slowly transformed his face from person to empty shell: the unhealthily
pale colour of his face indicated that he was sinking
15. the legal twilight zone: Twilight zone refers to a situation of confusion or uncertainty, which
seems to exist between two different states or categories. Thus the legal twilight zone Huttmann says she entered here refers to the situation in which her action of pushing the button to call code blue can be deemed either legal or not legal.
16. a death-denying society: a society where its members are not given the right to die
17. Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient who has requested the
right to die ...: Until it becomes law that it is a criminal act to call a resuscitation team to save a patient who has voluntarily asked for the right to die ...
Questions
1. There seems to be a contradiction in the title \"A Crime of Compassion\". What is it?
Key: There are various kinds of crimes, but criminals can be anything but compassionate. It is hardly possible to associate compassion with any crime and being compassionate with a criminal.
2. Huttmann begins her essay with a metaphor. Locate it and then explain it. (para. 3)
Key: The first sentence of para. 3: It was the Phil Donahue show where the guest is a fatted calf and the audience a 200-strong flock of vultures hungering to pick at the bones. Huttmann likens herself (the guest of the talk show) to a fatted calf, and the audience to a flock of more than 200 vultures hungering to pick at the bones. With the metaphor she intends to tell the reader that the way she handled the case of Mac was strongly disapproved of by the general public, and that the concept of mercy killing was unacceptable to them.
3. Where in the essay can we find descriptions of Mac's condition when he was being treated?
Why do you think Huttmann is being so specific and detailed? (paras. 6 & 7)
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Key: Mostly in para. 6, and the latter part of para. 7. She gives such detailed and specific descriptions of Mac's condition to make vivid to the reader the horrifying sufferings Mac had to endure, ultimately to support her argument that a patient in such condition should be given the right to die if he should so request.
4. Was it a difficult decision for Huttmann to make not to push the button in time? (para. 15)
Key: Obviously it was, as she relates in para. 15 \"Nothing I've ever done in my 47 years has taken so much effort as it took not to press that code button.\"
5. Where does Huttmann state her thesis? (para. 18)
Key: In the last paragraph: Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient who has requested the right to die, we will all of us risk the same fate as Mac. For whatever reason, we developed the means to prolong life, and now we are forced to use it. We do not have the right to die.
Activity
1. In the Phil Donahue Show Huttmann as a guest was accused of murder by most, if not all, of
the audience with regard to Mac's death. Put yourself in Huttmann's position and give a talk to defend yourself.
Sentence patterns for your reference It appears that ... but ... If you had ... you would ... Due to the reasons ...
2. Thirty years after the publication of Huttmann's essay, euthanasia is still an unsettled issue in
today's world. Form two groups, one for legitimizing euthanasia and the other against it, and have a debate on the issue.
Sentence patterns for your reference We hold that ... because ... Nevertheless ... To sum up, ...
Organization and Development
Argumentative Narration
What Is Argumentative Narration
If an essay is basically an argumentative one and the chief means used for argumentation is narration, it is called argumentative narration.
Text Analysis
Huttmann begins the essay with the incident that the TV audience lodged strong accusations against her for murdering a patient she was supposed to care for. But her response does not follow
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immediately.
She withholds her response to the accusation until the last paragraph, where the audience's accusation of her is mentioned again, and her argument is presented.
Most of the essay is devoted to the narration of the painful dying process of a terminally ill cancer patient, which she witnessed. Based on the narrated incident her argument seems only a natural conclusion.
III. Text II
Text Study Text
A Hanging George Orwell
1 It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot for drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.
2 One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tightly to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.
3 Eight o'clock struck and a bugle call floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. \"For God's sake hurry up, Francis,\" he said irritably. \"The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren't you ready yet?\"
4 Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. \"Yes sir, yes sir,\" he bubbled. \"All is satisfactorily prepared. The hangman is waiting. We shall proceed.\"
5 \"Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can't get their breakfast till this job's over.\"
6 We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind.
7 It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each
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shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
8 It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we are alive. All the organs of his body were working — bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming — all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the gray walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned — reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone — one mind less, one world less.
9 The gallows stood in a small yard. The hangman, a gray-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope around the prisoner's neck.
10 We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out to his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of \"Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!\" not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.
11 The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady crying from the prisoner went on and on, \"Ram! Ram! Ram!\" never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number — fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed color. The Indians had gone gray like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering.
12 Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. \"Chalo!\" he shouted almost fiercely.
13 There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner's body. He was dangling with his toes pointing straight downward. Very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.
14 The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare brown body; it oscillated slightly. \"He's all right,\" said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist watch. \"Eight minutes past eight. Well, that's all for this morning, thank God.\"
15 The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets march round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.
16 The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded toward the way we had come, with a knowing smile: \"Do you know sir, our friend [he meant the dead man] when he heard his appeal had been
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dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? Classy European style.\" 17 Several people laughed — at what, nobody seemed certain.
18 Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously: \"Well, sir, all has passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It was all finished — flick! like that. It is not always so — oah no! I have known cases where the doctor was obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner's legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable.\"
19 \"Wriggling about, eh? That's bad,\" said the superintendent.
20 \"Ach, sir, it is worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of his cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg.\"
21 I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. \"You'd better all come and have a drink,\" he said quite genially. \"I've got a bottle of whiskey in the car. We could do with it.\"
22 We went through the big double gates of the prison into the road. \"Pulling at his legs!\" exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis' anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together,
native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.
Words and Phrases
1. Hindu: a person who believes in and practices Hinduism, a religious tradition of Indian origin
2. the drop: the trapdoor on the gallows, the opening of which causes the prisoner to fall and
thus be hanged
Notes
1. a sodden morning of the rains: an extremely wet morning in the rainy season. In some parts
of the world rain only falls in certain seasons, as in India; this rain is referred to as rains.
2. condemned cells: a prison cell for someone who is going to be executed (British)
3. quick march: This is a military command to tell the soldiers to walk or march fast in an
orderly, neat and regular manner.
4. at the slope: Military (of a rifle) held with the barrel on the left shoulder and the butt in the
left hand
5. his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel: he left footprints behind on the wet gravel
6. all toiling away in solemn foolery: all these organs were functioning normally as usual but in
a silly way, for all their efforts would go to waste as their owner was to be hanged soon
Comprehension
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I. Answer the following multiple-choice questions.
1. When he was taken out of the condemned cell, the prisoner appeared to be _________.
A. fearful B. resigned C. calm D. pitiable
2. When marching the prisoner to the gallows, the author was preoccupied with ________.
A. the man's manner of walking
B. the man's thoughts at that moment C. the impending execution D. the worth of human lives
3. After the man was hanged, all those present felt _____.
A. relieved B. sorrowful C. satisfied D. excited
4. We can infer from the passage that with regards to capital punishment ________.
A. Orwell adopted an indifferent attitude B. Orwell took the middle ground C. Orwell was supportive of it D. Orwell was opposed to it
Key: 1. B 2. D 3. A 4. D
II. Discuss the following questions.
1. How was the manner of the warders contrasted with that of the condemned prisoner before
the execution?
2. Why does Orwell describe vividly the prisoner's physique in para. 7, noting even the minute
fact that \"he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path\"? 3. How did the atmosphere change after the hanging?
4. In which paragraphs is Orwell's attitude towards capital punishment suggested?
5. What is your view on capital punishment? Do you think it should be upheld or abolished?
Key:
1. The warders appeared to be quite tense, gripping the prison by the arm and the shoulder to
make sure that he was right there; in contrast, the prisoner seemed calm and relaxed, unresisting with his arms limply in the ropes, and later walked quite steadily towards the gallows.
2. Orwell intends to imply that the prisoner, whose life would soon be terminated, was alive like
anyone else, and that he could reason as well as anyone else.
3. After the hanging everything seemed to return to normal: breakfast for the prisoners was
served, the warders cracked jokes to each other in a jolly manner, as if nothing special like cutting an energetic life short had happened. 4. In paragraphs 7 and 8. 5. Open to discussion.
IV. Paragraph Writing
Writing Technique
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Body Paragraphs
Purpose of Body Paragraphs
The ideas, facts, details, and examples enclosed in the body paragraphs are designed to support and develop the central point stated in the opening. The body paragraphs in an essay may vary in number depending on the subject matter and the purpose for writing. While the body paragraphs relate directly to the thesis statement in the opening, each paragraph has its own main idea to highlight and information to support that main idea.
Strategies of Writing Body Paragraphs
Essays employ a number of rhetorical strategies, each of which describes a particular form of development or arrangement of ideas. Only rarely is any one of these strategies employed alone. Instead, they are almost always used in a combination suited to the subject matter — often along with one or another of the primary modes of discourse as well.
Remember, the aim of an essay is invariably a clear presentation or explanation of ideas. You may base your choice of a strategy or strategies upon several factors: your writing purpose, the central point of your essay, your intended audience, and your viewpoint as a writer.
Example
An essay of multiple paragraphs makes it possible for you to decide flexibly how to apply and blend strategies when you write an essay. For example, suppose you wanted to compare life in a large city with that in a small town. In only a single paragraph, you would have to focus on a few major similarities and differences and cover these briefly.
However, in an essay, you might even devote an entire body paragraph to similarities and another, differences. You might even devote a third to another strategy — drawing an analogy, for instance, or relating an anecdote.
Guidelines for Choosing Body Paragraph Strategies
When you write an essay, you can combine strategies to suit your purpose, content and audience. Use the following guidelines to choose a strategy or combination of strategies wisely.
Consider your writing purpose.
Certain strategies are especially appropriate for accomplishing particular purposes. For example, for informative or persuasive essays, facts and examples can support your ideas and a compare/contrast or cause/effect strategy can help explain them. For a descriptive essay, you will want to use description, perhaps in combination with analogy.
Consider the complexity of your ideas and information and the knowledge level of
your audience.
Examples and definitions help to clarify difficult content. Classification, too, can make complicated content easier to follow. An analogy can be helpful as long as the analogy is clear and sound.
Stay focused on your central point.
Strategies should help to convey the central point of an essay without distracting readers. For example, narration can effectively reveal aspects of someone's personality, if you
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choose a relevant story or anecdote. However, if the central point of your essay is how kindhearted your cousin is, then, stories or anecdotes should reflect this trait. An anecdote that deals with, say, your cousin's love of music will blur the focus of your essay at this point.
Put yourself in the reader's place.
If you are not sure whether the strategy or strategies you have chosen are the \"best\" to use, try to view your content as a reader rather than as a writer. Suppose, for example, you are planning an essay to persuade readers that college courses should be graded on a pass/fail basis. What approach would be most likely to convince a reader? Facts and examples? An analogy? Some other strategy? Viewing matters from the reader's vantage point may help you choose your approach. Be flexible.
Make your writing richer and more expressive by experimenting with different strategies and different combinations of strategies. For example, in an informative essay about how exercise improves muscle tone even in elderly people, you might use narration to tell about a specific elderly person's improved strength after beginning an exercise program.
Coherence in Body Paragraphs
Coherence in an essay can be created by carefully organizing main ideas and supporting information in the body paragraphs. Methods of organization include chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance or interest. You can also create coherence in an essay by using transitions to join ideas and information to create a smooth flow.
Exercise
Read the essay and write out: the thesis statement in the opening as well as the main idea and supporting information in each of the body paragraphs:
Learning on the Job
When I went to work part-time for Carlton's Construction Concepts, I expected to learn about home renovation, but the job also taught me a great deal about myself. Carlton's is a six-person construction company that specialized in renovating older houses. During a particularly busy time, Carlton's was looking for an extra pair of hands. This job offered more money than anything else available to me at the time. Even though I had limited experience, I had no trouble getting the job. William Carlton, the company's owner, is my uncle.
At first, I thought my education would be limited to carpentry and related matters. Indeed, my co-workers taught me how to put in insulation, how to attach sheetrock, how to install windows and doors, and how to use tools that I'd never known existed. I also furthered my education by watching electricians run wires, plumbers join pipes, and masons build brick steps.
Several months of construction work caused me to realize something unexpected about myself: I liked doing hands-on physical labor. Before coming to Carlton's, I'd always assumed that my ultimate employment destination would be a chair behind a desk, not a ladder against a beam. Who'd have thought that pounding nails and sawing wood would have made me this happy?
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I learned something else about myself too, something probably even more important. I loved being part of a \"team.\" Before working with Carlton's crew, every job I'd ever held required essentially an independent effort. For example, I'd worked as a department store salesperson, as a cashier in a coffee shop, and as a driver for a delivery service. Doing home construction day after day with six other people made me feel more personally involved in my work than ever before. I also felt as though my contribution to the team effort really mattered, a feeling that had been missing from my previous jobs.
It's funny how some of life's most meaningful lessons occur so unexpectedly. I'm truly grateful to my uncle for providing a learning experience that's proved more significant than either of us could have imagined．
Key:
Opening (para. 1) Thesis statement: I expected to learn about home renovation, but the job also taught me a great deal about myself. Para. 2 Main idea: I learned more than carpentry on the job. Supporting information: I learned from many co-workers, including electricians, plumbers, etc. Para. 3 Main idea: I realized something important about myself. Supporting information: Doing hands-on physical labor made me happy. Para. 4 Main idea: I learned to work on a team. Supporting information: Working independently and working on a team gave me different feelings, and the latter was better.
Writing Practice
Write an essay of about 300 words on \"Why Do We Protect Animals\". State the reasons briefly but clearly in your opening and develop your body paragraphs around those reasons.
Hints:
To address the title question, you need to come up with short answers as the thesis statement in the opening. Consider using words or phrases instead of long sentences. For example, \"We protect animals for ecological, economic, and emotional reasons\".
Then create your body paragraphs as more elaborate answers. In the above example, you need to write three body paragraphs to explain what \"ecological, economic, and emotional\" reasons you mean. Employ concrete examples to support your arguments.
V. Comprehensive Exercises
Listening Audio Clip
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Book 6 Unit 3
Book 6 Unit 3.mp3 (00:00 – 01:38)
Exercise
Listen to the following talk and fill in the following blanks with information from the talk.
The pterosaur was a flying dinosaur that could weigh (1) _______ pounds. How it got off the (2) _______ is a mystery to many scientists. Many of them believed that it (3) _______ into the air like a (4) _______, but a scientist from the Johns Hopkins University believes that it leapt into the air off all (5) _______ legs. He said that unlike birds, pterosaurs had different body (6) _______. Birds have stronger (7) _______ legs whereas pterosaurs had stronger front legs. When launching into the air, the pterosaur's (8) _______ moved before the arms, enabling the creature to be in the air in less than a (9) _______, which was (10) _______ in a world filled with tyrannosaurs.
Key: (1) 500 (2) ground
(3) leapt / launched (4) bird (5) four
(6) structures (7) hind (8) legs (9) second (10) handy
Translation
English-Chinese Translation
1. There wasn't time to explain that Mac was a young, witty macho cop who walked into the
hospital with 32 pounds of attack equipment, looking as if he could single-handedly protect the whole city, if not the entire state.
译文：
没有时间解释迈克是个多么身强力壮、头脑灵活的年轻警官。他走进医院的时候带着32磅重的武器装备，看上去能以一己之力保护整座城市，甚至整个州。
讲解： 这句话比较长，包含多层意思，我们通常要用拆译法，比如将这里的定语从句单独译成一句。在翻译explain时，使用了加译法（“多么……”），使之更符合汉语的表达习惯。另外，末尾的if not ...（= even if not ...）如果直译，应该是“即使……”，但可以灵活转译成“甚至……”，使整句表达更加流畅。
2. Six months isn't such a long time in the whole scheme of things, but it was long enough to
see him lose his youth, his wit, his macho, his hair, his bowel and bladder control, his sense of taste and smell, and his ability to do the slightest thing for himself.
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译文： 在万物的发展过程中，六个月并不长，但长得足以目睹他失去那么多的东西：年轻的身体、灵活的头脑、强壮的体魄、头发、控制大小便的能力、味觉和嗅觉、还有一丁点儿自理的能力。
讲解： 这句话的难点是lose后面并列的多项宾语。如果直接译成“失去年轻的身体、灵活的头脑……”，句子结构将太过冗长。这里的技巧是使用一个总述-分述结构，增强表达效果。
3. Had we, the whole medical community, become so arrogant that we believed in the illusion of
salvation through science?
译文： 作为医者这个群体，我们就变得如此傲慢，以至于相信科学真的可以拯救人这种天方夜谭吗？
讲解： 在本句中，whole medical community是we的同位语，翻译时在句首译出为好。另外，在翻译抽象名词illusion和salvation时，可以根据汉语的句式和语气，作适当的添加（拯救“人”）或扩展（“天方夜谭”）。
4. Cradling her in my arms was like cradling myself, Mac, and all those patients and nurses who
had been in this place before, who do the best they can in a death-denying society.
译文： 怀里搂着她，就像是搂着我自己、迈克、还有每一个曾经在这里的病人和护士。这些人以最大的努力生存在一个否定死亡的社会中。
讲解： 如果直译cradling her in my arms，一般可译作“把她搂在怀里”，但后文就得顺势译成“把……搂在怀里”。注意省略号处带有并列的宾语和定语从句，这种译法会使句子生硬、不自然。改进的技巧是把此类较复杂的部分放到句末，例如在本句中，换用“怀里搂着……”就可以实现。
Chinese-English Translation
1. 这几位俄罗斯作曲家的一个共同特点是他们的作品都充满了俄罗斯民间音乐的元素。
(infuse) Translation:
A characteristic these Russian composers share is that their compositions are infused with Russian folk music elements.
2. 被绑儿童的父母同意付给绑匪索要的赎金，恳求他们不要伤害他们的小女孩。(plead) Translation:
The parents of the kidnapped child, agreeing to pay the ransom the kidnappers asked for,
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pleaded with them not to hurt their little girl.
3. 新上任的主管曾在国外担任过类似的职务，他给公司的管理注入了新的理念。(inject) Translation:
The newly appointed director, who has taken a similar position overseas, injects new ideas into the management of the company.
4. 一名好的教授应该能够对一个深奥、复杂的问题作出清晰、易懂的解释。(lucid) Translation:
A good professor should be able to give a lucid and intelligible explanation of an abstruse and complicated issue.
5. 根据法律，他是否要为他已故父亲遗留的债务负责？(liable for) Translation:
According to law, is he held liable for the debts his deceased father has left unpaid?
6. 作家成功地把几个浪漫的爱情故事编进这部总体上严肃的历史小说里去。(weave into) Translation:
The writer has successfully woven some romantic love stories into this generally serious historical novel.
7. 毫无疑问，当这名因脑部严重受伤而昏睡了二十多天的病人最终苏醒过来时，医生们创
造了一个奇迹。(work a miracle) Translation:
The doctors had undoubtedly worked a miracle when the patient who had been in a coma for more than 20 days as a result of severe brain injuries had finally come to.
8. 完成了所有要交的学期论文、考完了所有必须要考的考试后，她感到人都快要倒下来了。
(beaten) Translation:
After finishing all those term papers she had to submit and all those exams she had to sit for, she felt completely beaten.
Error-correction Exercise
The passage contains TEN errors. Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way:
For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.
For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a \"∧\" sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.
For an unnecessary word, cross the unnecessary word with a dash \"—\" and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.
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Book 6 Unit 3
EXAMPLE:
When ∧ art museum wants a new exhibit, it never buys things in finished form and hangs them on the wall. When a natural history museum wants an exhibition, it must often build it.
(1) an (2) never (3) exhibit 1. ___________ 2. ___________ 3. ___________ 4. ___________ 5. ___________ 6. ___________ 7. ___________ 8. ___________ 9. ___________ 10. ___________ There is a tendency to think of each of the arts as a separate area of activity. Many artists, therefore, would prove that there has always been a warm relationship between the various areas of human activity. In general, in late nineteenth century the connections between music and painting are particularly close. Artists were invited to design clothes and settings for operas and ballets, but sometimes it was the musicians who were inspired by work of contemporary painters. Of the musical compositions that were considered critical to the visual arts, perhaps most famous is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Mussorgsky had composed the piece in 1874 after the death, at the age of 39, of the artist victor Hartmann. Though their friendship had not been a particularly long-lasting one, Mussorgsky was shocked by Hartmann's expected death. The following year the critic, Vladimir Stasuv, who decided to hold an exhibition of Hartmann's work, suggested that Mussorgsky try to control his grief by writing something as memory of Hartmann. The exhibition serves as Mussorgsky's inspiration. The ten pieces that has made up Pictures at an Exhibition are intended as symbols rather than representations of the paintings in the exhibition. Between the pieces is a promenade, where the composer walks from one paint to another. The music is sometimes witty and playful, sometimes almost alarming and frightening. Through a range of surprised visions, Mussorgsky manages to convey the spirit of the artist and his work. Key:
1. ∧ late: the （“世纪”之前加定冠词） 2. are: were （陈述过去的事实） 3. ∧ work: the （这里是特指）
4. ∧ most: the （形容词最高级之前用the） 5. had: had （用一般过去时即可）
6. expected: unexpected （注意上文的shocked） 7. as: in （in memory of是“纪念”的意思） 8. has: have （that指代的是复数ten pieces） 9. paint: painting （用名词painting，表示“画”）
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Book 6 Unit 3
10. surprised: surprising（用现在分词表示“令人吃惊的”）
Skill Development
定冠词the的用法
一般来说，不定冠词a和an用于泛指，适用于第一次提及的事物；定冠词the用于特指，适用于之前提及的事物。但除此（练习第3题）之外，the还用在其他的结构中（练习第1题和第4题）。 练习中出现的关于the的错误都是遗漏了the。要识别这些错误，必须依靠语法知识、词汇知识、并结合对上下文的理解。例如形容词最高级前必须用the（语法知识）、某些时间短语（century）前必须用the（词汇知识）。第3题也漏了the，注意虽然work是第一次提及，但根据上下文，指的就是那些contemporary painters的作品，仍然是特指。
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