1. 了解计算机用语及信息技术给人们生活带来各种影响等背景知识；

2. 掌握重要词语和句型用法、parody等修辞方法；

3. 理解课文内容，熟悉文章主题思想和语篇结构；

4. 掌握说明文写作特点，并能使用说明方法等对说明文进行赏析。

1. 课前收集有关百老汇、《美国周刊》、爱迪生、爱迪生博物馆、影片《终结者》等方面的资料，通过查阅工具书和参考书，理解课文中的语词和并熟悉课文主旨内容；通过教师课上讲解和操练，理解课文中的长难句，掌握文章写作技巧和修辞方法，熟悉课文语篇结构；完成教师指定的课后练习和知识拓展练习。

2. 单元重点

掌握metaphor; antithesis; simile; parody; metonymy; rhetorical question修辞方法

掌握exposition写作特点

3. 单元难点

通过例证、对比法说明事物的写作方法

1. Background Information

The text is taken from American Newsweek. Newsweek is American news weekly established in Dayton, Ohio in 1933. In it domestic and international news is summarized, analyzed and categorized according to topics each week. It also has special sections devoted to arts, science, medicine, sports, etc. it is one of the three largest newsweeklies of America and has a wide domestic and international circulation. The authors of the text, Barbara Kantrowitz and Joshua Cooper Ramo are regular contributors to Newsweek.

2. Text Analysis

This essay, taken from American Newsweek，is a piece of scientific writing. It depicts and imagines the future life. Based on internet, people can learn, entertain and do shopping without stepping out of home; people are able to get a large amount of information over a wide range of topics simply by pressing a button. Though all this is only an assumption, it is a step towards an interactive life. In the text, the thesis is put forward in the subtitle: it will put the world at your fingertips, changing the ways you shop, play and learn. We’ll analyze the text and see how this happens.

3. Structure of the Text

The text is divided into three parts:

Part1 (paragraph1-2): Introduction of interactive life: a huge amount of information available to anyone at the touch of a button

Part 2 (paragraph 3 to 18): description of interactive life

Part 3 (paragraph 44 to 48): Suggestion: hanging on for the ride

4. Key words and expressions

put/have…at one's fingertips，conceive … as，envision , memo , memorial (to), hype, on the drawing board, off-off-off Broadway, obsolete, on the receiving end, the era of no-brainer, come to, nail down, negotiate, mass, specifics, data highway, what for, the futuristic fantasy fanatic arcade, shoot-'em-up, realistic, arcade, techno-chaos, cater for / to, gear, corral, trample, bits, rope in, buzzword, clean up, think tank, fall over oneself to do sth. , stampede, It's one thing ..., quite another ..., keep tabs on, simply put, esoteric scientific journal, on the receiving end, fanatic, industry newsletter, couch-potato，run up， infrastructure，fibre-optic cable，hold，glimpse，TV monitor, front for, CD-ROM, titles, glimpse, developing multimedia products, still photographs, Philips Interactive, Cyber City, an animated adventure game, leisure activities, two parallel home markets, the work-at-home market, portable computing devices, touted, scribble, bet, lucrative, outlet, come to pass, still a very big if, archives, two-way, convergence, clean up, final frontier, telephony, obscene, clean up, a leading tank, think tank, data transmittal, fall over oneself to do , make leaps, clog, digitalization, binary system, pulses of light, on-or-off electrical charges, loop, bit, artificial intelligence，butler， take the stage， icon， compatible， concede， a dark side， viewing habit, data bank， toll， the wired， zap， speculation, specific marching orders, compatible, intelligent agents, a gold mine of information, tap into, levy a fee, elitism, populism, zap, mutant, speculation, players

5. Analysis of Rhetorical Devices

metaphor;    antithesis;    simile;    parody;    metonymy;    rhetorical question

6. Writing Techniques

1) Skillful employment of techniques of expository writing

(1) exemplification: vivid and specific examples

At various points, you'll click on alternative story lines and create your individualized version of "Terminator X II." (Para. 2)

Peter Jennings would be obsolete . (Para. 2)

(2) comparison and contrast

Where he saw internal memos, someone else saw Beethoven. (Para. 1)

(3) division and classification

Three factors contributing to the possible dreams: large capacity chip, fibre optic cables and digitalization ( Part 2, section 3, para.12-14)

2) Effective use of noun & verb

The vivid language instead of vague and boring ones to gives concreteness and clarity to an idea.

(1)…just one step past passive viewing, pure couch-potato mode. (para.5)

(2) But as the amount of…these electronic highways have become clogged. (para.13)

(3) To prevent getting trampled by a stampede of data, viewer s will rely on programmed electronic selectors that could go out into the info corral and rope in the subjects the viewer wants. (para. 9)

Paraphrase:

1. Peter Jennings would be obsolete.

2. Beam it out and make a small fortune by charging an untold number of viewers a fee for watching.

3. He intended to record voices—nothing more.

4. Edison conceived of his phonograph as a business machine that would help people in distant places communicate.

5. In the next few years there’s likely to be considerable debate over the realistic presentation of violence in the new generation of video games, which will include viewer-directed movies.

Key:

1. There is no longer any need for news anchorman because anyone can record news with a video-camera and put it on the universal network for everybody else to see.

2. Send out the video and ask those who have watched it to pay a fee. In this way you can make quite a sum of money.

3. His only intention in inventing the machine was the recording of voices. 

4. Edison designed and developed his sound recording machine as a working tool for people to talk to each other over long distance.

5. In the next few years there may be quite a lot of discussion over whether it is good or bad, whether it should be allowed to have display of actual violence in the new stage of video games, including movies planned and controlled by viewers.

教学模拟：展示当代信息技术的成果与对人们生活产生的影响

要求：使用PPT辅助陈述，时间不少于8分钟；就陈述内容设定2~3个问题，陈述结束后随机选择班级中的同学予以回答

Written work:

1. Description of your friend by giving the vivid and specific examples

2. Write a composition about true stories of a famous person. Try to give powerful evidence, such as time, numbers, etc.

Key:

1. Take my friend Mary for example, she studies very hard. Every night when all her family falls asleep, there is still a light burning on her desk. Beside the light is Mary, completely absorbed in her study. It is her diligence that makes her top student of our grade.

2. Speaking of Edison, all the people would take him as an influential, intelligent, and preserving inventor. They owe his great to his own diligence and gift, but few people know such a great people as Edison, was an advocator for cooperation, and he even created his “teamwork” laboratory, for he firmly believed that inventions and research could best be accomplished by great minds working together.

Analyze the method of developing an exemplification essay. Do you know the other commonly used methods?

Some of the greatest scientific discoveries are the result of inspirations caused by chance occurrences. Three brief examples can demonstrate this point. First, Archimede’s noticing the rise of the water level as he submerged himself in a tub led to the formulation of the laws of liquid displacement, the foundation of many of the laws of liquid displacement, the foundation of many of the laws of modern physics. Second, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity because an apple fell on his head while he was sitting under a tree. Third, after being caught in a strong current of hot rising air while flying his gas balloon, George Alexander Whitehead thought about the occurrence and developed the fundamental principles of meteorology. These and other incidents show that many of the greatest scientific developments spring from lucky accidents that stimulate work in a specific direction.

Key:

There are several examples to illustrate the scientific discoveries. These examples are presented in a chronological order to support the point.

The other method s a spatial order, or placing the examples in order of increasing importance, interest, impressiveness, wittiness, outrageousness, or seriousness so that the strongest, the most interesting or important example is saved for last.

1. Interaction is the key word in the text. What is interaction?

2. How has information technology changed people's life?

Key:

1. It is the collective exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other.

2. Internet makes the shopping and entertainment more easier than before. The internet has enabled some people to work at home rather than waste time commuting, pollute the atmosphere and contribute to traffic congestion.