Unit 1 Back to school

Reading教学设计

Realizing your potential

【Content analysis】

What: realize your potential

(1) the reason why senior high school is an excellent period for students to realize their potential

(2) the essence and significance of potential

(3) ways to fully realize your potential

(4) encouragement and expectation for students to rise to the challenges and realize their potential with positive attitudes

Why:  (1) provide specific advice for new senior high school students

       (2) encourage students to set lofty ideals and realize potential to laid a solid foundation for lifelong development

How:  (1) text type: speech

          concise; comprehensive; various sentence types

       (2) parallel structure

       (3) repetition

【Teaching objectives】

Language ability: Summarize the outline and the theme of the speech by skimming for topic sentences and scanning for details; 

Cultural awareness: Evaluate the importance of realizing one’s potential; Know how to realize one’s potential;

Thinking quality: Promote their analyzing thinking by analyzing the structure of speech.

Learning quality: Cultivate their cognitive strategy by understanding the internal cohesion between paragraphs according to the core words in the speech.

【Teaching procedure】

Lead in (5 min)

Teacher:

Students: The first suggestion is that they should know what things to keep and what things to release. The second suggestion is that they should learn to live alongside cringe.

Teacher: Do you think it is an interesting speech? Do you like listening to a speech? Today we are also going to read a speech transcript given by a principal to new senior high school students.

Pre-reading (5 min)

Teacher: Here is the title of this speech “realizing your potential” with a picture. What do you think the principal will talk about in his speech?

Students: Maybe he will talk about “what is potential”, “how to realize potential”.

Teacher: From your opinion, what is potential?

Students: ……

Teacher: How can we realize potential?

Students: ……

While-reading

Teacher:

Fast-reading (6 min)

Teacher: Go through the speech transcript quickly and find the topic sentence for each paragraph. (2 min)

Tips: (1) tell the main idea of the paragraph; (2) usually at the beginning of the paragraph (may also be in the middle or at the end of the paragraph)

Teacher: Since we have known the main idea of each paragraph, now I want you to summarize each paragraph into one short phrase to help us better understand the structure of this speech.

Intensive-reading

Teacher: Read each paragraph carefully and answer the following questions.

Para.1: (6 min)

Teacher: Look at the sentence carefully and find out what is special about it, especially the form. (Today is the start of a new term, the start of a three-year journey and the start of a promising future.)

Students: It uses/repeats the phrase “the start of …” three times.

Teacher: The use of the same pattern of words or sentences is called “parallel structures”. They can add balance to sentences and make the language more powerful and effective. In the sentence shown on the screen, we can feel the importance of senior high school.

So can you try to write some sentences by using this parallel structure? Let me give you an example. (pair-work)

“Spring is the season of beauty, spring is the season of warmth, spring is the season of hope.”

“Autumn is …”

Para.2: (6 min)

Teacher: What challenges will students face at senior high school?

Students: A new environment, new knowledge, and new ways of thinking.

Teacher: What attitude should we hold towards these challenges/obstacles? Why?

Students: We should keep a positive mind and rise to challenges bravely. Because opportunity lies in each challenge to help you acquire great knowledge and enjoy personal growth.

Teacher: Why is senior high school life so important?

Students: Because your time and effort at this stage will help you realize your potential.

Para.3: (6-8 min)

Teacher: At the end of paragraph 2, the principal referred to the core word “potential” for the first time. So what is potential? In the speech transcript, the principal proposed his opinion that “potential is your natural ability that can be developed when you try hard enough.” Here comes the question. Does everybody have the same potential? If not, what is your personal potential? Or more specifically, what subject or field do you find your potential in? You can discuss and share with your partner. (pair-work)

Students: ……

Teacher: Since we all have different potential, what can we do by taking advantage of our potential?

Students: ……

Teacher: Thank you for your sharing! It seems that you all want to use your potential to do something. How ambitious you are! I, as well as the principal, also have confidence in your ability to make a difference to yourself, to your family, to your community, and finally to our country.

Para.4-5: (3-4 min)

Teacher: Read paragraph 4 and 5, complete the following table.

Para.6: (3 min)

Teacher: In the last paragraph, the principal quoted the saying from Lao-Tzu to encourage us to train our mind and develop our character. What characters do you think you can develop during the period of senior high school? You can try to use some adjectives. (group discussion)

Students: confident, modest, outgoing, patient, responsible, optimistic, diligent, intelligent, passionate, competent…

Post-reading: (5 min)

Teacher: After learning this passage, we all have a better understanding of how to give a speech. Suppose you are chosen as the representative of new senior high school students and are asked to deliver a speech titled “New stage, new challenges” in front of the whole school at the flag-raising ceremony. What will you talk about? Consider what challenges you will face and how to deal with them? (group discussion)

A suggested outline:

Opening: welcome your audience

Body: description of senior high school life

     specific challenges

     advice on overcoming challenges

Ending: encouragement for fellows

Homework:

Finish your speech based on the outline suggested, try to use parallel structures and other rhetorical devices.

Taylor Swift’s commencement speech at New York University (excerpt)

So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that.

I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.

The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.

Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’

I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.