Looking out of the window

話 題 導 入

你會經常看向窗外嗎？ 通過看窗外，你的眼睛會看見什么？ 你的大腦會想象什么？ 有人看見窗外陰晴變幻的天空；有人看見枯榮交替的花草樹木；也有人看見高樓大廈、車水馬龍……本文的作者在一個尋常的工作日上午從辦公室看向窗外， 目睹了一場小小的事故， 受到了巨大的震撼，從此改變了作者看待自身與他人的態度。

本文為短篇故事，全文627詞，建議用時7分鐘。

閱讀目標

1. 梳理故事梗概，推測作者和故事主人公的身份信息；

2. 分析闡釋作者和故事主人公身上體現出的品質特點;

3. 深入挖掘故事中包含的道德寓意，從不同角度分析理解窗戶的象征意義。

A window is a common but powerful tool—a patch of the world, from which weare physically isolated. The only thing you can do is look. You have no influence on what you will see.However, your brain is forced to make a drama out of whatever happens to appear.

One day, I was taking a nap in the red chair in my office when I woke up to the sound of a car crash. I sat up and looked immediately out of my window. Across the street, in the parking lot, a car had just backed into a chain-link fence. The car must have been moving fast, because it was in bad shape. Its hood had popped up, and part of its bumper (保險杠) was sitting on the ground. The fence was mangled (損壞).

I couldn't believe what I saw, on an otherwise ordinary weekday morning out of my office window. I watched the driver get out of the car. He was stocky (矮壯的) witha shaved head; he wore cargo shorts (工裝短褲) and a flannel shirt unbuttoned to expose his chest hair. I disliked him immediately. After a few seconds of assessing the damage, he walked around the car and opened the passenger door, from which a very small child scrambled out. A toddler in the front seat! My disdain(鄙視) for the manincreased exponentially.

As the child ran around in the parking lot, the man tried to repair the damage he caused.He attempted to tug the ruined fence back into place, but it wouldn't move.

I sat in my red chair, looking out of my window,silently cheering.

The man tried, a little harder, to fix the fence. He grabbed its support pole, and pulled against it with his full weight. The pole suddenly broke, and the man fell hard onto the blacktop(柏油路). The entire fence fell on top of him, and one of his sandals (涼鞋) went off and landed 10 feet away on the sidewalk.

I think I laughed out loudly. This wasa slapstick masterpiece. It wasbrightening my whole day, the failure of this terrible man. He climbed out from under the collapsed fence and limped back to the apartment building above the lot, rubbing his elbow.

That, I thought, would be the end of it. The man—that villainous (可憎的) man—was going toleave all the chaos behindfor someone else to clean up. It was only the middle of the morning, but I imagined that hesprawled out on his sofawith a case of beer, eating horrible snacks, while his child played with fire and broken glass near a malfunctioning electrical socket(插座).

But this is the power of windows. They contradict your easy assumptions. The manemergeda few minutes laterwith some tools. He got to work immediately, detaching (拆開) one of the fence's bent support bars and hammering it straight on the asphalt (瀝青). For the next hour, I watched out of my window as he doggedly(頑強地) fixed the fence, straightening and reattaching its support bars, scrupulously (一絲不茍地) unbending its bent chain-link. Now the fence would be extra secure, stronger than before.

This odious (可憎的) man was actually a hero. I was the lazy one, with myknee-jerk judgmentsand my superiority from three stories up. My ugly assumptions, I realized, were all about myself. I would never have fixed that fence; I would have panicked and run away. My window had woken me up from a nap to teach me a lesson.

It changed my entire day. I went back with new determination. Years later I still look out of my window at the fence almost every day. It still looks brand new. It makes me wonder what else that man has improved and how I can make myself more like him.

閱 讀 掃 障

1. be physically isolated 身體隔離

2. a shaved head 光頭

3. increase exponentially 以指數方式增長

4. silently cheering 默默歡呼；暗喜

5. a slapstick masterpiece 一場杰出的鬧劇

6. brighten one's whole day 使某人一整天心情愉快

7. leave all the chaos behind 把所有的混亂拋在身后

8. sprawl out on the sofa “葛優躺”（四仰八叉地躺在沙發上）

9. emerge with some tools 帶著工具出現

10. knee-jerk judgments 未經思考做出的評判

目標呈現

Ⅰ. Read for the main idea.

The author looked out of the (1)________from his office and witnessed a man back his(2)________into a (3)________. The man attempted for (4)________times to fix the fence and finally (5)________. The author got a lesson by observing the incident.

Ⅱ. Explore the characters.

1. When reading a story, apart from getting the facts, readers can also draw inferences from some clues in the text. Try to make comparisons and complete the table.

?

2. Which of the following words can be used to describe the qualities of the author and the man? You can choose more than one word and even write down some of your own words.

A. lazy B. responsible C. irresponsible D. superior E. cowardly

F. careless G. hard-working H. ready to change I. uneducated

J. tough K. reflective L. determined M. scrupulous

The author's qualities:__________________________________________________

The man's qualities:____________________________________________________

Ⅰ. Draw moral lessons.

The author said he was taught a lesson in the last but one paragraph. What moral lessons can you draw from the story?

Ⅱ. Understand the title.

What does “the window” in the title symbolize? Does it symbolize eyes or screens or both? What is the deep meaning of the title Looking out of the window?

【點石成金】本文從標題到內容都運用了一些象征的寫作手法。 象征手法是根據事物之間的某種聯系，借助某人或某物的具體形象(象征體)，以表現某種抽象的概念、思想和情感。它可以使文章立意高遠、含蓄深刻。恰當地運用象征手法，可以將某些比較抽象的思想概念化為具體的可以感知的形象，賦予文章以深意，從而給讀者留下回味的余地。

Ⅰ. 讀后寫作

假設你是本文作者，你想把本文故事發生當天自己的所見所感告知文中男主人公，請你寫一封信給男主人公，內容包括：

1. 說明自己的身份；

2. 描述當天發生的事；

3. 表達欽佩與感激之情。

Ⅱ. 視野拓展

在英語語言中，窗戶是一個十分常見的文化意象，除了“眼睛是心靈的窗戶（The eyes are the windows of the soul.）”之外，窗戶也常用來象征機會，有許多相關的名言，意味雋永，發人深省。

1. If God closes the door, somewhere he opens a window.

如果上帝向你關上了一扇門，他會為你開一扇窗。

2. The purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

教育的目的就是把鏡子變成窗戶。

3. If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

當機會的窗口出現時，不要拉下簾子。

4. Never hesitate to open new windows in your life!

永遠不要對打開人生的新窗戶感到猶豫！

5. Each day, life will send you little windows of opportunity. Your destiny will ultimately be defined by how you respond to these windows of opportunity.

每天，生活都會給你送來小小的機會之窗。 你的命運最終取決于你對之做出的反應。