“卡特里娜”颶風后的日子

A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I'd had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate.“You are from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was.“No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage (按揭貸款) on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We'd begun to accept that we'd have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He'd read some pieces I'd written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to rent his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet's offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It's almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

Activity A Reading for understanding

Ⅰ. Text-centered chunks

reduced to ruins 淪為廢墟

waist-high 齊腰高的

no charge 免費

go for a haircut 去理發

in reduced circumstances 境況不濟

no conditions attached 沒有附加條件

one-year paid leave 一年的帶薪假

give sb half a chance 給某人一點點機會

Ⅱ. Text-centered sentences

一、倒裝句

There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty. 我的房子在那里，變成了齊腰高的廢墟，又臭又臟。

【點石成金】當副詞there放到句首時，后面所接的句子需要進行完全倒裝，也就是“謂語+主語”的句序表達，起強調作用。

【運用遷移】這就是我的臥室，向南，寬敞又明亮。

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二、省略句

It's almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance. 但凡是能夠幫助別人時，人們都會盡力去做，能感悟到這一點，即使是失去自己的物質財富，也是值得的。

【點石成金】given half a chance表示“被給一點點機會”, 用于when引導的省略句中，省略了和主句相同的主語和be動詞。

【運用遷移】如果這樣裝修的話，房子會非常漂亮。

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Activity B Reading for writing

今年夏天，河南發生特大洪災后，全國各地在第一時間加入搶險救援的行列中。 假定你是李華，家在河南，請你給志愿者王先生寫一封感謝信，表達你的感激之情。 內容包括：

1. 洪災后的生活變化；

2. 感謝他的幫忙。

注意：

1. 詞數80左右；

2. 可以適當增加細節，以使行文連貫；

3. 至少使用一個倒裝句或省略句；

4. 注意段落內的邏輯關系。

Dear Mr Wang,

All the best of luck to you!

Yours,

Li Hua

寫作導引

本次的寫作任務是寫一篇感謝信，要求學生描述河南災后的生活和感謝社會各界愛心人士的幫忙，并且需要使用倒裝句和省略句。 這些寫作要求和上面文章的主題語境是緊密相關的。 我們可以通過分析并整合閱讀材料的內容和語言，拓展素材，從而梳理寫作思路。

一、語篇解碼

（一）內容分析

What is the text mainly about?

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（二）宏觀結構

Fill in the blanks according to the text.

二、素材積累

（一）介紹災后生活變化的核心表達

1. be trapped in 被困入

2. come to an end ……結束了

3. get injured 受傷

4. It seems as if the world was at an end. 仿佛到了世界末日。

5. Everywhere they looked nearly everything was destroyed. 他們看到的每一個地方，幾乎一切都被毀了。

（二）感謝的核心表達

1. Learning that you're leaving, I'm eagerly writing to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for your help. 得知你要離開了，我急切地寫信對你的幫助表示衷心的感謝。

2. I am writing to express my gratitude for your attention. 我寫這封信是為了感謝您的關心。

3. Under your professional guidance, I have made such unbelievable progress in English. 在您專業的指導下，我的英語取得了巨大的進步。

4. No words are strong enough to convey how grateful I am. 任何言語都不足以表達我的感激之情。

三、寫作支架

Dear________,

I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude for your help. （感謝幫忙）

Now I want to tell you something about the life here. Undoubtedly, the life has changed a lot.（描述生活變化） For one thing, it is of great pleasure to find that... For another, what impresses us is that...

Thanks again for all the things you have done. (再次表達感謝)

Yours,

Li Hua

四、語篇過手

在構思感謝信的語篇框架時，應注意第一段要表明寫作的目的，第二段要描寫河南災后的生活變化，最后表達你的感謝。 總詞數控制在80左右。

同時，學習運用前文閱讀中出現的倒裝句或省略句等高級句型，并關注段內的關系，如舉例論證生活的變化，需要注意使用恰當的連詞。