CathyEnglish Department2014.5
Unit 4 The Man in the Water Roger Rosenblatt
When you watch the documentary film, please pay attention to the information listed belowWhen?Where?What happened?What did the commuters do?
Lead-in
Documentary Film
Basic Information When?
Jan.13, 1982 Where?Potomac River, WashingtonWhat happened?Air crash. Hit the bridgeWhat did the commuters
do?Jumped into the ice-water to rescue the few survivors among the wreckage of the plane.
Listen to Para. 1Discuss the following questions What was unusual about this air
crash? Did it make the disaster more special than others?
What is the aesthetic crash? Is it really so?
Part One
Pre-listeningInformation words (question)
ListeningSame word/Synonym Information words after the same word or Synonym.
Post-listeningOrganize your answer into complete sentences
Note-taking Strategy
Listen to Para. 1Discuss the following questions What was about this air
crash? Did it make the disaster more special than others?
What is the crash? Is it really so?
Part One
unusual
aesthetic
As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst air crashes on record.
Text Analysis
compared with the average disaster of this type 就灾难而言
As businessmen go, he is considered pretty honest.就商人而言,他算是很诚信的了。
Examples of “as… go”
Paraphrase: Air crashes usually involve a heavy loss of lives. Compared with other air crashes, this one was not the worst. This air crash was remembered for a different reason.
There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane hit it at a moment of high traffic.
Text Analysis
factorheavy traffic; heavy
flow of vehiclesParaphrase: One thing that was unusual about this disaster was that the plane hit the bridge at the time of heavy traffic.
Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal.
Text Analysis
became chaotic; was thrown into a terrible confusion
a sudden strong and really cold wind
figurative: sound comparison
a quick blow with sth flat as in “a slap across the face”
Sound---Auditory Sense
And there was the clash as well – blue-and-green Air Florida, the name of a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks of ice in a black river.
Text AnalysisaestheticSth connected with the study of beauty
the combination of different colors which looked very bada fairly large
amount Paraphrase: When the air crash occurred, it was not just a clash of metal against the bridge, but also a clash between colors: the blue-green color of the plane and the gray and black color of the ice and river.
Color---Visual Sense
Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring millions to tears or to attention.
Text Analysis
Although (it is) always specialwhile+ adj.Money, while desirable and useful, can corrupt.
Possibly but not certainlyeg: New things are not necessarily better.to make millions cry
or attract millions of people’s attention.
Why, then, the shock here?
Text Analysis
elliptical sentence:Five o’clock? Why so early?Paraphrase: Why was there such a
shock here?
Write a description of a disasterBasic InformationAuditory SenseVisual SenseSmellFeeling
Something moves you
Assignment
Thanks for Your Attention