英语系读好书活动通知.docx

关于开展
“利用寒假读好书”活动暨“2015年读书报告大赛”的通知

为了让广大同学利用寒假多读书、读好书，外国语学院英语系将在英语系各年级中开展“利用寒假读好书”活动，具体内容是请老师们为同学们推荐好书，做成建议阅读书目，每位同学利用寒假，在广泛涉猎、开卷有益的基础上，选取3-4本书进行比较细致的阅读（包括至少一本英文原著）。同时，为了鼓励同学们在阅读过程中有所思、有所悟，并能勤于动笔，记录下自己的所思所想，每位同学应在寒假期间撰写2篇读书报告（一篇英文读书报告，一篇中文读书报告），开学后将统一收取，并以年级为单位进行读书报告评比，将评出优秀读书报告若干，进行表彰。
备注：
1. 如果另外选择书籍进行阅读，则请简短说明选择该书的理由，也便将来向其他同学推荐。2. 读书报告撰写请按照后文所附格式。
外国语学院英语系
2015.1.18

附件1：书目
建议的中文书目（并请参阅麻晓蓉老师《关于书目》一文）：
冯友兰：《中国哲学史》
刘瑜：《送你一颗子弹》《民主的细节》第一人称的留学观察，阅历与才智使她具有一份宝贵的亲切与平和。
朱青生：《十九札》北大老师解答你我他上大学时可能遇到的问题，不要等毕业时才说如果早点看到这本书就好了。
傅雷：《傅雷家书》老一辈学人与远游的爱子分享治学修身齐家的思考。
卢安克：《是什么给我力量》（网上有全本）一个改变我们对乡村教育刻板化印象的人。
王小波：《我的精神家园》真性情，有才华。不读他的书，怎么能理解为什么那么多人爱他？周云蓬：《绿皮火车》歌者，更是诗人，这样的文字总是好看。
史铁生：《我与地坛》学习和命运心平气和地相处。
章诒和：《杨氏女》文字朴实的时代悲剧，无论男生女生都应该读一读、想一想。
李娟：《冬牧场》透过李娟的文字看新疆，那么苍茫那么可爱。世界太大，我们太小。
童明：《现代性赋格：19世纪欧洲文学名著启示录》体会一下什么是”融会贯通“，什么是读书读到”钻进去、跳出来“的境界。
蒋梦麟：《西潮》
陶行知：《为生活而教育》
季羡林：《牛棚杂记》
郑振铎：《希腊神话与英雄传说》

Suggested English Books:
Bible
Greek and Roman Mythologies
American history
English history
King Arthur and His Round Table Knights
Aesop's Fables
Anderson's Fairy Tales
（上面几条无固定书目，但属于西方文化重中之重；每个同学都应该搜寻相关书籍认真阅读，请充分利用图书馆或网络资源）
The Humanistic Tradition (此书建议每个同学作为新年礼物送自己一套，并仔细研读；有外研社影印版）
以下主要是经典小说（排名不分先后）：
Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Anna Sewell, Black Beauty
Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person
Charles Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Jacqueline Wilson, Girls in Love
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (or her other books)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez，One Hundred Years of Solitude
Mario Puzo, The Godfather
Meg Cabot, The Princess Diaries
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or Life in the Woods
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie
 Jack London: The Call of the Wild
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Lin Yutang: Moment in Peking
Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club

附件2：读书报告范式：
Book report:

Part 1: Introduction
i. Identify the author and title of the work, and include the publisher and publication date.
ii. When giving the information about the writer, you should include some historical and social background to which the book is related.
iii. To make things clear, you should read some reference materials, such as biographies of the writer and histories of the period in which the book was written.

Example (introduction):
A Report on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Author: Maya Angelou
Publisher: New York: Bantam Books
Publication Date: 1971
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), Maya Angelou (1928- ) tells the story of her earliest years. Angelou, a dancer, poet, and television producer as well as a writer, has continued her life story in three more volumes of autobiography. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the start of Maya Angelou’s story; in this book, she writes with crystal clarity about the pains and joys of being black in America.

Part 2: Summary
i. Write an informative summary of the material. It should include such ideas as the setting for the book, the time period in which the story is being told, the main characters and how they interact with each other and the plot.
ii. Fiction or nonfiction, the idea is to recognize the main idea or ideas from which you will be able to cultivate an excellent report, a mirror that reflects your impression of the book’s purpose.
iii. Use direct quotations from the work to illustrate important ideas. Summarize the material so that the reader gets a general sense of all key aspects of the original work. Keep the summary objective and factual.
iv. As for the tense of the book report, it depends on the subject matter of the book. If it is a novel or a play, the present tense is more appropriate while the past tense is required for nonfiction such as history books.

Example (summary):
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings covers Maya Angelou’s life from age three to age sixteen. We first meet her as a gawky little girl in a white woman’s cut-down lavender silk dress. She has forgotten the poem she had memorized for the Easter service, and all she can do is rush out of the church. At this point, Angelou is living in Stamps, Arkansas, with her grandmother and uncle. The town is rigidly segregated: “People in Stmaps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream” (40). Yet Angelou has some good things in her life: her adored older brother Bailey, her success in school, and her pride in her grandmother’s quiet strength and importance in the black community. There is laughter, too, as when a preacher is interrupted in midsermon by an overly enthusiastic woman shouting, “Preach it, I say preach it!” (39) The woman, in a frenzied rush of excitement, hits the preacher with her purse; his false teeth fly out of his mouth and land at Angelou’s feet. Shortly after this incident, Angelou and her brother are taken by her father to live in California with their mother. Here, at age eight, she is raped by her mother’s boyfriend, who is mysteriously murdered after receiving only a suspended sentence for his crime. She returns, silent and withdrawn, to Stamps, where the gloom is broken when a friend of her mother introduces her to the magic of great books. Later, at age thirteen, Angelou returns to California. She learns how to dance. She runs away after a violent family fight and lives for a month in a junkyard. She becomes the first black female to get a job on the San Francisco streetcars. She graduates from high school eight months pregnant. And she survives.

Part 3: Response
Focus on any or all of the questions below.
i. How is the assigned work related to ideas and concerns discussed in the course? For example, what points made in the course textbook, class discussions, or lectures are treated more fully in the work?
ii. How is the work related to problems in our present-day world?
iii. How is the work related to your life, experiences, feelings, and ideas? For instance, what emotions did it arouse in you? Did it increase your understanding of an issue or change your perspective?
iv. Evaluate the merit of the work: the importance of its points; its accuracy, completeness, and organization; and so on.

Example (response):
I was impressed with the vividness of Maya Angelou’s writing style. For example, she describes the lazy dullness of her life in Stamps: “Weekdays revolved in a sameness wheel. They turned into themselves so steadily and inevitably that each seemed to be the original of yesterday’s rough draft” (93). She also knows how to bring a scene to life, as when she describes her eighth-grade graduation. For months, she has been looking forward to this event, knowing she will be honored for her academic successes. She is even happy with her appearance: Her hair has become pretty, and her yellow dress is a miracle of hand-sewing. But the ceremony is spoiled when the speaker—a white man—implies that the only success available to blacks is in athletics. Angelou remembers: “The man’s dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium and too many settled in my belly…. The proud graduating class of 1940 had dropped their heads” (152). Later, Angelou uses a crystal-clear image to describe her father’s mistress sewing: “She worked the thread through the flowered cloth as if she were sewing the torn ends of her life together” (208). With such vivid details and figures of speech, Maya Angelou re-creates her life for her readers.
I also reacted strongly to the descriptions of injustices suffered by blacks two generations ago. I was as horrified as the seven-year-old Maya when some “powhitetrash” girls torment her dignified grandmother, calling her “Annie” and mimicking her mannerisms. In another incident, Mrs. Cullinan, Angelou’s white employer, decides that Marguerite (Angelou’s real name) is too difficult to pronounce and so renames her Mary. This loss of her name—a “hellish horror” (91)—is another humiliation suffered at white hands, and Angelou leaves Mrs. Cullinan’s employ soon afterward. Later, Angelou encounters overt discrimination when a white dentist tells her grandmother, “Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s” (160)—and only slightly less obvious predudice when the streetcar company refuses to accept her application for a conductor’s job. We see Angelou over and over as the victim of a white society.
Although I was saddened to read about the injustices, I rejoiced in Angelou’s triumphs. Angelou is thrilled when she hears the radio broadcast of Joe Louis’s victory over Primo Carnera: “A Black boy. Some Black mother’s son. He was the strongest man in the world” (114). She weeps with pride when the class valedictorian leads her and her fellow eighth-graders in singing the Negro National Anthem. And there are personal victories, too. One of these comes after her father has gotten drunk in a small Mexican town. Though she has never driven before, she manages to get her father into the car and drives fifty miles through the night as he lies intoxicated in the backseat. Finally, she rejoices in the birth of her son: “He was beautiful and mine. Totally mine. No one had bought him for me” (245). Angelou shows us, through these examples, that she is proud of her race—and of herself.

Part 4: Conclusion
Example:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a remarkable book. Angelou could have been just another casualty to race prejudice. Yet by using her intelligence, sensitivity, and determination, she succeeds in spite of the odds against her. And by writing with such power, she lets us share her defeats and joys. She also teaches us a vital lesson: With strength and persistence, we can escape our cages—and sing our songs.

Points to Keep in Mind When Writing a Report
• Apply the four basic standards of effective writing (unity, support, coherence, and clear, error-free sentences).
• Make sure each major paragraph presents and then develops a single main point. Then the report is closed with a short concluding paragraph.
• Support with specific reasons and details any general points or attitudes you express.
• Follow the basic plan of organization: an introduction, a summary consisting of one or more paragraphs, a reaction consisting of two or more paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• Proofread the paper for grammar, mechanics, punctuation, and word use.
• Document quotations from all works by giving the page number in parentheses after the quoted material, but do not rely too much on them. Use them only to emphasize key ideas.

附件3：麻晓蓉老师《关于书目》
关 于 书 目

麻晓蓉

应刘进老师之邀为英语系同学列书目。其实我不喜欢给人列书目。因为我喜欢看闲书，而遇到闲书和遇到良人一样，是要讲缘分的。缘分没到的时候，别人再多赞美，还是敬而远之（就像我总是读不完《三国演义》）。缘分到了，自然有那个心境去认识、了解，进而喜欢（就像大四那年突然能够拿起张爱玲的书又读得进去并且理解为什么都说她写得好）。

遇到投缘的人，可以倾盖如故。遇到书，也可以一见钟情。读书需要静心。一旦静下心来认真地读过一本好书，自然会发现第二本、第三本。就像因缘际会结识了一位知己，欢喜得可以秉烛夜谈，可以雪夜共游。而因为这份相知，又可以认识更多的好朋友。当然，和这些朋友的交情深浅全看缘分。读闲书的乐趣，就在随性不强求：喜欢，一口气读完，甚至欣欣然列为枕边书；觉得无味，随手放下，也不用怕伤害谁的感情。

泛泛而论，国学基本知识应该了解。北京出版社有一套《大家小书》就是非常好的入门读物。希腊罗马神话、荷马史诗和圣经是了解西方文化的必读书，西方的主要思想流派和代表人物都应该了解。好在有译林出版社的“牛津通识读本”和外研社的“斑斓阅读”丛书，都是专家写的普及本，举重若轻，值得一读。我不列具体书名是因为你可以在图书馆去书架上翻，觉得面目可亲的书就拿下来看，看多了心中自然有选择。

好的出版社有但不限于：商务印书馆、三联、广西师范大学出版社等。可亲可爱的书作者包括但不限于木心、王小波、朱光潜、冯象、林达、刘瑜等。凡是那些能被出版社反复出版的“经典”，无论古今中外，都值得一读，而且值得在不同年龄重读，例如《红楼梦》。当然，书一辈子也读不完。庄子都说过了：“吾生也有涯，而知也无涯。以有涯随无涯，殆已”。有涯之中，遇到谁，喜欢不喜欢，看缘分。

对了，刚才说的是闲书。在专业领域还是得有针对性地看书，弥补知识缺陷。逻辑训练是很多中国学生的短板（至少于我是这样）。我正在读金岳霖先生的《形式逻辑》。还没读完。作为跨时代的推荐书，应该值得好好学习。有评价说这本书里的知识体系需要更新，所以我又买了《逻辑学导论》，据说11版是最受好评的经典，13版是第二作者修订版。好不好，还没看，看了才知道。还有老早以前的GRE考题，专门有一块就是考逻辑。后来改成直接考写作了，内容更清楚。应该可以找来领会精髓。补课中，共同进步。

专业书，打个不太恰当的比方（不恰当是因为我身边一群好友兼同事），则有些像工作伙伴。成为同事不像交友那么随机，却往往能在接触中发现他们身上各种值得学习的品质：渊博、智慧、涵养、得体、敬业、守信，等等；还能学到各种各样处理问题的巧妙方法。专业书也是这样。写得好的专业书，虽然永不会成为书店里的畅销书，也不会从第一页起就读得让你欲罢不能，但是编排精巧、治学严谨、论证考究的作者编者功力自然会令人肃然起敬，从而赞不绝口。

读书要动笔，摘抄、写读后感，都会很有帮助。

嗯，还有几本可能对大家有帮助的书，可以翻来看看：
房龙的书：《圣经的故事》、《人类的故事》和《宽容》在各种推荐书目上长盛不衰。

《十九札》：北大老师写的十九封信，解答大学生常见问题，恳切而有见地。很多话我读了非常受益，相信你们读了也会有帮助。

《傅雷家书》：老一辈翻译家严谨治学、认真做人，对远游的儿子从方方面面给予指点。有一位学姐曾经评价这本书为“值得背诵”。

我这是在列书目吗？四不像。好吧，这篇字供所有有缘看到的正不知看什么书好的大学低年级同学参考。如果你是那种中学就已经读过《二十四史》的早早开窍的孩子，看到这篇就一笑而过吧。

《》这个、以及后面的无数个书名号，留给你。看完你心爱的书之后慢慢填写吧！新年快乐！认真地去生活、去爱、去珍惜，阅读、思考、旅行、写作，不让无谓的烦恼浪费你宝贵的生命。好好对待2015年。

2015年1月18日