创意阅读6-10单元教参及答案.doc

UNIT SIX: The Archaeology of Today

Note on the topic:

A common impression of “archaeology” is of scientists excavating ancient sites to find evidence of societies or individuals who died hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago. However, archaeologists are also interested in features of relatively modern societies, and how these features affect present day societies. This topic introduces students to one of the methods that archaeologists use to gain a clearer picture of modern life; they study what items society throws away. The writer suggests that some of the ideas we have about modern life are not necessarily correct. Later in the unit, students are encouraged to think about the purposes of their reading and are asked to summarise and categories information by using tables.

Before you read

There are no correct or incorrect answers to these aspects of life. Students should be encouraged to be creative in their ideas and try to relate specific items of rubbish that might be found with each aspect. Students might be asked to write ideas of sources of information on each aspect on the board. Examples of such items might include:

What people read: Old books, newspapers and magazines would be useful if they can still be read. As well as the types of each publication, the numbers of each might also show how popular each was when compared to the other.
How children play: The types and numbers of various toys might provide information on this aspect of life. The advertisements in newspapers, magazines and catalogues might also help.
Where people travel: Souvenirs from different places, again, advertisements in newspapers and travel brochures, even old airline tickets might be found. Also, old postcards written from relatives or friends may be found.
What people eat: This is probably the easiest to find information on. Food itself is perishable, so may not be useful. However, the packaging of food items (including a date stamp in many cases) would be extremely useful.
What people buy: A little more vague, but items which are found in larger numbers would give evidence of certain types of purchases being more popular. Also, old the packaging from purchases might be found.
What people wear: Again, a relatively easy aspect to research. It is likely that many items of clothing would be found. Photographs in any old publications might also help.
How people learn: It is, perhaps, unlikely evidence relevant to this aspect of life would be readily found. Perhaps, old publications, especially educational textbooks, might help.
Types of work: Again, job advertisements in newspapers would help. Possibly, items of clothing related to specific jobs might also help.
What people drink: This would be researched in the same way as food items – by finding the packaging of drinks (and advertising).
What people think: This would be very difficult to research. Perhaps any personal letters, postcards, diaries might help, but they would be very specific to individuals and it would be difficult to gain an overall impression of the society. Newspaper articles would be a better source perhaps.
Programmes: Again, published programme lists in newspapers and magazines would be the only source of information on this aspect of life. Perhaps the packaging on video cassettes and VCDs/DVDs might also help.

Words to note

Column A
Column B

Accurate
Correct or true in every detail
Affluent
Rich enough to buy things for pleasure
Discard
To get rid of something that you no longer want or need
Dump
A place where large amounts of waste are
Taken, usually outside a town
Exotic
Interesting or exciting because of being unusual or not familiar
Go off
If food or drink goes off, it is no longer fresh
Hazardous
Dangerous, especially to people’s health or safety
Junk food
Food that is not healthy because it
Contains a lot of fat, salt, and sugar
Lump
A solid piece of something that does not have a regular shape
Partially
Not completely
Plentiful
Present or available in large quantities
Project
A planned piece of work that has a particular aim
Refined
A substance that is refined is now pure
Because other things have been removed
From it
Shudder
If you shudder, your body suddenly
Shakes, for example because you
Suddenly feel cold or frightened
Stale
Stale food such as bread is old and no longer fresh
Undertake
To agree to be responsible for a job or project and do it
Volunteer
Someone who is not paid for the work that they do
At random
Without a particular method, pattern, or purpose

Words to note in context:

1. When you get the form, please make sure your personal details are accurate.
2. You need be fairly affluent family to afford to live in this neighbourhood.
3. What people discard can often tell us a lot about them.
4. It is hard to imagine a group of famous scientists searching through a rubbish dump for important archaeological evidence.
5. I went with my parents to very exotic holiday resort last year.
6. I think you should eat these apples today; they are starting to go off.
7. Rock climbing can be a very hazardous hobby.\
8. Young people seem to be eating more and more junk food.
9. “How many lumps of sugar do you want in your coffee?”
10. I think he has only partially understood the explanation.
11. There is a plentiful supply of fresh fruit in the markets.
12. Unfortunately, my research project has run out of money and so must come to an end.
13. I think your research methodology needs to be refined a little.
14. I shudder to think of the consequences of your recent actions!
15. I think this bread is a bit stale; we should through it away.
16. Before you agree to undertake this very difficult job, you should think carefully about whether or not you can spare the time.
17. I am looking for a volunteer to help me search the rubbish dump!
18. I will select two students at random to present their findings.

Understanding the text

Part A: Comprehension

1. Why is rubbish important for archaeologists?
It is important because it contains a great deal of evidence about how a society lived their everyday lives.

2. What is the Garbage Project?
The Garbage Project is a research project carried out by the University of Arizona. It studies the garbage in city rubbish dumps to find evidence of the lifestyles of the local population. It started in 1973 in Tucson, but has now expanded to many other cities and has built a huge database of information on most aspects of mocern American life.

3. How is the garbage sorted?
The garbage is sorted into a variety of categories (food items, dangerous materials, personal items etc.)

4. Why do people waste more meat during times of meat shortages?
This is because when there is a shortage of something, people try to hoard large supplies of the item. This frequently means that the item needs to be thrown away before it can be used – perhaps because of a shortage of storage space or because it starts to perish.

5. What are the reasons for the differences between what people say they throw away and what is found in their waste bins?
There are two reasons for this. The first is that people do not want to be seen as wasteful when it comes to food. They say (and think) they throw away less food than they actually do. The other reason is that they know they should be eating less junk food and more healthy food, but in fact the evidence from the garbage is that they eat more junk food. They are not deliberately lying, they just have an inaccurate impression of their own eating habits.

6. What is the value of the Garbage Project?
The Garbage Project can give a clear impression of how people live and behave.

Part B: True or false

Indicate whether each of the following statements is true or false. Correct any false statements in the box provided.

1. The Garbage Project is found only in Arizona. [F]
2. Every household in Tucson had its rubbish collected and studied for a year. [F]
3. Student volunteers help sort the garbage that is collected. [T]
4. Americans threw away Mexican sugar because it tasted bad. [F]
5. Poor people prefer to buy larger economy packets of food because they are better value for money. [F]
6. Garbage archaeology is useful to study both ancient and modern societies. [T]

Corrections
1. It was started in Arizona, but has now been expanded to cover many other American cities and even Mexico City as well.
2. There are too many households in Tucson to collect from each and every one. Therefore, only a sample of households had their rubbish collected. Also, there is no time specified in the text, it simply says “over a period of time”.
4. The passage does not specify the quantity of Mexican sugar found – simply that some was found in Tucson when there was a sugar shortage. There is no evidence that it tasted bad.
5. The evidence shows that poor people by smaller packets of food and not the larger economy packets (which more wealthy families bought). They may have wanted to buy the more economical larger packets but could not afford the larger outlay of money.

Developing your Skills

A) Identifying Purposes of Reading

This activity helps students to focus on the information they need while reading a text. Understanding why you are reading will clearly help you to understand what you are looking for (if anything). This activity could be introduced (or followed up) by asking students to write on the board any pieces of writing that they had read over the last day or two. Then asking the class to identify the purpose of reading each piece of writing. This is likely to show that there is a specific purpose behind almost everything we read.

SITUATION 1

Your purpose in reading the text would be to gain a general overview of all aspects of the Project. The project itself would be the focus of your reading and other elements in the text would be skimmed through.

SITUATION 2

In this case, you would only focus on the sections of the text which outlined how the project was carried out – i.e. the methodology they used. You would have little interest in the other, more general, sections of the text. Even when the methodology is not directly stated, while reading you would be trying to interpret the methodology used.

SITUATION 3

In this case, you would not be directly interested in the project itself, but more in the findings of the project. You may not even want to mention the project in your article.

B) Using Tables to Summarise/Categorise Information for Different Purposes

Students are likely to think of different ways to categorise and tabulate the information. There are no correct or incorrect ways of doing this. Students might be asked to justify their design. Different designs (tables) can be shown and compared. Possible examples of table designs are shown below:

Situation 2: Research Methodology

Details
Location of research

Number of cities covered

Aspects of life studied

Data collection methods:
How garbage was collected
Time scale involved
Number of households
How is garbage stored
How is garbage sorted
How is garbage disposed of
Where people interviewd

Situation 3: Magazine article

Details
Why rubbish is important

What rubbish can tell us

How can rubbish be analysed

Interesting examples of findings:
Example 1
Example 2

What people say about their rubbish

Extending your vocabulary

Part A: Antonyms and synonyms

Most of the words in this activity come from the Words to note section and the students should find them relatively easy (with the exception of question 1 as it has several answers). An extension to this task could be to ask pairs of students to find say 10 words in the text and think of antonyms and synonyms for each word. They then write the words from the text on the board and invite their classmates to work out the antonyms and synonyms. Another, perhaps more stimulating, activity is to ask a student to call out any word from the text which is not a proper noun. The first student to call out a synonym to this word chooses another word from the text and so on. Of course this would also be possible, but more difficult, with antonyms.

Answer these questions.

1. What words in the text have the same meaning as ‘garbage’?
Rubbish, waste, (junk), refuse
2. What is another word for ‘thrown away’?
Discarded
3. What is the opposite of ‘healthy food’?
Junk food
4. Which words means ‘to some extent’?
partially
5. Which word means ‘strange’ and ‘unusual’
exotic
6. Which words means ‘rich’ and ‘having lots of money’
affluent

Part B: Cloze passage

Use the words in the box to complete the paragraph.

hazardous partially plentiful stale lumps refined shudder go off

We may [shudder] when we consider the [plentiful] amounts of waste – some [hazardous] – that are thrown away every day. Food such as bread that has gone [stale], or dairy products that quickly [go off]; fruit that has been [partially] eaten, and [lumps] of unwanted meat show how wasteful we are. Our [refined] lifestyle is based on consuming things that we do not need.

Expanding your creativity:

Several examples of acrostics on rubbish are given in the students’ book. Students might be encouraged to try to write acrostics on any other subject they like. A very common form of acrostic among young people is love acrostic where the letters spell out the name of the partner. Animals, countries, famous people etc. can all be used as the topic of an acrostic.

An example of a “Love acrostic” might be:

Sweet and sensuous
Unlike anyone else I’ve ever met
Simply the most beautiful
And wonderful person I know
Nobody else can compare to you

Some examples of acrostics written by young people are:

Does any one realize all the
Ridiculous things
Actors and actresses
Must endure before hearing the
Applause?

C reamy or
H ot, it makes my mouth scream
O n and on
C hocolate, chocolate
O h, yum
L uscious chocolate, I can't believe I
A te it all. It
T ickles my throat
E ach time I eat it, mmm oh I love chocolate.

F anciful colors
L ovely colors
O verflowing
W ith blossoms, green leaves, and long stems.
E veryone appreciates how they brighten up a room.
R eaching out to the world
S aying hello !

Going for the gold
You know you
Might
Not win. Those endless hours
At the gym
Starting your body to work hardest.
The excitement and nerves at the meet; the joy when you land on your feet.
It's hurry and do your home work; it's eating your supper in the
Car. It's the love of the
Sport and the Olympic dream.

UNIT SEVEN: Home Truths

Note on the topic

This unit describes the attitudes a typical British person has about his or her home and suggests possible reasons for these attitudes. It