英语书信格式及写作范文汇总8篇 作文怎么写（汇编19篇）

英语字母教学作为英语学习的基础，是小学英语教学中重要一环，这一阶段的教学，教师应给予足够的重视，通过各种教学组织形式使这一阶段的学习得以很好的落实。学好26个字母对以后单词的学习起着至关重要的作用。因此，在学习字母阶段，我们要利用一切可利用的资源，创设情境，让学生和字母交朋友、做游戏。

一、字母读音教学

1. 注重示范发音的正确性

字母发音直接影响着学生单词的发音，而且学生错误的发音一旦形成就很难再纠正。因此教师在教学字母之前一定要多听录音，纠正好自己的发音。在课堂教学中教师要让学生听磁带跟读，观察他们的口形，并鼓励模仿得好的学生示范领读，帮助其他同学纠正发音。

2. 把握学生的发音难点

受各地方方言的影响，学生对字母的发音往往会出错。比如：南方人容易把A读成/e/。因此，教师要把握好学生方言发音难点，预先采取各种教学方法防止错误发音的出现。

3. 强化个别字母教学

尽管许多学生对字母有了一定程度的掌握，但大多数学生都没有进行过系统的字母学习，中间难免存在着许多似是而非的现象。例如学生对GgJj两个字母的读音容易混淆，对Uu和Ii这两个字母的发音不到位。教师在教学中应针对这种情况加强这几个字母的训练。

4. 注重读音归类教学

把字母按读音进行分类是字母读音教学的一个重要任务，也是学生觉得有一定难度的一项内容。为了使学生能更好得掌握，教师可采用分家游戏的方法，按家族将26个字母进行分类记忆。首先将字母划分为七个家族，再对号入座，最终编成一首音素家族chant 帮助学生记忆：

A、H、J、K 是A 家族，A，A是族长。

E的家族有八位，BCDE，GPTV，E，E是族长。

/e/ 的家族没有族长，它的成员有七位，FLMN，SX 和Z。

U 的家族有三位，UQW，U，U是族长。

I 的家族有两位，IY，I，I是族长。(手势指着自己)

R 和O单独住，它们自己是族长。

5. 注重语音暗线的铺垫

在三年级下册学生用书中，字母读音和字母例词的安排是一条语音暗线，教师教学时要努力让学生掌握字母的正确读音，并初步感知字母在例词中的读音，为以后学习语音奠定基础。比如讲到字母Ee时，例词是egg，elepghant，教师可突出字母E的发音。英语有48个国际音标，如果学生能在学习 26个字母的同时掌握与此相关的26个音素，将会为以后的语音学习打好基础。

二、字母书写教学

字母的书写过程要一步步进行：先观察性状，再观察笔顺、占格情况，然后书空，使用活动手册进行描红，最后达到仿写。

1. 字母认读的教学

字母的书写首先要求学生能正确区分一些形近的字母。有些字母可以通过猜谜的方法让学生记住它们的形状特点。例如：弯弯的月牙(C)、一条小蛇 (S)、三叉路口(T)、1加3(B)、一座宝塔(A)、胜利的象征(V)、大号鱼钩(J)、一张弓(D)、一扇小门(n)、一棵小苗(r)、一把椅子 (h)。这些谜语既能让学生记住字母的形，又能激发学生的学习兴趣。同时，还可以让学生自编谜语学习字母，充分发挥学生的想象能力。另外，还可以将字母的一部份遮住，让学生根据漏出来部分来猜字母。

2. 字母书写的教学

字母的书写是小学生的一个薄弱环节。小学的英语书写一定要求学生做到严格遵照书写规范，教师绝对不能马虎。因为英语字母有印刷体和书写体之分，所以容易使学生在书写时发生混淆，教师在教学时应多在这方面进行强调。

(1)笔顺教学

教师要充分利用多媒体设施让学生仔细观察字母的笔画和笔顺。正确的笔顺在活动手册的描红练习中有正确的示范。但有时学生会受到汉语拼音笔顺的影响，错误书写字母，因此教师要对容易出错的笔顺进行比较细致的指导。如i和j都是后加点，t先写钩，H先两竖等。建议教师不妨采用汉语拼音的教法，使用一些形象的比喻，帮助学生理解记忆书写规则，防止笔画出错。比如：H是一双筷子拴根线，j是海豹顶皮球，i是小海狮头上顶个球，t是伞把带开关等。

(2)格式教学

字母的占格同样是字母书写教学中的一个教学难点，尤其是当字母的大小写混在一起的时候，学生很容易混淆。这样，教师要先清楚示范，提醒学生注意并总结字母占格的规律。同时，教师还可以借助儿歌帮助学生掌握字母的占格规律。如：英语书写，四线三格，大写字母一二格，上不顶线是原则;小写字母认准格，上面有 ‘辫’一二格，下面有‘尾’二三格，无‘辫’无‘尾’中间格;i，t中上一格半。在学生掌握了字母的占格规律后，还要通过活动手册上的描红来加强练习。这里要注意的是，到一定阶段的时候，教师要让学生能在没有四线格的一条线上，甚至是没有任何线的白纸上也能正确地表示出字母的书写格式。

三、操练

字母操练我们还可以采用游戏的形式。

1. What’s missing?游戏

学了几个字母以后，把字母卡片放在一起让学生认读，然后抽去其中的一张，让学生寻找：What’s missing?此时，学生注意力高度集中，急于表现自己，识记的效果就会很好。

2. 左邻右舍游戏

学生准备好已经学过的字母卡片，教师出示一个字母，让学生找出它的左邻右舍，请找到的几个学生快速把字母拿到讲台上站在相应的位置上，其余的学生一起认读这几个字母。

3. Make letters游戏

让学生用肢体动作表示不同的字母，或让学生用火柴棒拼出不同字母的形状。

根据中文大意，写出意思连贯、符合逻辑、不少于50词的短文。

假设你叫王明，昨天收到了笔友David的e-mail，得知他不久要到北京来学习中文。他想了解如何学好中文。请你用英文给他回复一封e-mail，介绍学习中文的体会和方法，提出你的建议，以及表达你帮助他学好中文的愿望。

Dear David,

Im glad youll come to Beijing to learn Chinese. Chinese is very useful, and many foreigners are learning it now. Its difficult for you because its quite different from English. You have to remember as many Chinese words as possible. Its also important to do some reading and writing. You can watch TV and listen to the radio to practise your listening. Do your best to talk with people in Chinese. You can learn Chinese not only from books but also from people around you. If you have any questions, please ask me. Im sure youll learn Chinese well.

Hope to see you soon in Beijing.

Yours,

Wang Ming

一.概念

记叙文也称叙述文，是一种以记叙/叙述的手法来表述人物、事件的文体。常见的属于记叙文文体的作品有：故事、游记、通讯、新闻报道、历史、 人物传记、日记和回忆录等。记叙文大致可以分为两大类：以记人为主的记叙文和以叙事为主的记叙文。前者主要是对人物的经历、活动或者性格特征进行叙述;后者则是对某一事件的发生、发展过程和结果进行叙述。前者重在描述人物的活动，而后者则重在表述事件的发生发展过程。

二.六大要素

记叙文的写作要注意交待清楚六大要素，即时间(time)、地点(place)、 人物( character)、事件的原因(cause)、经过(process)和结果( effect)。

由于记叙文中所涉及的要素比其他文体相对要多、要复杂，所以整篇文章的结构安排就显得尤其重要，安排不合理就会使读者产生混乱的感觉。

记叙文的展开一般都是以时间为主线来组织所要叙述的内容，使读者对文章中的人物或事件有一个比较清晰的了解。记叙文的结构安排通常有三种形式:正叙、倒叙和插叙。正叙是英语叙述文中最常用的一种结构，即以人物出现、活动或事件开始发生的时间点作为记叙的起点，然后按照人物活动的展开、事件发生发展的自然顺序进行叙述。倒叙则是在文章的开头就交待人物活动或事件发展的结果。插叙这一结构在我们的英文写作中很少用到。

三.时态

记叙文讲述的大多是过去已经发生的活动或事件，因此用过去时态(一般过去时、过去进行时、过去将来时、过去完成时)的作品比较多。但有时为了使文章显得更加真实、亲切和生动，也可以使用现在时态(一般现在时、 现在进行时、现在将来时、现在完成时)。

四.人称

记叙某个人物的经历、活动或某件事情的经过离不开叙述的主体，即 “人称”。记叙文中的人称大多采用第一人称或第三人称的形式。第一人称的叙述主观色彩较浓，可以增强文章的真实感，有利于表述细腻的情感和细节的过程;第三人称的叙述可以超越时空的限制，更加真实、客观地表述某一人物活动或事件的全过程。

无论采用第一人称，还是采用第二人称，都要保持全文叙述主体的人称的一致性。注意：句式尽量要多变，不要通篇文章的句子都以人称代词开头，否则文章会显得单调沉闷。例如: I loved the book first because of its beautiful heroine. Then I found it a romantic love story which greatly moved me. I now find that it is better taken as the growth story of a naive girl into a strong-willed woman. I realize that it is the essence of the book that attracts such big number of faithful readers.

这一段描述在用词、内容、逻辑上都不错，但过多地使用了以“I”开头的句子，使文章略显单调乏昧，给读者的印象大打折扣。

五.措辞与表达

在全国大学英语四级考试的各种作文体裁中，记叙文需要应试者具有更全面的语言技能与篇章组织能力。四级考试中常见的议论文和说明文分别要求语言的准确性和论证的合理性、可信性;而记叙文的语言则以生动、真实、 贴切为准则。同一个记叙文题目，不同的人会描述不同的人物经历或事件，又很少有固定的表达或句式可供参考，这时作者的综合语言水平就会表现出来，对能否取得高分起到了相当重要的作用。 这就要求考生平时要多注意语言的磨练和积累。

六.记叙文写作技巧

1. 仔细审题，明确主题，选准素材，罗列提纲。

2. 写好第一段

最好能采用一个复句并且用上几个四级水平的单词或词组。这样的文章开篇方式会使读者或阅卷人确信接下来的文章也一样精彩。

我们来看这样一段文章的开头:

The results of the college entrance examination came. I tore open the envelope. As soon as I saw the score，tears streamed down my face. I fell into my bed and did not get up the whole day. All was over. What is the meaning to live on earth? For the first time， I thought of death， of being a vagrant and of being single all my life. I was only seventeen. Wasn’t it cruel to me? My father was hurt and he could not stand it that his son was a disgrace. He was angry beyond words. My mother kept silent，and often I saw her in tears. Horror filled the house.

怎么样，你自己是否也被一种失落与绝望的气氛所笼罩，并且期待着看到作者接下来会做些什么呢?

3. 结构要清晰

下笔之前一定要对整篇文章的结构有一个完整的构想，作文的框架、主题和脉络是最重要的采分点。要清楚每一段要陈述哪些内容，这样不仅可以增强文章的逻辑性和可接受性，还可以使整篇作文的行文水到渠成，不会有凑字数的烦恼。

4. 尽量多使用表示转折、顺接、因果和时间的连接词

如first、second、moreover、for one thing…for another、on the one hand…on the other hand等。这样既可以显示语言功底，又增强了记叙内容的连贯性和生动性。

5. 文章不要写得太长

有的考生遇到触动自己内心情感的记叙文题目时就“一发不可收拾”，但由于时间有限，结果草草收尾，甚至没有结尾。四级作文毕竟是应试作文， 只要充分发挥出自己的英语语言水平，表述出所规定的内容就可以了。

6. 要多用四级词汇，要使句式多样化

没有语言错误并不是高分作文的保障(基本没有语言错误只是8分的基本要求) ;作文想达到11分以上，四级词汇和句型必须达到一定的比例。如，表示“重视”的词汇有stress，emphasize等，但选用短语attach importance to更能吸引阅卷人的注意;disagree和frown on sth. 都表示反对或不赞成，前者就平淡，后者表达意思很生动，更能引起阅卷老师的注意。

简单句和复合句合理搭配，长短句交替使用，会增强文章的节奏感，使描写更生动，给阅卷老师留下深刻印象。如：

(1) 名词化手段：用名词或名词词组替换一个句子或句子的主要部分，然后使这个名词或名词短语成为另外一个句子的组成部分，以达到合并句子的目的。如：

We were very much surprised. Mary refused the invitation.

We were very much surprised at/by Mary’s refusal of the invitation.

(2) 定语化手段：根据语义关系，可以把其中一句转换成形容词或形容词性成分、分词短语、定语从句等，如：

The winnerwas in no mood for speeches. The winner was hot and tired.

Thewinner，hot and tired，was in no mood for speeches.(转换成形容词短语) 7. 字迹清楚，卷面整洁。尽量不涂抹。 8. 最后的2—3分钟，进行修改检查。

检查的内容不是“大处着眼”，而是“小处着手”;不是考虑作文的框架结构，而是留心细枝末节。

一.开头用语：

良好的开端等于成功的一半.在写作文时，通常以最简单也最常用的方式---开门见山法。也就是说, 直截了当地提出你对这个问题的看法或要求，点出文章的中心思想。

1.议论论文：

A. Just as every coin has two sides, cars have both advantages and disadvantages.

B. Compared to/ In comparison with letters, e-mails are more convenient.

C. When it comes to computers, some people think they have brought us a lot of convenience. However,...

D. Opinions are divided on the advantages and disadvantages of living in the city and in the countryside.

E. As is known to all/ As we all know, computers have played an important role/part in our daily life.

F. Why do you go to university? Different people have different points of view.

2. 书信：

A. I am writing to you to apply for admission to your university as a visiting scholar.

B. I read an advertisement in today’s China Daily and I apply for the job...

C. Thank you for your letter of May 5.D. How happy I am to receive your letter of January 9.

E. How nice to hear from you again.

3. 口头通知或介绍情况：

A. Ladies and gentlemen, May I have your attention, please. I have an announcement to make.

B. Attention, please. I have something important to tell you.

C. Mr. Green, Welcome to our school. To begin with, let me introduce Mr. Wang to you.

4. 演讲稿：

A. Ladies and gentlemen, I feel very much honored to have a chance here to make a speech on the subject -- A Balance Diet and Health.

B. Good morning everyone! Allow me, first of all, on behalf of all present here, to extend our warm welcome and cordial greeting to our distinguished guest.

二.并列用语：

as well as, not only…but (also), including,

A. Not only do computers play an important part in science and technology, but also play an informative role in our daily life.

B. All of us, including the teachers / the teachers included, will attend the lecture.

C. He speaks French as well as English.=He speaks English, and French as well.=He speaks not only English but also French.

D. E-mail, as well as telephones, is playing an important part in daily communication.

三.对比用语：

on one hand ,on the other hand, on the contrary/contrary to ..., though, for one thing ;for another, nevertheless

A. I know the Internet can only be used at home or in the office, but on the other hand, it is becoming more and more popular for much information as well as clear and vivid pictures.

B. It is hard work; I enjoy it though.

C. Contrary to what I had originally thought, the trip turned out to be fun.

四. 递进用语：

even, besides, what’s more, as for, so…that…, worse still, moreover, furthermore; but for, in addition, to make matters worse

A. The house is too small for a family of four, and furthermore/besides/what’s more/moreover /in addition/worse still , it is in a bad location.

五. 例证用语：

in one’s opinion, that is to say, for example, for instance, as a matter of fact, in fact, namely

A. As a matter of fact, advertisement plays an informative role in our daily life.

B. There is one more topic to discuss, namely/that is ( to say ), the question of education.

六. 时序用语：

first/firstly, meanwhile, before long, ever since, while, at the same time

in the meantime, shortly after, nowadays,

A. They will be here soon. Meanwhile, let’s have coffee.

B. Firstly, let me deal with the most important difficulty.

七. 强调用语：

especially, indeed, at least, at the most, What in the world/on earth.. , not at all ,

A. Noise is unpleasant, especially when you are trying to sleep.

B What in the world/on earth are you doing?

八. 因果用语：

thanks to, because, as a result, because of/as a result of , without, with the help of..., owe ...to...

A. The company has a successful year, thanks mainly to the improvement in export sales.

B. As a result, many of us succeeded in passing the College Entrance Examinations.

九. 总结用语：

in short; briefly/ in brief ; generally speaking, in a word, as you know, as is known to all

A. Generally speaking, sending an e-mail is more convenient than sending letters.

B. In short, measures must be taken to prevent the environment being polluted.

常用句型

(一)段首句

1. 关于……人们有不同的观点。一些人认为……

There are different opinions among people as to……Some people suggest that ……

2. 俗话说(常言道)……，它是我们前辈的经历，但是，即使在今天，它在许多场合仍然适用。

There is an old saying……Its the experience of our forefathers，however，it is correct in many cases even today.

3. 现在，……，它们给我们的日常生活带来了许多危害。首先，……;其次，……。更为糟糕的是……。

Today, …… which have brought a lot of harms in our daily life. First, ……Second,……What makes things worse is that…….

4. 现在，……很普遍，许多人喜欢……，因为……，另外(而且)……。

Nowadays，it is common to ……. Many people like …… because …… Besides，……

5. 任何事物都是有两面性，……也不例外。它既有有利的一面，也有不利的一面。

Everything has two sides and …… is not an exception，it has both advantages

and disadvantages.

6. 关于……人们的观点各不相同，一些人认为(说)……，在他们看来，……

People’s opinions about …… vary from person to person. Some people say that ……To them,……

7. 人类正面临着一个严重的问题……，这个问题变得越来越严重。

Man is now facing a big problem …… which is becoming more and more serious.

8. ……已成为人的关注的热门话题，特别是在年青人当中，将引发激烈的辩论。

……has become a hot topic among people，especially among the young and heated debates are right on their way.

9. ……在我们的日常生活中起着越来越重要的作用，它给我们带来了许多好处，但同时也引发一些严重的问题。

……has been playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day life.it has brought us a lot of benefits but has created some serious problems as well.

10. 根据图表/数字/统计数字/表格中的百分比/图表/条形图/成形图可以看出……。很显然……，但是为什么呢?

According to the figure/number/statistics/percentages in the /chart/bar graph/line/graph，it can be seen that……while. Obviously，……but why?

(二)中间段落句

1. 相反，有一些人赞成……，他们相信……，而且，他们认为……。

On the contrary，there are some people in favor of……t the same time，they say……

2. 但是，我认为这不是解决……的好方法，比如……。最糟糕的是……。

But I dont think it is a very good way to solve …….For example，……Worst of all，…….

3. ……对我们国家的发展和建设是必不可少的，(也是)非常重要的。首先，……。而且……，最重要的是……

……is necessary and important to our countrys development and construction. First，……Whats more, ……Most important of all,……

4. 有几个可供我们采纳的方法。首先，我们可以……。

There are several measures for us to adopt. First, we can……

5. 面临……，我们应该采取一系列行之有效的方法来……。一方面……，另一方面，

Confronted with……we should take a series of effective measures to…….

For one thing，For another，

6. 早就应该拿出行动了。比如说……，另外……。所有这些方法肯定会……。

It is high time that something was done about it. For example. ……In addition.……All these measures will certainly…….

7. 为什么……?第一个原因是……;第二个原因是……;第三个原因是……。总的来说，……的主要原因是由于……

Why…… The first reason is that ……The second reason is ……The third is…….For all this, the main cause of ……use to …….

8. 然而，正如任何事物都有好坏两个方面一样，……也有它的不利的一面，象……。

However, just like everything has both its good and bad sides, ……also has its own disadvantages, such as ……

9. 尽管如此，我相信……更有利。

Nonetheless, I believe that ……is more advantageous.

10. 完全同意……这种观点(陈述)，主要理由如下：

I fully agree with the statement that ……because…….

(三)结尾句

1. 至于我，在某种程度上我同意后面的观点，我认为……

As far as I am concerned, I agree with the latter opinion to some extent. I think that ……

2. 总而言之，整个社会应该密切关注……这个问题。只有这样，我们才能在将来……。

In a word, the whole society should pay close attention to the problem of ……Only in this way can ……in the future.

3. 但是，……和……都有它们各自的优势(好处)。例如，……，而……。然而，把这两者相比较，我更倾向于(喜欢)……

But ……and……have heir own advantages. For example, …… while……

Comparing this with that, however, I prefer to……

4. 就我个人而言，我相信……，因此，我坚信美好的未来正等着我们。因为……

Personally, I believe that…… Consequently, I’m confident that a bright future is awaiting us because……

5. 随着社会的发展，……。因此，迫切需要……。如果每个人都愿为社会贡献自己的一份力量，这个社会将要变得越来越好。

With the development of society, ……So its urgent and necessary to ……If every member is willing to contribute himself to the society, it will be better and better.

6. 至于我(对我来说，就我而言)，我认为……更合理。只有这样，我们才能……

For my part, I think it reasonable to…… Only in this way can you……

7. 对我来说，我认为有必要……。原因如下：第一，……; 第二，……;最后……但同样重要的是……

In my opinion, I think it necessary to……The reasons are as follows. First ……second …… Last but not least,……

8. 在总体上很难说……是好还是坏，因为它在很大程度上取决于……的形势。然而，就我个人而言，我发现……。

It is difficult to say whether ……is good or not in general as it depends very much on the situation of…….however, from a personal point of view find……

9. 综上所述，我们可以清楚地得出结论……

From what has been discussed above, we may reasonably arrive at the conclusion that……

10. 如果我们不采取有效的方法，就可能控制不了这种趋势，就会出现一些意想不到的不良后果，所以，我们应该做的是……

If we can not take useful means, we may not control this trend, and some undesirable result may come out unexpectedly, so what we should do is

常用句型：

开头：

When it comes to ..., some think ...

There is a public debate today that ...

A is a commen way of ..., but is it a wise one?

Recentaly the problem has been brought into focus.

提出观点：

Now there is a growing awareness that...

It is time we explore the truth of ...

Nowhere in history has the issue been more visible.

进一步提出观点：

... but that is only part of the history.

Another equally important aspect is ...

A is but one of the many effects. Another is ... Besides, other reasons are...

提出假想例子的方式：

Suppose that...

Just imagine what would be like if...

It is reasonable to expect...

It is not surprising that...

举普通例子：

For example(instance),...

... such as A,B,C and so on (so forth)

A good case in point is...

A particular example for this is...

引用：

One of the greatest early writers said ...

"Knowledge is power", such is the remard of ...

"......". That is how sb comment ( criticize/ praise...).

"......". How often we hear such words like there.

讲故事

(先说故事主体)，this story is not rare.

..., such delimma we often meet in daily life.

..., the story still has a realistic significance.

提出原因：

There are many reasons for ...

Why .... , for one thing,...

The answer to this problem involves many factors.

Any discussion about this problem would inevitably involves ...

The first reason can be obiviously seen.

Most people would agree that...

Some people may neglect that in fact ...

Others suggest that...

Part of the explanation is ...

进行对比：

The advantages for A for outweigh the disadvantages of...

Although A enjoys a distinct advantage ...

Indeed , A carries much weight than B when sth is concerned.

A maybe ... , but it suffers from the disadvantage that...

承上启下：

To understand the truth of ..., it is also important to see...

A study of ... will make this point clear

让步：

Certainly, B has its own advantages, such as...

I do not deny that A has its own merits.

结尾：

From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw

the conclusion that ...

In summary, it is wiser ...

In short...

如何写通顺的英语

英语写作是语言应用的一个重要方面，也是语言能力测定的重要手段，衡量写作水平的标准便是看其是否能用学过的语言材料，语法知识等用文字的形式来表达描述。

书面语言表达一般分为三个过程：思维、组织、表达。先是思维，把要写的东西在脑中思考，这往往是个别的，孤立的一些素材，很凌乱琐碎；因此要对此进行组织，把这些思维作出整理，使其条理、系统化，但这还是较粗糙的，可能还有一些用词不当或语言错误；最后才是表达，把组织过的材料仔细推敲，确无问题了再落笔成文。

在撰写时要注意主谓语一致，时态呼应，用词贴切等，这就是写作。上述的三个过程，最难的就是第三个过程，这需要我们有较好的语法知识，掌握一定数量的句型，习惯用语，熟练的写作技巧，这样才能写出通顺生动的文章来。

总之，要提高英语写作水平，需要两方面的训练：一是语言基础方面的训练，要有扎实的造句、翻译等基本功，即用词法、句法等知识造出正确无误的句子；二是写作知识和能力方面的训练以掌握写作方面的基本方法和技巧。

那么，究竟怎样才能写好作文呢？

阅读优秀范文

首先要搞好阅读。阅读是写作的基础，在阅读方面下的功夫越深，驾驭语言的能力也就越强。所以要写好英语先要读好英语，在语言学习方面狠下苦功，教科书要读透，因为教科书中的文章都是一些很好的范文，文笔流畅，语言规范，精彩的一些课文段落要背诵。再就是要进行大量课外阅读，并记住一些好文章的篇章结构。

加强练词造句训练

其次，要加强练词造句的训练。词句对作文相当于造房的材料，无好材料就造不出好房子。平时在学习阅读时要注意收集积累，把好的词语、短语、句型做好笔记。平时在练习中的错误也要做好记录，再对照正确句子，使地道的英语句子如同条件反射，落笔就对。

了解英语写作格式

还有，要了解英语写作的不同体裁与格式。可以先看一本介绍英语写作入门的书，对英语写作有一个初步的概念，如怎么写议论文，如何提出论据，如何展开，如何确定中心句；又如，英语信的格式，如何根据不同身份写不同结束语等，然后根据不同的体裁进行写作练习。

用英语写日记

要养成记英语日记勤练笔的好习惯。经常用英语记日记，等于天天在练笔，这无疑是提高英语协作的行之有效的好办法。在记日记时，不要总是用简单句，要有意识地用一些好的词组、句型、关联词和复合句等，使文句更优美生动。还有要按照题目或所给情景写文章练笔。写好后对照范文，找出差距，然后再练习，这对提高英语作文也很有帮助，在游泳中学会游泳，只有多练习才能练好。

总之，平时学习语言素材积累多了，体裁格式记住了又经常练习不断提高，到作文下笔时就会得心应手，水到渠成。

导语：很多同学谈英语作文而色变，大家似乎都特别怕写作。其实要把英语作文写成高分不外乎就是多背，多看，多练，多积累，多仿。趁着还有时间，建议考生要抓紧复习提升，下面是高分作文写作的方法，17年的考生认真看看。

一、了解意图，抓住精髓

近年来的大作文非常玄妙，值得细品。首先，很可能大作文正在经历由时事向哲理过渡的重大变革，这在2001年、2002年、2004年、2007年、2009和2010年真题上表现得最为明显。其次，出题人将尽量用图画来表达意图，而不借助或少借助图中或图旁的文字，这样意义表达的会更深刻，对考生的思考力和判断力的要求也就更高。第三，图画的含义深刻，可以接受的解释也较多，但要想取得高分，必须紧扣图画，把握住其中的精髓，最深刻地表达其核心的意义。

二、扣紧主题

写大作文时切记要扣紧主题，切不可离题太远，导致最后回不来或时间不够写不完。另外，各部分之间的比例应适当，第一段不要太长。与主题相关的关键词语一定要用对，否则会影响分数。

三、看清要求

有的同学一看到写“网络”，就立即联想到这方面最火爆的话题“网络成瘾”，将主题确定为此。有的同学干脆将之转变为自己看到过的文章——“网络的利与弊”。这些都是不正确的做法。写大作文时，首先要减少语言的错误，提高语言的准确性。语言错误有许多种，有的是小错误，甚至可以忽略不计，而有些是大错误，是让老师看到后不得不扣分的错误。另一方面就是增加闪光点，除了结构清晰外，闪光点主要指好的词、词组或句型，一是使用恰当，二是要有变换。上述这两点都不容易，而结合起来就更难了。如果文章分为三段，那么起始段、结尾段和中间段落的开始部分是非常关键的。对于背诵的好词、词组和句型，一定要和具体的行文联系起来，融入到文章中去，不仅要用对，还要用好，避免给人突兀的感觉。

四、避免投机取巧

近年来，有些考生有投机的心理，结果却很惨烈。有的考生准备了万能模板，直接往上套，这样的效果并不好。正如有的较为激进的阅卷老师所说，这些考生是想通过不诚实的手段得到不属于他的东西，这样的人应该得到惩罚。实际上这些考生中有的水平还不错，如果坚持依靠自己，咬紧牙关奋力拼搏的话，结果会是不错的。

综上所述，对于作文这一部分来说，大家应该首先了解不同文章的特点和规律，而后用心地学习范文并进行模仿，然后练习全文写作并请老师批改再细细揣摩。相信通过这样的过程，大家的写作一定会有长足的进步。

英语写作中积累很重要。下面是语文迷网为大家整理的英语四级作文精彩句式，希望对你有帮助。

一.开头句型

1.Recently the phenomenon has become a heated topic.

2.Recently the problem has been brought into focus.

3. Nowadays there is a growing concern over ... .

4. What calls for special attention is that...

5. There’s no denying the fact that...

6. what’s far more important is that...

7.It is common knowledge that honesty is the best policy.

8.It is well-known that…

9.Many nations have been faced with the problem of ...

10.According to a recent survey, ...

11. With the rapid development of ..., ...

二.结尾句型

1.From what has been discussed above, we can draw the conclusion that ...

2.In conclusion, it is imperative that ...

3.In summary, if we continue to ignore the above-mentioned issue, more problems will crop up. 4.With the efforts of all parts concerned, the problem will be solved thoroughly.

5.Taking all these into account, we ...

6. Whether it is good or not /positive or negative, one thing is certain/clear...

7.All things considered, ...

8.It may be safely said that...

9.Therefore, in my opinion, it’s more advisable...

10. It can be concluded from the discussion that...

11. From my point of view, it would be better if...

三.表原因句型

1.A number of factors are accountable for this situation.

A number of factors might contribute to (lead to )(account for ) the phenomenon(problem).

2. The answer to this problem involves many factors.

3. The phenomenon mainly stems from the fact that...

4. The factors that contribute to this situation include...

5. The change in ...largely results from the fact that...

6. Part of the explanations for it is that ...

7. One of the most common factors (causes ) is that ...

8. Another contributing factor (cause ) is ...

9. Perhaps the primary factor is that ...

10. But the fundamental cause is that ...

四.表比较句型

1.The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

2.The advantages of A are much greater than those of B.

3.A may be preferable to B, but A suffers from the disadvantages that...

5.For all the disadvantages, it has its compensating advantages.

6.Like anything else, it has its faults.

7.A and B has several points in common.

8.However, the same is not applicable to B.

9. A and B differ in several ways.

10. Evidently, it has both negative and positive effects.

五.表证明句型

1. No one can deny the fact that ...

2. The idea is hardly supported by facts.

3. Unfortunately, none of the available data shows ...

4. Recent studies indicate that ...

5. There is sufficient evidence to show that ...

6. According to statistics proved by ..., it can be seen that ...

六.表结果句型

1. It may give rise to a host of problems.

2. The immediate result it produces is ...

3. It will exercise a profound influence upon...

4. Its consequence can be so great that...

七.表反驳句型

1. It is true that ..., but one vital point is being left out.

2. There is a grain of truth in these statements, but they ignore a more important fact.

3. Many of us have been under the illusion that...

4. It makes no sense to argue for ...

5. Such a statement mainly rests on the assumption that ...

6. Contrary to what is widely accepted, I maintain that ...

英语写作和汉语写作一样，要写出好文章除了要有好的内容外还少不了好的结构，而句子的好坏又取决于选词造句。小编收集了关于英语作文的写作技巧，欢迎阅读。

一、措辞

1、选择生动准确的词

词是语言的基本单位，人们要表达思想，就要选择适当的词语，这是写作的基本要求。

词可分为一般概念的词(general words)和具体概念的词(specific words)。表示一般概念的词含义模糊;表示具体概念的词含义明确，表达准确，生动形象。写作时合理地使用具体概念的词能够使句子表达的意思准确，内容生动，更富有感染力。试比较下面各组句子：

(l) A few houses were destroyed yesterday (general)

Five houses burnt down yesterday (specific)

(2)His relatives gave him two gifts(general)

His aunt and uncle gave hima watch and a Pen as the birthday gifts。(specific)

(3) Jack went to the window and looked at the crowd outside(general)

Jack tiptoed to the window and peeped into the room(specific)

上面各组句中，第一个句子抽象概括，给人以空泛的感觉：第二个句子用词具体，有个件，使人感到意思确切，生动逼真。

2、使用英语成语和习语

人们在长期使用语言的过程中，积累了大量的习惯表达法。这些成语、习语内涵丰富，语言生动活泼。文章中适当地使用这类短语，可避免语言的单调贫乏，使句子生动而富于内涵。如：

(l)George has lost his social position since his business failed.

可改为：George has come down in the world since his business failed

(2).Maybe you have time to go to the cinema,but I have more importavt businessto attend to.

可改为：Maybe you have time to go to the cinema,but I have other fish to fry.

3、用词的宽度

用词的宽度可以反映出写作者所掌握的词汇量。如果一个人掌握的词汇量大，那么当表达同一概念有不同的表达方法时，则可以换一种说法。如：

The teachers maintained that the students should give up love for the sake ofleaming Students,however,hold that fordidding love among college students is nogood.

这两句话里，谓语分别用了maintain和hold。如果将它们换为think，所表达的意思相同，但用词宽度则不如原文。这两句话中for the sake of，give uP,is no good等都是用词宽度的表现。

所以在英语写作中有意识地适当增加用词宽度既能体现学以致用的原则又能使文章取得良好效果。

二、句子的多样化

英语中，同一思想用不同句式表达，其效果会大不相同。要想写出好的文章，就要不断地变化句子的结构形式。

l、长短句交替使用

句子的长短是为表达思想服务的。英语短句结构简单，意思明白具有生动活泼而又干脆利索的表达效果，而长句结构复杂，信息丰富，能表达成熟的思想与复杂的概念。一味地使用长句或短句会使文章显得单调，乏味，从而影响文章的总体效果。科学地交替使用长短句使句子结构变化多样，不仅给文章带来顿挫起伏的语言美感，而且可以受到理想的修辞效果。请看下面的这段话：

She returned to her office.There was a note under the door. It was from Mr May.He said he was waiting for her in the coffee room.And he bad not found her sister.Hewas sorry to have missed her.

这段话用了一连串的短句，读起来单调呆板，平淡无味。为使文字更加生动，意思更加明确可改为：

When she returned to her office，the found a note from Mr May under the door.He said he was waiting for her in the coffee room and hadnt found her sister yet.Headded that he was sorry to have missed her.

修改后三个句子长短不一，读起来就给人以不同的感觉。

又如《大学英语》第一册第十课 Going Home，当汽车驶至 Brunsnick，车上的年轻人看见黄手帕时，出现了以下这两行文字：

Then，suddenly，all of the young people were up out of thelr seats，screamlng andshouting and cryin, doing small dances of joy.All except Vlngo.这两句话一长(23个词)一短(3个词)，彼此衬托互为凸现。第一句的两个and和四个-ing词，把热闹、喧哗的气氛喧染极至，长句之后，蜂回路转，一个仅三个词的短句扑入读者的双目几乎沸腾的场面顿时凝固但其余音未绝，此时外表虽冷漠，内心却炙热难当。

2、句子开头的多样化

“主-谓-宾”、“主-系-表”是英语的基本句型，主语领先句也是用得最多的句型。写作中为避免形式单一，当句子可以用主语开头，同时又可以其它结构开头时，不妨变换一下。如：

(1)Defeated in the minor exchanges,I now play my queen of trumps.(分词短语做状语开头)

(2)There are two ways in which one can own a book.( there be句型开头)

(3)Equally important is a good habit of reading(表语开头)

以上各句都可以用主语开句，但在篇章中通过改变句子开头，文章就会疏落有致，语言形式丰富多采。

3、句子结构的多样化

写作中可以通过句型结构的变化来增添文采，强化表现力。如：

(l) The love of the liberty is the love of the others;the love of power ls thelove of ourselves.

(平行结构.这类结构整齐、紧凑;句子生动、鲜明，语义贯通、语势强劲有力。)

(2)The days when we suffered from oppression and exploitation are gone.(这样表达文字通顺，但语意不很突出。)

改为：Gone are the days when we suffered fron oppression andexploitation.

(采用倒装句结构后，充分体现出受剥削受压迫的人民解放后扬眉吐气的心情。)

三、观点切题结构合理

这是写作中最重要的要求之一它要求写作开门见山直入主题。如写一篇谈“健康重要性”的文章，提示是1、健康的重要性;2、保持健康的方法;3、我的看法。按要求文章应按三个自然段来写，而每段开头都必须是提示的内容，因此，三段可以这么开头：

l.Good health is important to everyone of us.

2.There are many ways which can help build up our health.

3.As for me，I like running as well as playing basketball and football.

除了开门见山以外，论述的内容必须与提示保持一致，否则文章的语言再好，也只能算是失败之作。一般来说，这类文章的每个自然段都由三部分组成，即主题句，论述句和结论句。主题句由提示给出，论述句提供观点来论证主题句，结论句则是总结、归纳、概括主提句的观点。

总之，要写出一篇好的英语作文不是一朝一夕就能做到的。除了借助以上方法之外，还需从平时入手，勤写多练，以提高自己的写作水平和语言表达能力。

一、写提示议论文应考虑的几点

1、文章开头，能依据提示确立主题句(topic)阐明观点或看法。

2、会使用连接词分层次说明理由、缘由(supportingsentences)。

3、归纳总结，首尾呼应。

二、看图作文应考虑的几点

1、看懂图片，把图片展示的人物、地点、时间、事件等有机地串联起来，使之成为内容连贯的句子。

2、确定短文须用的时态和该用的人称。

3、确定体裁(说明文还是记叙文)，接着用简洁的语句描述图片或图表大意。

4、根据图片或图表大意议论。

(一)屈原投江

(one) Qu Yuan River

为了纪念爱国诗人屈原，居民为了不让跳下汨罗江的屈原尸体被鱼虾吃掉，所以在江里投下许多用竹叶包裹的米食(粽子)，并且竞相划船(赛龙船)希望找到屈原的尸体。

To commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, residents in order not to let Qu Yuans Miluo River jumped by fish and shrimp to eat, so in the river for the rice wrapped in bamboo leaves with many (dumplings), and race (rowing Dragon Boat Race) to find Qu Yuans body.

(二)曹娥寻父尸

(two) case of seeking father.

东汉孝女曹娥，因曹父溺江而亡，年仅十四岁的她沿江豪哭，经十七日仍不见曹父尸首，乃在五月一日投江，五日后两尸合抱而浮起的感人事迹， 乡人群而祭之。

The Eastern Han Dynasty filial daughter Cao E, drowned himself in a river because Cao father died, only fourteen years old, she cried along the ho, after seventeen days still do not see Cao father body, but in May 1st the river, five days from two dead and floating deeds, people group and sacrifice.

(三)白蛇传

(three) the legend of white snake

传说白蛇白素贞，为了报答许仙的恩惠，与许仙结为夫妻的凄美的爱情故事，传说端午节当天白蛇喝了雄黄酒，差点现出蛇形，加上法海白蛇及水淹金山寺的情节，都是脍炙人口的民间戏曲的曲目。

The legend of white snake and Bai Suzhen, in order to repay the grace of Xu Xian, and Xu Xianjie married the beautiful love story, the legend of the White Snake Legend of the Dragon Boat Festival a male Yellow Wine, almost a snake, white snake and flooded with sea Jinshan Temple of the plot, is a folk opera music win universal praise.

(四)伍子胥的忌日

(four) the anniversary of the death of Wu Zixu

传说伍子胥助吴伐楚后，吴王阖闾逝世，皇子夫差继位，伐越大胜，越王句践请和，伍子胥主战，夫差不听，却听信奸臣言，赐伍子胥自杀，并于于五月五日将尸体投入江中，此后人们于端午节纪祀伍子胥。

Legend has it that Wu Zixu will Fachu Wu, Wu helv Prince died, his successor, the victory of the king, and Wu Zixu battle, the king, do not listen, but listen to a word, give Wu Zixu Dutch act, and on May 5th the bodies into the river, then people in the Dragon Boat Festival worship Wu Zixu ji.

训练指导者方针的好坏是一个前提条件。合理地设置训练程序，使英语习作从初级到高级沿着一条循序渐进，由简到多的进程发展是成功训练者必须具备的指导思想。本篇认为，在习作训练的初期，应采纳一条从有材料可依的习作方式过渡到脱离本本进行自由写作方式的途径。从有材可依到元材可依的训练过程应包括三个阶段：

一、短文缩写(Summary)阶段。

短文缩写可以是就所学课文进行缩写，也可以采用其它阅读材料，但要求被缩写的材料难易程度不超过所学课本。被用于进行缩写的课文或其它材料必须观点明确，层次分明，叙述有条理。缩写时应做到简明扼要，抓住重点，不要拖泥带水，没有主次。初学阶段的被缩写材料不宜太长，以不超一千词为佳，缩写文以不超过2m词为佳。以下就一篇短文进行缩写，限于篇幅，短文内容有所节略。

Most shops in Britain open at 9.00 a.m. and close at 5.00 or 5.30 in the evening. Small shopsusually close for an hour at lunchtime. On one or two days a week-usually Thursday and/or Friday-some large food shops stay until about 8.00 p.m. for late night shopping.

Many shops are closed in the afternoon on one day a week. The days is usually Wednesday orThursday and it is a different day in different towns. Nearly all shops are closed on Sunday. News-paper shops are open in the morning, and sell sweets and cigarettes as well. But there are legal restrictions on selling many things on Sundays. Many large food shops(supermarkets)are self-service. When you go into one of these shops you take a basket and you put the things you wish to buy into it. You queue up at the cash-desk and pay for everything just before you leave. If anyone tries to take things from a shop without paying they are almost certain to be caught. Most shops have store detectives who have the job of catching shoplifters. Shoplifting is considered a serious crime by the police and the courts. When you are waiting to be served in a shop, itis important to wait your turn. It is important not to try to be served before people who arrived before you. Many people from overseas are astonished at the British habit of queuing.

将短文缩写如下：

This article tells us about British shops. British shops usually open at 9.00 a.m. and close at 5.00or 5.30 p.m. Many shops are closed in the afternoon one day a week. Nearly all shops are closed on Sundays. In Britain, many large food shops are self-service. And when you wait to be served in a shop, you have to wait patiently for your turn.

这是一篇不超过100词的缩写，句子基本上由原文各段落的主要内容构成。个别段落被完全删除以保证缩写重点突出，前后连贯。缩写是一种“依材剪贴”的习作方式，基本上采用原材料中的词语和句子，仅作了部分调整，是最初级的习作方式。

二、短文评论(Brief Comment)阶段。

短评是就所学课文或阅读材料进行评论。通过分析原文中的内容和观点，提出一定的看法。短评可以是对原文观点表示赞同，也可以提出异议或不同看法。如对前文便可作以下评论：

From the article we learned about British shops, about their opening and closing time and their service. But we find that there are something inconvenient with British shop service. First is the time. Shops in Britain open very late and close too early. Second is that there is almost no Sunday service. Where can people go if they suddenly need to buy something? The last is the habit of queuing. It will be a waste of time if the queue is too long.

初学阶段，短文评论的字数一般也应在150字左右，不宜写大多。短评是一种“一半依材一半发挥”的习作方式。在内容上，一部分取自原文，一部分靠自己的思考。在用词上，可以部分地依赖原文，也需使用一些其它词汇。此外，短评的行文布局和用句也是一半模仿，一半创造。短评的这种特点使它非常适合承接短文缩写阶段，而又为后期阶段打下一定的基础。

三、引导写作(Guided Writing)阶段。

引导写作可分为重新编排句子顺序。规定情景作文。看图作文。提纲作文。关键词作文等形式。这些形式均可以用于训练，但以提纲作文和关键词作文多用为佳. 提纲作文是一种给出题目和段落提纲的习作方式，其段落写作提纲可以采用段落主旨句的形式，也可以是短语。关键词作文是一种给出作文题目和一些关键词或词组的命题作文形式。由于有段落写作提纲或主旨句等，进行习作时，减少了审题环节，且写作思路受到引导。在训练初期，引导写作的命题应尽量与所学英语书本的内容挂钩，使学生能够参照一部分课文所学的词汇与结构，避免大多生词。如针对上篇短文便可出一道相关命题引导学生习作：

题目：shops in China

提纲：(1)中国商店的作息时间 (2)中国商店的周未服务情况 (3)中国商店服务态度的好坏 以上是关于英语习作初级阶段的训练步骤。三个步骤的三种形式，相承相继，循序渐进，为进入自由命题写作打下了良好的基础。既适合教师指导学生习作课使用，也适合学习者自我训练。事实证明，这三个步骤是英语习作人门的有效做法。

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

对于素材中用黑体字的部分，特别建议你熟读，背诵，因为它们在语言和观点上都值得吸收。学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。

因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！

1.?????? Proverbs

1. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.

2. The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.

3. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

4. The classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

5. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

6. It is the purpose of education to help us become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.

7. You see, real ongoing, lifelong education doesn’t answer questions; it provokes them.

8. People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

9.the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.

10. The essence of our efforts to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each as equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

11. A great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.

12. If you can read and don’, you are an illiterate by choice.

2. Damaging Research

A study by National Parent-Teacher Organization revealed that in the average American school, eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out. The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade, 80 percent of them feel pretty good themselves, but by the time they get to the sixth grade, only 10 percent of them have good self-images.

3. Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating equality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950s, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nations would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.

Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, t is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain. In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different have different expectations. Some feel that children should be taught basic job-related skills; still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity (and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language). On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to improve parents in their children’s education.

Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Corps, Vista, and Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail “the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages” and serve for at least one year. In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.

Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. At this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in the United States, although the concept is steadily gaining support among educators and social critics.

4. The Teacher’s Role

Given the undeniable importance of classroom experience, sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom. Often they start from the premise that, along with the influence of peers, students’ experiences in the classroom are of central importance to their later development. One study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students’ subsequent adult status. The surprising results of this study have important implications. It is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children’s lives, a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching. The reforms carried out by educational leaders like James Comer suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.

Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some way, the teacher-student relationship is an important part of education. Sociologists have pointed out that this relationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced, with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher. In other words, in conventional classrooms there is little opportunity for the students to become actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher’s authority: mentally withdrawing, interrupting, and the like. Hence, much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

5. Education Philosophy

For the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey (1859-1953), an American educator and writer. Dewey believed hat the school’s job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child, rather than to pour information, for which the child had no context, into him or her. In the Dewey system, the child becomes the active agent in his own education, rather than a passive receptacle for facts.

Consequently, American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching “life skills” –logical thinking, analysis, creative problem--solving. The actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process, which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present, including all the unknowns of the future. Students and teachers both regard pure memorization as an uncreative and somewhat vulgar.

In addition to “life skills”, schools are assigned to solve the ever growing stoke of social problems. Racism, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, reckless driving, and are just a few of the modern problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.

This all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

6. Student Life

To the students, the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start “changing classes”. This means that rather than spending the day in one classroom, they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers. This gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways, where a great deal of the important social action of high school traditionally takes place. Students have lockers in these hallways, around which thy congregate.

Society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously. Schoolchildren have a great deal of free time, which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities—sports, clubs, cheerleading, scouts—supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership, sportsmanship, ability to organize, etc. those who don’t become engaged in such activities or have afterschool jobs have plenty of opportunity to “hang out”, listen to teenager music, and watch television.

Compared to other nations, American students do not have much homework. Studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children’s success in school than other nationalities do. (Historically, there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life.) “He’s just not a scholar”, the American parents might say, content that their son is on the swim team and doesn’t take drugs. (Some of the young do choose to study hard, for reason of their own, such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)

What American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method. In innumerable ways children are pitted against each other—whether in classroom discussion, spelling bees, reading groups, or tests. Every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A’s and F’s (teachers often grade A=excellent; B=good; C=average; D=poor; and F=failed). A teacher who gives all A’s looks too soft—so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.

Foreign students sometimes don’t understand that copying from other people’s papers or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously. Here, it is important to show that you have done your own work and are displaying your own knowledge. It is more important than helping your friends to pass, whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers. Group effort goes against the competitive grain, and American students do not study together as many Asians do. Many Asians in this country consider their group study habits a large contributor to their school success.

7. Adult Education

After complaining about many aspects of American life, a 40-year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded, “But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work? Here you can change your whole life, start a new business, do what you really want to do.”

So at least to this person, school requirements weren’t inhibiting. And to millions of others, adult education is the path to a new career, or if not to a new career, to a new outlook. Schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew, and besides regular classes, schedule evening classes in special programs. Today there are so many people of retirement age in college that it is no longer remarkable.

8. Moral Relativism in American

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing (and remembering) some good old things. At the time of our nation’s founding, Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia. In this landmark statement on American education, Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writing, and of reading history, and geography. But he also emphasized the need “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests, and duties, as men and citizens.” Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one’s “morals” and “faculties”. That has been the dominant view of the aims of American education for over two centuries. But a number of changes, most of them unsound, have diverted schools from these great pursuits. And the story of the loss of the school’s original moral mission explains a great deal.

Starting in the early seventies, “values clarification” programs started turning up in schools all over America. According to this philosophy, the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values; rather, they were to allow the child to “clarify” his own values (which adults, including parents, had no “rights” to criticize). The “values clarification” movement didn’t clarify values; it clarified wants and desires. This form of moral relativism said, in effect, that no set of values was right or wrong; everybody had an equal right to his own values; and all values were subjective, relative, and personal. This destructive view took hold with a vengeance.

In 1985 The York Times published an article quoting New York area educators, in slavish devotion to this new view, proclaiming, “They deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong.” The article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors. In the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been foolish to return one thousand dollars she found in a purse at school. According to the article, when the youngsters asked the counselor’s opinion, “He told them he believed the girl had done the right thing, but that, of course, he would not try to force his values on them. ‘If I come from the position of what is wrong,’ he explained, ‘then I’m not their counselor.’”

Once upon a time, a counselor offered counselor, and he knew that an adult does not form character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering “choices” or “options”.

In response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals, one can expect from some quarters indignant objections (I’ve heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years): “Who are you to say what’s important?” or “Whose standards and judgments do we use?”

The correct response, it seems to me, is, is we ready to do away with standards and judgments? Is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swindling is as worthy as a life of honest, hard work? Is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities) going to argue seriously the intellectual corollary, that a Marvel comic book is as good as Macbeth? Unless we are willing to embrace some pretty silly position, we’ve got to admit the need for moral and intellectual standards. The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgment as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded “elitist” trying to impose his view on everybody else.

The truth of the real world is that without standards and judgments, there can be no progress. Unless we are prepared to say irrational things—that nothing can be proven more valuable than anything else or that everything is equally worthless—we must ask the normative question. It may come, as a surprise to those who fell that to be “progressive” is to be value-neutral. But as Matthew Amold said, “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things” and if the world can’t decide what the best things are, at least to some degree, then it follows that progress, and character, is in trouble. We shouldn’t be reluctant to declare that some things, some lives, books, ideas, and values are better than others. It is the responsibility of the schools to teach these better things.

At one time, we weren’t so reluctant to teach them. In the mid-nineteenth century, a diverse, widespread group of crusaders began to work for the public support of what was then called the “common school”, the forerunner of the public school. They were to be charged with the mission of school felt that the nation could fulfill its destiny only if every new generation was taught these values together in a common institution.

The leaders of the common school movement were mainly citizens who were prominent in their communities—businessmen, ministers, local civic and government officials. These people saw the schools as upholders of standards of individual morality and small incubators of civic and personal virtue; the founders of the public schools had faith that public education could teach good moral and civic character from a common ground of American values.

But in the past quarter century or so, some of the so-called experts became experts of value neutrality, and moral education was increasingly left in their hands. The commonsense view of parents and the publicthat schools should reinforce rather than undermine the values of home, family, and country, was increasingly rejected.

There are those today still that claim we are now too diverse a nation, that we consist of too many competing convictions and interests to instill common values. They are wrong. Of course we are a diverse people. We have always been a diverse people. And as Madison wrote in FederalistNo.10, the competing, balancing interests of a diverse people can help ensure the survival of liberty. But there are values that all American citizens share and that we should want all American students to know and to make their own: honesty, fairness, self-discipline, fidelity to task, friends, and family, personal responsibility, love of country, and belief in the principles of liberty, equality, and the freedom to practice one’s faith. The explicit teaching of these values is the legacy of the common schools, and it is a legacy to which we must return.

9. Schools Should Teach Values

People often said, “Yes, we should teach these values, but how do we teach them?” this question deserves a candid response, one that isn’t given often enough. It is by exposing our children to good character and inviting its imitation that we will transmit to them a moral foundation. This happens when teachers and principals, by their words and actions, embody sound convictions. As Oxford’s Mary Warnock has written, “You cannot teach morality without being committed to morality yourself; and you cannot be committed to morality yourself without holding that some things are right and others wrong.” The theologian Martin Buber wrote that the educator is distinguished from all other influences “by his will to take part in the stamping of character and by his consciousness that he represents in the eyes of the growing person a certain selection of what is, the selection of what is ‘right’, of what should be.” It is in this will, Buber says, in this clear standing for something, that the “vocation as an educator finds its fundamental expression.”

There is no escaping the fact that young people need as example principals and teachers who know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and who themselves exemplify high moral purpose.

As Education Secretary, I visited a class at Waterbury Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont, and asked the students, “Is this a good school?” They answered, “Yes, this is a good school.” I asked them, “Why?” Among other things, one eight-year-old said, “The principal Mr. Riegel, makes good rules and everybody obeys them.” So I said, “Give me an example.” And another answered, “You can’t climb on the pipes in the bathroom. We don’t climb on the pipes and the principal doesn’t either.”

This example is probably too simple to please a lot of people who want to make the topic of moral education difficult, but there is something profound in the answer of those children, something education should pay more attention to. You can’t expect children to take messages about rules or morality seriously unless they see adults taking those rules seriously in their day-to-day affairs. Certain must be said, certain limits lay down, and certain examples set. There is no other way.

We should also do a better job at curriculum selection. The research shows that most “values education” exercises and separate courses in “moral reasoning” tend not to affect children’s behavior; if anything, they may leave children morally adrift. Where to turn? I believe our literature and our history are a rich quarry of moral literacy. We should mine that quarry. Children should have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we believe to be right and wrong, good and bad—examples illustrating what are morally right and wrong can indeed be known and that there is a difference.

What kind of stories, historical events, and famous lives am I talking about? If we want our children to know about honesty, we should teach them about Abe Lincoln walking three miles to return six cents and conversely, about Aesop’s shepherd boy who cried wolf if we want them to know about courage, we should teach them about Joan of Arc, Horatius at the bridge, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. If we want them to know about persistence in the face of adversity, they should know about the voyages of Columbus and the character of Washington during the Civil War. And our youngest should be told about the Little Engine That Could. If we want them to know about respect for the law, they should understand why Socrates told Crito: “No, I must submit to the decree of Athens.” If we want our children to respect the rights of others, they should read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham jail.” From the Bible they should know about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Jonathan’s friendship with David, the Good Samaritan’s kindness toward a stranger, and David’s cleverness and courage in facing Goliath.

These are only a few of the hundreds of examples we can call on. And we need not get into issues like nuclear war, abortion, creationism, or euthanasia. This may come as a disappointment to some people, but the fact is that the formation of character in young people is educationally a task different from, and prior to, the discussion of the great, difficult controversies of the day. First things come first. We should teach values the same way we teach other things: one step at a time. We should not use the fact that there are many difficult and controversial moral questions as an argument against basic instruction in the subject.

After all, we do not argue against teaching physics because laser physics is difficult, against teaching American history because there are heated disputes about the Founders’ intent. Every field has its complexities and its controversies. And every field has its basics, its fundamentals. So they are too with forming character and achieving moral literacy. As any parent knows, teaching character is a difficult task. But it is a crucial task, because we want our children to be healthy, happy, and successful but decent, strong, and good. None of this happens automatically; there is no genetic transmission of virtue. It takes the conscious, committed efforts of adults. It takes careful attention.

10. College Pressures

Mainly I try to remind that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don not want to hear such liberating news. They want a map—right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

My wish, of course, is na?ve. One of the national gods venerated in our media—the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive—and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains—to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains: only victims.

“In the late 1960s.” one dean told me. “The typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world’ or ‘how I can make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They are trying to find an edge—the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh. Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000.

It’s all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it’s nice to think that admission officers are ready reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with As that they regard a B as positively shameful.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C.” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses-music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion—that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I do not know if they are getting As or Cs, and I do not care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cannot.

Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now come to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what college receives in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now, the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs—higher every year—of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in American the creation of a brotherhood of paupers—colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debt.

Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years—loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used “he,” incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society has not yet caught up with this fact.

Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know tem in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to medical school?” I asked them.

“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They are paying all this money and …”

Poor students, poor parents, they are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean will; they are trying to steer their sons and draughts toward a secure future. But the sons and daughter want to major in history or classics or philosophy—subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics—an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective—are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward specific profession—courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or, as I sometimes heard it put, “pre-rich.”

But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obliged to fulfill their parents’ expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them.

I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one—she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-round person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a “dumb” thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the “dumb” courses her father wants her to take—at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students—no small achievement in it—and she deserves to follow her muse.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.

“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I could not tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is almost funny—except that it is not. It is symptomatic of all the pressure put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

Probably they won’t. They will get blocked. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out.

Part of the problem is that they are expected to do. A professor will assign five page papers. Several students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic work, psychologically.”

Why cannot the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can, and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He did not sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That’s what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.

To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their figure nails onto a shrinking profession.

If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments—as departmental chairmen or members of committees—that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe.

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing into themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

“Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,” says Carlos Hortas. “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist-that they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slot.”

“They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing.”

I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story; if they were so dreary I wouldn’t so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known.

Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extracurricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it.

This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the ‘60s they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions—as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians—with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies.

They also cannot afford to be the willing slave of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one-hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper—who’s past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.—much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that “newsies” routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I’ve never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet.

If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it’s because that’s where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead—that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell neither them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway products, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians—a mixed bag of achievers.

I asked them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

11. To Err Is Wrong

In the summer of 1979, Boston Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski became the fifteenth player in baseball history to reach the three thousand hit plateaus. This event drew a lot of media attention, and for about a week prior to the attainment of this goal, hundreds of reports covered Yaz’s every more. Finally, one reporter asked, “Hey Yaz, aren’t you afraid all of this attention will go to your head?” Yastrzemski replied, “I look at this way: in my career I’ve been up to bat over ten thousand times. That means I’ve been unsuccessful at the plate over seven thousand times. That fact alone keeps me from getting a swollen head.”?

Most people consider success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process. As Yaz suggest, an activity that produces a hit may also produce a miss. It is the same with creative thinking; the same energy that generates good creative ideas also produces errors.

Many people, however, are not comfortable with errors. Our educational system, based on “the right answer” belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more conservative way. From an early age, we are taught that right answers are good and incorrect answers are bad. This value is deeply embedded in the incentive system used in most schools:

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

Right over 70% of the time = “C~” Right over 60% of the time = “D~” Less than 60% correct, you fail.

From this we learn to be right as often as possible and to keep our mistakes to a minimum. We learn, in other words, that “to err is wrong.

Playing It Safe

With this kind of attitude, you aren’t going to be taking too many chances. If you learn that failing even a litter penalizes you (e.g., being wrong only 15% of the time garners you only a “B” performance), you learn not to make mistakes. And more important, you learn not to put yourself to situation where you might fall. This leads to conservative thought pattern designed to avoid the stigma our society puts on “failure”.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college with a Master’s degree in Journalism. For the last six month, she has been trying to find a job, but to no avail. I talked with her about situation, and realized that her problem is that she doesn’t know how to fail. She went through eighteen years of schooling to try any approaches where she might fail. She has been conditioned to believe that failure is bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping-stone to new ideas.

Look around. How many middle managers, housewives, administrators, teachers, and other people do you see who are to try anything new because of this failure? Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experience except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances.

Different Logic

From a practical point of view, “to err is wrong” makes sense. Our survival in the everyday world requires us to perform thousand of small tasks without failure. Think about it: you wouldn’t last very long if you were to step out in front of traffic or stick your hand a pot of boiling water. In addition, engineers whose bridges collapse, stock brokers who lose money for their clients, and copywriters whose ad campaigns decrease sales won’t keep their jobs very long.

Nevertheless, too great an adherence to the belief “to err is wrong” can greatly undermine your attempts to generate new ideas. If you are more concerned with producing right answers than generating original ideas, you’ll probably make uncritical use of the rules, formulae, and procedures used to obtain these right answers. By doing this, you’ll by-pass the germinal phase of the creative process, and thus spend litter time testing assumptions, challenging the rules, asking what-if questions, or just playing around with the problem. All of these techniques will produce some incorrect answers, but in the germinal phase errors are viewed as a necessary by-product of creative thinking. As Yaz would put it, “if you want the hits, be prepared for the misses.” That’s the way the game of life goes.

Errors as Stepping Stones

Whenever an error pops up, the usual response is “Jeez, another screw up, what went wrong this time?” the creative thinker, on the other hand, will realize the potential value of errors, and perhaps say something like, “Would you look at that! Where can it lead our thinking?” and then he or she will go on to use the error as a stepping stone to a new idea. As a matter of fact, the whole history of discovery is filed with people who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as stepping-stones to new ideas. Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to India. Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of interplanetary gravity because of assumptions that were right for the wrong reasons. And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.

The following story about the automotive genius Charles Kettering exemplifies the spirit of working through erroneous assumptions to good ideas. In 1912, when the automobile industry was just beginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engine efficiency. The problem he faced was“knockthe phenomenon in which gasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder-thereby reducing efficiency.

Kettering began searching for ways to eliminate the “knock.” He thought to him, “How can I get the gasoline to combust in the cylinder at an earlier time?” the key concept here is “early”. Searching for analogous situations, he looked around for models of “things that happen early.” He thought of historical models, physical models, and biological models. Finally, he remembered a particular plant, the trailing arbutus, which “happens early,” i.e., it blooms in the snow (“earlier” than other plants). One of this plant’s chief characteristics is its’ red leaves, which help the plant retain light at certain wavelengths. Kettering figured that it must be the red color, which made the trailing arbutus bloom earlier.

Now came the critical step in Kettering’s chain of thought. He asked himself, “How can I make the gasoline red?” perhaps I’ll put red dye in the gasoline—maybe that’ll make it combust earlier.” He looked around his workshop, and found that he didn’t have any red dye. But he did happen to have some iodine—perhaps that would do. He added the iodine to the gasoline and, lo and behold, the engine didn’t “knock”.

[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分

导语：英语作文也是需要日积月累的练习的，下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀英语作文，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

1. We re often told that ......But is this really the case ?

我们经常被告知......但事实真是这样吗?

2. People used to ......however , things are quite different today .

过去，人们习惯......但,今天的情况有很大的不同。

3.some people think that ......Others believe that the opposite is true . There is probably some truth in both sides.But we must realize that ......

一些人认为......另一些人持相反意见。也许双方的观点都有一定道理。但是我们必须认识到......

4.Recognizing a problem is the first step in finding a solution .

认识到问题是找到解决办法的第一步。

5. It is another new and bitter truth we must learn to face .

这是一个我们必须学会面对的痛苦的新情况。

6. In short , we must work hard to make the world a better place .

简而言之，为了把世界变成更美好的地方，我们必须勤奋工作。

7.Lost time is never found again.

岁月既往，一去不回。

8.Everybody should have a dream.

每个人都该有个梦想.

9.Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

抱最好的愿望,做最坏的打算。

10.Failure is the mother of success.

失败乃成功之母。

11.Lets look on the bright side.

让我们往好处想吧。

1.individuals,characters, folks替换(people ,persons)

2: positive, favorable, rosy (美好的)，promising

(有希望的)，perfect, pleasurable , excellent, outstanding, superior替换good

3:dreadful, unfavorable, poor, adverse, ill (有害的)替换bad

如果bad做表语，可以有be less impressive替换

eg.An army of college students indulge themselves in playing games, enjoying romance with girls/boys or killing time passively in their dorms. When it approaches to graduation ,as a result, they records are less impressive.

4.(an army of, an ocean of, a sea of, a multitude of ,a host of, many, if not most)替换many.

注：用many, if not most 一定要小心，many后一定要有词。

Eg. Many individuals, if not most, harbor the idea that….同理 用most, if not all ,替换most.

5: a slice of, quiet a few , several替换some

6:harbor the idea that, take the attitude that,

hold the view that, it is widely shared that,

it is universally acknowledged that)替think

(因为是书面语，所以要加that)

7:affair ,business ,matter 替换thing

8: shared 代 common

9.reap huge fruits 替换get many benefits )

10:for my part ,from my own perspective 替换 in my opinion

11:Increasing(ly),growing 替换more and more( 注意没有growingly这种形式。所以当修饰名词时用increasing/growing.修饰形容词，副词用increasingly.

Eg.sth has gained growing popularity.

popular with the advancement of sth.

12.little if anything, 或little or nothing替换hardly

13..beneficial, rewarding替换helpful,

14.shopper,client,consumer,purchaser, 替换customer

15.exceedingly,extremely, intensely 替换very

16.hardly necessary, hardly inevitable ... 替换 unnecessary, avoidable

17.sth appeals to sb, sth exerts a tremendous fascination on sb 替换sb take interest in / sb. be interested in

18.capture ones attention替换attract ones attention.

19.facet,demension,sphere代aspect

20.be indicative of ,be suggestive of ,be fearful of代 indicate, suggest ,fear

21.give rise to, lead to, result in, trigger 替换cause.

22. There are several reasons behind sth 替换..reasons for sth

23.desire 替换want.

24.pour attention into 替换pay attention to

25.bear in mind that 替换remember

26. enjoy, possess 替换have(注意process是过程的意思)

27. interaction替换communication

28.frown on sth替换 be against , disagree with sth

29.to name only a few, as an example替换 for example, for instance

30. next to / virtually impossible,替换nearly / almost impossible

What can I say about Pixar? Amazing?? Perfect?? Got to see this at the Cannes Film Festival in France (went>【扩展阅读篇】

所谓“感”

可以是从书中领悟出来的道理或精湛的思想，可以是受书中的内容启发而引起的思考与联想，可以是因读书而激发的决心和理想，也可以是因读书而引起的对社会上某些丑恶现象的抨击、讽刺。读后感的表达方式灵活多样，基本属于议论范畴，但写法不同于一般议论文，因为它必须是在读后的基础上发感想。要写好有体验、有见解、有感情、有新意的读后感，必须注意以下几点：

首先，要读好原文

“读后感[1]”的“感”是因“读”而引起的。“读”是“感”的基础。走马观花地读，可能连原作讲的什么都没有了解，哪能有“感”?读得肤浅，当然也感得不深。只有读得认真，才能有所感，并感得深刻。如果要读的是议论文，要弄清它的论点(见解和主张)，或者批判了什么错误观点，想一想你受到哪些启发，还要弄清论据和结论是什么。如果是记叙文，就要弄清它的主要情节，有几个人物，他们之间是什么关系，以及故事发生在哪年哪月。作品涉及的社会背景，还要弄清楚作品通过记人叙事，揭示了人物什么样的精神品质，反映了什么样的社会现象，表达了作者什么思想感情，作品的哪些章节使人受感动，为什么这样感动等等。

其次，排好感点

只要认真读好原作，一篇文章可以写成读后感的方面很多。如对原文中心感受得深可以写成读后感，对原作其他内容感受得深也可以写成读后感，对个别句子有感受也可以写成读后感。总之，只要是原作品的内容，只要你对它有感受，都可能写成读后感，你需要把你所知道的都表示出来，这样才能写好读后感。

第三、选准感点

一篇文章，可以排出许多感点，但在一篇读后感里只能论述一个中心，切不可面面俱到，所以紧接着便是对这些众多的感点进行筛选比较，找出自己感受最深、角度最新，现实针对性最强、自己写来又觉得顺畅的一个感点，作为读后感的中心，然后加以论证成文。

第四、叙述要简

既然读后感是由读产生感，那么在文章里就要叙述引起“感”的那些事实，有时还要叙述自己联想到的一些事例。一句话，读后感中少不了“叙”。但是它不同于记叙文中“叙”的要求。记叙文中的“叙”讲究具体、形象、生动，而读后感中的“叙”却讲究简单扼要，它不要求“感人”，只要求能引出事理。初学写读后感引述原文，一般毛病是叙述不简要，实际上变成复述了。这主要是因为作者还不能把握所要引述部分的精神、要点，所以才简明不了。简明，不是文字越少越好，简还要明。

第五，联想要注意形式

联想的形式有相同联想(联想的事物之间具有相同性)、相反联想(联想的事物之间具有相反性)、相关联想(联想的事物之间具有相关性)、相承联想(联想的事物之间具有相承性)、相似联想(联想的事物之间具有相似性)等多种。写读后感尤其要注意相同联想与相似联想这两种联想形式的运用。

编辑本段如何写读后感

格式

一、格式和写法

读后感通常有三种写法：一种是缩写内容提纲，一种是写阅读后的体会感想，一种是摘录好的句子和段落。题目可以用《读后感》;还可以用自己的感受(一两个词语)做题目，下一行是——《读有感》，第一行是主标题，第二行是副标题。

二、要选择自己感受最深的东西去写，这是写好读后感的关键。

三、要密切联系实际，这是读后感的重要内容。

四、要处理好“读”与“感”的关系，做到议论，叙述，抒情三结合。

五、叙原文不要过多，要体现出一个“简”字。

六、要审清题目。

在写作时，要分辨什么是主要的，什么是次要的，力求做到“读”能抓住重点，“感”能写出体会。

七、要选择材料。

读是写的基础，只有读得认真仔细，才能深入理解文章内容，从而抓住重点，把握文章的思想感情，才能有所感受，有所体会;只有认真读书才能找到读感之间的联系点来，这个点就是文章的中心思想，就是文中点明中心思想的句子。对一篇作品，写体会时不能面面俱到，应写自己读后在思想上、行动上的变化。

八、写读后感应以所读作品的内容简介开头，然后，再写体会。

原文内容往往用3～4句话概括为宜。结尾也大多再回到所读的作品上来。要把重点放在“感”字上，切记要联系自己的生活实际。

九、要符合情理、写出真情实感。

写读后感的注意事项

①写读后感绝不是对原文的抄录或简单地复述，不能脱离原文任意发挥，应以写“体会”为主。

②要写得有真情实感。应是发自内心深处的感受，绝非“检讨书”或“保证书”。

③要写出独特的新鲜感受，力求有新意的见解来吸引读者或感染读者。

④禁止写成流水账!

编辑本段要写关于学习的读后感应该读什么有感

(1)引——围绕感点 引述材料。简述原文有关内容。

(2)概——概括本文的主要内容 ,要简练,而且要把重点写出来。

(3)议——分析材料，提练感点。亮明基本观点。在引出“读”的内容后，要对“读”进行一番评析。既可就事论事对所“引”的内容作一番分析;也可以由现象到本质，由个别到一般的作一番挖掘;对寓意深的材料更要作一番分析，然后水到渠成地“亮”出自己的感点。要选择感受最深的一点，用一个简洁的句子明确表述出来。这样的句子可称为"观点句"。这个观点句表述的，就是这篇文章的中心论点。"观点句"在文中的位置是可以灵活的，可以在篇首，也可以在篇末或篇中。初学写作的同学，最好采用开门见山的方法，把观点写在篇首。

(4) 联——联系实际，纵横拓展。围绕基本观点摆事实讲道理。写读后感最忌的是就事论事和泛泛而谈。就事论事撒不开，感不能深入，文章就过于肤浅。泛泛而谈，往往使读后感缺乏针对性，不能给人以震撼。联，就是要紧密联系实际，既可以由此及彼地联系现实生活中相类似的现象，也可以由古及今联系现实生活中的相反的种种问题。既可以从大处着眼，也可以从小处入手。当然在联系实际分析论证时，还要注意时时回扣或呼应“引”部，使“联”与“引””藕”断而“丝”连这部分就是议论文的本论部分，是对基本观点(即中心论点)的阐述，通过摆事实讲道理证明观点的正确性，使论点更加突出，更有说服力。这个过程应注意的是，所摆事实，所讲道理都必须紧紧围绕基本观点，为基本观点服务。

Dear Liu Dong,

Im back at school now. I wish to express my thanks to you for the wonderful vacation I spent with you and your family. During the vacation you taught me how to swim, boat and fish. I really appreciate① your taking time off work to take② me around and show me so many places.

Your mother is such a terrific③ cook! I think I must have gained 10 pounds just in the week I spent with you. Surely Ive spent a happy vacation, which will be remembered for long.

I hope you will be able to visit our school sometime. Thank you again. Lets keep in touch.

1. 不用说……

It goes without saying that …

= (It is) needless to say (that) ….

= It is obvious that ….

例：It goes without saying that it pays off to keep early hours.

不用说早睡早起是值得的。

2. 在各种……之中，……

Among various kinds of …, … /= Of all the …, …

例︰Among various kinds of sports, I like jogging in particular.

在各种运动中我尤其喜欢慢跑。

3. 就我的看法……;我认为……

In my opinion, …

= To my mind, ….

= As far as I am concerned, …

= I am of the opinion that ….

例：In my opinion, playing video games not only takes much time but is also harmful to health.

在我看来，玩电脑游戏既花费时间也有害健康。

4. 随着人口的增加…… With the increase/growth of the population, …

随着科技的进步…… With the advance of science and technology, …

例：With the rapid development of Taiwan’s economy, a lot of social problems have come to pass.

随着台湾经济的快速发展许多社会问题产生了。

5. ……是必要的 It is necessary (for sb.) to do/that …

…… 是重要的 It is important/essential (for sb.) to do / that …

…… 是适当的 It is proper (for sb.) to do / that …

……是紧急的 It is urgent (for sb.) to do / that …

例：It is proper for us to keep the public places clean.

=It is proper that we (should) keep the public places clean.

我们应当保持公共场所清洁。

6. 花费 spend … on sth. / doing sth. …

例：We shouldn’t spend too much time on something we aren’t interested in.

我们不应该在我们不感兴趣的事情上花太多的时间。

7. how 引导的感叹句

例：At least it will prove how honest you are.

那至少可以证明你很诚实。

8. 状语从句

⑴ 如果你不…，你就会… If you don’t ..., you’ll ...

例︰If you don’t keep working hard, you’ll lose the chance.

如果你不坚持努力工作，你就会失去这次机会。

⑵ 如此 ……，以至于…… so … that …

例：At that moment, I was so upset that I wanted to give up.

当时，我非常伤心，最后都想放弃了。

⑶ 每当我听到……我就忍不住感到兴奋。Whenever I hear …, I cannot but feel excited.

每当我做……我就忍不住感到悲伤。 Whenever I do …, I cannot but feel sad.

每当我想到……我就忍不住感到紧张。Whenever I think of …, I cannot but feel nervous.

每当我遭遇……我就忍不住感到害怕。Whenever I meet with …, I cannot but feel frightened.

每当我看到……我就忍不住感到惊讶。Whenever I see …, I cannot but feel surprised.

例：Whenever I think of the clean brook near my home, I cannot but feel sad.

= Every time I think of the clean brook near my home, I cannot help feeling sad.

每当我想到我家附近那一.��清澈的小溪我就忍不住感到悲伤。

9. 宾语从句

我认为，…… / 我认为……不...... I think / I don’t think that …

我想知道是否…… I wonder whether …

例：He doesn’t think I should stop him joining the club.

他认为我不应该阻止他参加这个俱乐部。

10. Since + S + 过去式, S + 现在完成式.

例：Since he went to senior high school, he has worked very hard.

自从他上高中，他就一直很用功。

一、写作要领

考生无论遇到哪一类试题，都要仔细审题，根据题目的要求确定文章的类型和中心内容，并对你自己熟悉的、可写的内容进行筛选、整理、规划、列出提纲，这是很重要的一步。提纲列好后，要围绕提纲内容展开说明自己的观点和结论，不要在写作时抛开提纲。一篇好的作文应该具备以下5个方面：

(1)内容切题，主题鲜明。

(2)表达清楚准确，条理清晰。

(3)结构完整，衔接流畅自然。

(4)句法正确多样。

(5)用词恰当丰富。

二、方法与步骤

1．提纲

提纲是写作一篇文章的详细计划、安排。提纲准备的目的是：

(1)计划要写什么。

(2)文章的思想的表达顺序。

(3)如何安排段落。

(4)使写作从头到尾围绕主题进行。内容一般用短语和词。主题、副题表达先后顺序，要用数字标明。提纲内容的安排是写作一篇好文章的关键。

2．依据提纲写作

(1)初稿

在完成提纲安排后，动笔写作的第一步是打初稿，在写初稿时要争取做到心中有数，胸有成竹，经过反复练习后，能够按照提纲安排落笔成文，一气呵成。如果突发奇想，也可修改提纲，顺理成章，但切忌偏离正题。在初稿写作时要有意识加大行距，为文章的修改留有余地。

(2)定稿及修改方法

在完成初稿后，修改是必不可少的过程。修改文章要注意以下几点：

①内容是否切题，论点是否鲜明，论证是否合理、严密。

②段落衔接时过渡使用是否合理，语句是否通顺、有没有语法错误，用词是否恰当。

③拼写是否正确，标点符号、大小写是否有错误，有无其他笔误。

导语：要学好写英语短文，就必须经常练习写作。记日记是提高书面表达能力的有效方法之一。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的优秀英语作文指导，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

一、日记的格式

英文日记通常由书端和正文两个部分组成。日记常以第一人称记下当天生活中的所见、所闻、所做或所想的事情。中、英文的日记三格式大致一样。英语日记的书端是专门写日记的日期、星期和天气的。左上角是日期(年、月、日)、星期。右上角写上当天的天气情况，如：Sunny，Fine，Rainy，Windy，Snowy，Cloudy等。

1、日期表达有多种形式。年、月、日都写时，通常以月、日、年为顺序，月份可以缩写，日和年用逗号隔开。例如：

A)September 1，2004或September 1st，2004也可省略写成Sept. 1，2004或Sept. 1st，2004;the 1st of September in 2004(月份不可以缩写)

B)只有月、日：September 1或September 1st(月份可以缩写)

C)只有年、月：September 2004或the September of 2004(月份不可以缩写)

以上的1或1st都应读作the first.

2、星期也可以省略不写，可将其放在日期前或后，星期和日期之间不用标点，但要空一格，星期也可缩写。如：

Saturday，October 22nd，2004;October 22nd，2004 Saturday

3.天气情况必不可少。天气一般用一个形容词如：Sunny，Fine，Rainy，Snowy 等表示。写在日期之后，用逗号隔开，位于日记的右上角。如：

Saturday，March 4，2004，Windy;1st January，2004，Fine

二、日记的要求

日记的正文是日记的主要部分，写在星期和日期的正下方，可以顶格写，也可以内缩3至5个字母的空间。由于记载的内容通常已经发生，谓语动词多用一般过去时。但也可根据具体情况，用其它时态。如：记叙天气、描写景色，为了描写生动，可以使用现在时，以表现当时的情景。再如文后发表感想或评论可用现在时态或将来时态。记日记力求简单明了，有连贯性。若有文字提示，则应重视提示，把握要点。在句式上尽量使用简单句，以防繁杂，造成语法、句型错误。

三、日记的类型和训练

日记分为记事型、议论型、描写型和抒情型。建议大家在学习写日记的过程中，可按以下步骤进行：

①将一天所经历的主要事情和过程依次简要地记下来，不附加任何感情色彩，这是最简单的记日记的方法;

②阅读别人的日记，并利用所学过的句型来表达个人在一天中观察到的或感受到的事情。

「范文与点评」

March 12th，2003，Tuesday Sunny (Fine)

Today is Tree Planting Day. At 7∶30 in the morning，all the students in our class met at the school gate. We walked to the park. Miss Gao and other teachers went and worked with us. All the students worked very hard，and we planted about 200 trees. Though we were dirty and tired，we still felt very happy.

这是一篇记叙型的日记。结构严谨，中心突出，有选择地记录当天的见闻(人或事)，并加以分析和评论。

1. What is language for? Some people seem to think its for practicing grammar rules and learning lists of words--- the longer the words the better. Thats wrong. Language is for the exchange of ideas, for communication。

语言到底是用来干什么的呢?一些人认为它是用来操练语法规则和学习一大堆单词--而且单词越长越好。这个想法是错误的。语言是用来交换思想，进行交流沟通的!

2. The way to learn a language is to practice speaking it as often as possible。

学习一门语言的方法就是要尽量多地练习说。

3. A great man once said it is necessary to drill as much as possible, and the more you apply it in real situations, the more natural it will become。

一位伟人曾说，反复操练是非常必要的，你越多的将所学到的东西运用到实际生活中，他们就变的越自然。

4. Learning any language takes a lot of effort. But dont give up。

学习任何语言都是需要花费很多努力，但不要放弃。

5. Relax! Be patient and enjoy yourself. Learning foreign languages should be fun。

放松点!要有耐性，并让自己快乐!学习外语应该是乐趣无穷的。

6. Rome wasnt built in a day. Work harder and practice more. Your hard- work will be rewarded by god one day. God is equal to everyone!

冰冻三尺，非一日之寒。更加努力的学习，更加勤奋的操练，你所付出的一切将会得到上帝的报答，上帝是公平的。

7. Use a dictionary and grammar guide constantly. Keep a small English dictionary with you at all time. When you see a new word, look it up. Think about the word-- use it, in your mind, in a sentence。

经常使用字典和语法指南。随身携带一本小英文字典，当你看到一个新字时就去查阅它，想想这个字---然后去用它，在你的心中，在一个句子里。

8. Try to think in English whenever possible. When you see something think of the English word of it; then think about the word in a sentence。

一有机会就努力去用英文来思考。看到某事时，想想它的英文单词;然后把它用到一个句子中去。

9. Practice tenses as much as possible. When you learn a new verb, learn its various forms。

尽可能多的操练时态。学习一个动词的时候，要学习它的各种形态。

10. I would also like to learn more about the culture behind the language. When you understand the cultural background, you can better use the language。

我想学习和了解更多关于语言背后的文化知识，当你理解了文化背景，你就能更好地运用语言。