初中生英语写作模板【实用20篇】

Helen Keller lived in the U.S.A. She was a great woman. When Helen was a baby,she got very sick. Afthe many weeks,the doctor said:"she is better,but now she cant see and she cant hear." Her mother and father were very sad . Afthe a few years,things got worse. There was no way for Helen to speak to other people. She heard nothing. She saw nothing. She didnt undertand anyting. Then one day a teacher come to live with Helen and her family. The teacher helped Helen learn about words. Helen was a bright child and soon she learned to spell her first word. When she was older,she went to college. Helen was very famous. She helped many blind and deaf people. She traveled around the world and helped many people. Helen was a very old woman when she died. The world remembers her today as a brave and wonderful person. She was blind and deaf,but she found a way to see and hear.

the chinese spring festival and the western christmas

evely nation has its own folk festivals. Those festivals give people a chance to be away from their regular work and everyday worries to enjoy themselves and to develop kindship and fiiendship. The spring festival is the chief holiday in china while christmas is the most important redletter day in the western world。

the spring festival and christmas have much in common. Both are prepared hefiorehand to create a joyous atmosphere; both offer a family reunion with a square feast: and both satisfy the children with new clothes, lovely presents and delicious food. However, the chinese spring festival has no religious background while christmas has something to do with god and there is santa claus with white heard to bring children presents. The westerners send each other christmas cards for greetings while the chinese people pay a call on each other。

nowadays, some of the chinese youth has begun to celebrate christmas, following the example of the westerners. Perhaps they do so just for fun and out of curiosity。

In China, the subjects that students learnt are necessary. They can learn special classes when they enter university. Sometimes I think it will be perfect to have the special class in middle school. On the one hand, students can learn more things besides the necessary subjects. They can develop more practical skills. On the other hand, students can cultivate their interest by learning something different. Though it is a little hard to open special classes, because education pays attention to scores, I believe that someday more special classes will be open, as the class reform calls on people to pay attention to the development of student mind.

在中国，学生所学习的科目都是有必要的。当他们进入大学以后，他们可以学习特色课程。有时我觉得在初中开设特色课程是非常好的。一方面，学生除了必要科目之外还可以学到更多的东西。可以发展更多实用技巧。另一方面，学生可以培养他们的兴趣，学习不同的东西。虽然因为教育注重分数导致开设特色课程有一定难度，但我相信总有一天将会开设更多的特色课程，因为教育改革呼吁人们关注学生的思维发展。

She is such an ideal singer!

She is a girl with a lot of talent. She is a girl but she has individuality like a boy. On the stage, she sings and dances so well. She is so happy and she makes us excited… Can you guess who she is? Yes, she is Li Yuchun, the winner of "Super Girl 2005."She is a student of Sichuan Music College in Grade 3. She is twenty-one this year. She is 1.74 metres tall. Now she is very popular in China and even in the world. I know she worked hard in the past, and has succeeded today. Ill learn from her and try my best to achieve my dream.I like her because she is so cool and lovely. I love her because she makes me feel happy. I enjoy her because she is independent and she has the individuality of herself.

Li Yuchun, Ill cheer for you forever!

[歌手初中英语作文

迈克是我的好朋友。每当我需要帮助时，他就来到我身边。一天放学了，我不得不留下来跟3组的同学一起打扫卫生。但3组的其他人都在外边玩，他们谁都不想回来。于是迈克就过来帮我扫地。真是优秀作文 ，患难朋友才是真正的朋友。

Mike is my good friend. Any time I need help, he will come to me. One day after school, I had to stay and clean the classroom with Group Three. But they were still playing outside without any sign to go back. So Mike came and helped me clean the floor. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

In order to let me have a full and happy summer vacation,I made a plan for

the summer vacation.

Every day,I will go to exercise for an hour,it can let me have a strong

healthy body.I will arrange two hours to do the teacher the assignment.Reading

for an hour,reading can let me know a lot of extra-curricular knowledge,to the

all-round development.We will accumulate some good word,when reading a book to

improve my writing.

Except,I will also let the parents give me quote some interest groups,let

me batteries.Floods and other disasters in learning to swim,to save his life.To

learn the piano,can develop around the brain,flexible with your fingers.Learn

how to dance,to be able to make the body soft and build the temperament of your

high school.Pen calligraphy,three grade for me to use a ball-point pen to write

a good foundation.

Read thousands of books,not equal to view.This summer,mom and dad will take

me to different places let me open mind.We are going to go to

England,Beijing,Inner Mongolia,xinjiang,Taiwan,sichuan,hubei,hunan.Because to

place a lot,so I want to strive,to finish the homework earlier.

写作练习：旅游活动（中段考范文）

【单元财富运用】

假定你是李华，上周末和家人开车去大角湾度假。请你根据以下要点，给你的美国朋友Tom介绍你的旅游经历。

1. 出发时间：周六早上7点；

2. 准备物品：零食、衣服、相机等；

3. 旅游活动：游泳，欣赏海水、海滩、日出和日落等美景，吃海鲜，买纪念品；

4. 你的感受。

【注意】：1. 词数100；

2. 开头已给出，但不计入总词数；

3. 可以适当增加节，以使行文连贯。

Last weekend my family and I went to Dajiaowan Gulf for a holiday.______________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________

步骤1：认真审题，提炼要点。

一定体裁：记叙文，记叙一次旅游活动

二定时态：旅游发生在过去，因此描述旅游前的准备和过程都应该采用一般过去

时；而感想则可以用一般现在时或现在完成时。

三定要点：结合写作内容，整理和罗列要点。

表达旅游活动的常用词汇：

步骤2：整合信息，连词成句。

1. 星期六早上7点开车出发。

_____________________________________________________________________

2. 准备好零食、衣服、相机等。

__________________________________________________________________

3. 在海滩游泳，欣赏海水日出和日落等美景。

__________________________________________________________________

4. 吃海鲜，买纪念品；

___________________________________________________________________

5. 谈感受。

___________________________________________________________________

步骤3：连句成段，用上适当的关联词。

not only…but also…, where, what’s more /besides / in addition, then, because…..

【我的作文】

Last weekend my family and I went to Dajiaowan Gulf for a holiday.______________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone has different hobbies.Some people like to paint and others like to play basketball.I have many hobbies because I like to do many things.Let me share a few of my hobbies with you.

To begin with,I really lie games,both indoor and outdoor.I like collecting cards and playing card games with my friends.But my favorite games are vidio games.I could play them all day long.On the other hand,I also like being outside in the fresh air and sunshine,so I play a lot of sports.I like riding and rollerblading very much,but swimming is my favorite sport.

In addition,I like to draw pictures and read comics,but please dont tell my parents because they dont approve.listening to music and singing songs are things I enjoy too,and Im learning how to play an instument--the guitar.Finally,I enjoy learning English because I like speaking with foreigners and I like watching Disney cartoons.

As you can see,my hobbies keep me busy and excited.Im always looking for new things to do!

[初中英语作文：我的爱好

初中英语日记（一）

there is no doubt that happiness is the most precious thing in the world. Without it, life will be empty and meaningless. If you wish to know how to get happiness, you must pay attention to the following two points.

First, health is the secret of happiness (the key to happiness). Only a strong man can enjoy the pleasure of life.

Secondly, happiness consists in contentment. A man who is dissatisfied with his present condition is always in distress.

无疑的快乐是世界上最宝贵的东西。没有它，人生将是空虚的而且毫无意义的。如果你希望知道如何获得快乐，你须注意下面两点。

健康是快乐的要诀。唯有身体强壮的人才能享受人生的乐趣。

初中英语日记（二）

As is well known, books teach us to learn life, truth, science and many other useful things. They increase our knowledge, broaden our minds and strengthen our character. In other words, they are our good teachers and wise friends. This is the reason why our parents always encourage us to read more books.

Reading is a good thing, but we must pay GREat attention to the choice of books. It is true that we can derive benefits from good books. However, bad books will do us more harm than good.

如众所周知，书籍教我们学习 人生，真理，科学以及其它许多有用的东西。它们增加我们的知识，扩大我们的心胸并加强我们的品格。换句话说，它们是我们的良师益友。这是为什么我们的父母终是鼓励我们要多读书的理由。

读书是一好事，但我们必须多加注意书的选择。不错，我们能从好书中获得益处。然而，坏书却对我们有害无益。

初中英语日记（三）

In my dream

Last night ,I dreamed I became a very beautiful brid.I dreamed that I was in a forest. In tht forest,there were a lot of animals.Then,an old bird told us,"we have a very beautiful forest,we should therefore protect it from pollution."All the animals agreed with him.

But the second day,people came into our forest.Many animals were caught.The people wanted to build house and parks in our forest.Many old trees were felled.And then suddenly,nothing was left standing.

I was so shocked and then I bursted out crying.I woke up at midnight.It was only a dream.

在梦中

昨晚我梦见我变成一只非常漂亮的鸟.我梦见我在一座森林,森林里有很多动物.然后有一只老鸟告诉我们,"我们有一座非常美丽的森林,

因此我们应该保护它,免受污染"所有的动物都赞成他.

但是第二天,人们进入我们的森林,许多动物被逮捕.这些人要在我们的森林地上建造房子和公园.许多年老的树木被砍下,然后,突然间,一切都被夷平了.

我很震惊,接着突然大哭起来.我在半夜醒来,原来只是个梦.

教案内容：写自己最熟悉、最动情的东西

【教学目标】

1.让学生学习根据表达思想感情的需要选择材料。

2.训练学生如何将纷繁复杂的材料写成一篇生动的记叙文。

【教学重点】让学生了解写作时要注意客观材料的选择，应选择自己最熟悉的人、事、物、景，主观感情的抒发应是自己的真情流露。

【教学难点】启发学生拓展思路选择材料，布局谋篇生动的记叙文的写作。

【教学方法】师生互动学习法。

【教学安排】

1.激趣导入。

2.写自己最熟悉的：教师先举例子，然后让学生模仿，列举自己最熟悉的事物。

3.写最动情的东西：让学生列举自己最动情的事。

4.教师引导、学生讨论并布局谋篇。

5、学生自主确定写作的标题 ，完成写作任务。

【课时安排】 1课时 本文由一起去留学编辑整理，转载自一起去留学www.oh100.com转载请保留出处。

【教学程序】

一.激趣导入，调动情感，活跃氛围。

同学们：从蒲中走到长江初中，在这接近一年的教学旅程中，我作为一名普通的支边教师，的感触就是长江初中的老师待人热情、友好，为人大度、豁达;长江初中的学生好学、守纪，具有超人的智慧和非凡的能力，但我也留下了一个永远无法弥补的遗憾，那就是我不能常住长江，欣赏校园内一道亮丽的风景，那就是长江初中一大群天仙般美丽的女教师。如果大家有一双发现美的眼睛，那么同学们可以毫不含糊的说：美就在我们同学的身边。那就是与同学们朝夕相伴的班主任——左艳霞老师。讲到这里，我有必要顺便的作一点解释，我今天上课的内容没有来得及与左老师商量，但我相信左老师可以理解，因为有一首歌曲的名字是“爱你没商量”，我盗用一下，改为“喜欢作文没商量”，请同学们大声的说一遍：

“喜欢作文没商量!”

今天的作文指导课，请左老师容许同学们把你作为模特成为大家写作的素材。同学们好不好?

生齐答：好!

随即板书课题：写自己熟悉的东西

二、习作指导

( 一)(重点的突破)

1.教师引导学生回忆课文，明确作文要写自己熟悉的东西。

我们学习了鲁迅先生的散文《从百草园到三味书屋》，文章真实地再现了鲁迅先生儿时的乐园--百草园，使我们获得了美好、愉悦的审美感受。鲁迅先生是怎样描绘这个儿时乐园的呢?

(学生回答后教师补充：那里有碧绿的菜畦，光滑的石井栏，高大的皂荚树，紫红的桑葚，鸣蝉长吟，肥胖的黄蜂，轻捷的叫天子，油蛉、蟋蟀、蜈蚣、斑蝥、何首乌、木莲藤、覆盆子……)

教师问：如此细致的描写是建立在什么基础上的呢?

学生答：鲁迅先生熟悉那里的生活，百草园中的一草一木，都是那样亲切与熟悉，所以写起来充满了无尽的童趣。

面对我们大家再熟悉的班主任老师，大家的第一感觉或者说是第六感觉是什么?

学生回答：美丽。(教师随即板书：外表美丽)

那么请一位同学描述一下，左老师是怎样的美丽?

学生回答，老师补充：我最欣赏的是老师脸上灿烂的笑容和非凡的气质。请同学们看我的描述：

每逢高兴的时候，左老师的脸上露出的笑容就像她的名字一样有如骤雨初歇时的朝阳，艳丽无比，灿烂极了!她的气质是如此的摄人心魄，犹如天际边飘忽的一抹淡淡的云裳。

师述：左老师的美丽令许多女同胞嫉妒这是情理之中的事，可是她还让我们这些同科的男同事的嫉妒，同学们能够猜到其中的一二吗?那就是她任教的八(转载自百分网http://www.oh100.com，请保留此标记6)班的语文成绩第一名非她莫属，从来不谦虚的让我们尝试一下第一名的滋味。同学们说说这其中的缘由何在呢?

学生回答：工作负责，同学们喜欢她的语文课。

教师随即板书：内在美

师问：请一位同学起来讲述一件老师工作负责的事实。

生答：老师家住学校外，但她总是第一个出现在教室，婆家在汉川，从不请假耽搁我们的一节课，作业批改认真——

师述：上面大家列举了左老师的很多值得写作的优点，但我想来想去，还觉得不够舒服，同学们光说老师的好处，但我觉得不尽然吧，比如前几天我在办公室碰见一个同学站在墙角处，在悄悄的流泪呢?这位同学能够站起来叙述一下事情的经过吗?

生述，老师引导同学们分析材料的价值，随即板书：(严厉，耐心)

2.教师举例，让学生明确作文要写自己最动情的东西。

师述：有了上面的材料，那么同学们如何将这些材料生动的表达出来呢?老师想将自己的写作体验毫无保留的告诉同学们。

教师朗读作文，学生思考：文章为什么写的这么生动?

我曾经在20年前，写过这样一篇文章，题目是《开花的课桌》，文章是这样写的：

有一天，我看到学生的课桌上插了一枝迎春，枝条上是繁密的金色小花，如一串耀目的阳光。教室里被映上了一层淡淡的暖意。以后，打碗花、紫地盯映山红、葛花……学生的课桌上花事纷繁起来，演示着春天的进程。孩子们穿过乡间的羊肠小道来学校，路上只要一弯腰便能采一把花在手里。这些乡里孩子，有的还穿着露趾的鞋，穿着哥哥姐姐肥大的旧衣裤，他们无忧无虑地吹着麦笛，摇着手里的野花，沿着弯弯的小路跑着跳着，到了学校，便把花插在课桌上。有的孩子，还用细线把小花枝绑在铅笔上，看上去，他象是捏着花枝在写作业。花枝轻抚小脸，让人想不清，是花枝染红了小脸，还是小脸染红了花枝。

第一节是语文课，我迎着学生的歌声走进教室，看见我放教科书的讲桌上，也插了几朵野花，循着缝隙，"长"满了青草、绿叶、小花。那课桌仿佛是从春天剪下的方方正正的一块芳草地。我打开教科书，书页里也夹着一朵指甲般大小的紫色花。我笑了，学生们也喜形于色。我没有说什么，便开始讲课，其实不必说什么，那一笑，已使师生的心沟通了。这一节课上的格外好，学生始终情绪高昂。下课后，我拿着一枝淡紫色花朵的葛条，嗅了嗅，说："真是春天了，连咱们的课桌也都开花了!"学生大笑，欢呼起来。这时一个调皮的男孩指着一个女孩子说："老师，她也开花了!"我一看，可不，她的小辫梢上，插了一枝粉红的野花。学生们又是一阵击掌大笑。

在这开花的课桌间跺步，听着孩子们清朗的笑声，我觉得，这教室该是春天的源头了。春天是从孩子的身上产生，先染了他们的课桌，再染了我的讲桌，然后漫出窗子，染了山川、原野。和孩子们在一起，就是和春天在一起。我想起了一位诗人的诗句："孩子是春天的另一种姿势。"

身临授知求知的方舟(教室)，面对朝气蓬勃的孩子，目睹课桌、讲桌上的野花，激-情难抑，遂下笔成文。身为教师的我，在想象的天空中翱翔，汇自然世态、人情于一室，集采花、插花、爱花于一桌。于是文思喷涌，左右逢源，运笔随着激-情驱动的喜悦感挥洒自如，下笔有神。文章以"孩子是春天的另一种姿势"为纲来驾驭激-情和所感，使之在教室里、在课桌上、在讲桌上、在孩子们的心灵上，表现出另一种更浓更深更有意义的春天美景，使感受美升华为思想美。为什么我写的如此的好呢?(那是因为我写作的内容是我最动情的东西。)

教师点拨，学生回答后明确：写自己最动情的东西。

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

Now National Day is coming. I have made a plan for it .I am going to Beijing with my parents.Because there are many places of interest .First we want to visit the Great Wall ,which is considered one of the seven wonders in the world. Second we want to visit the summer palace ,where lived many emperors during the hot days. Then we want to visit the Water Cube,where many important events are held .Finally we want to visit hutong to get a knowledge of the culture of old Beijing .I think this trip must be very interesting and we will have a good time.

国庆节要到了，我已经定了一个计划，我和我的父母去北京，因为那有很多名胜古迹。首先我们要去长城 ，它被认为是世界七大奇观之一。第二我们要参观颐和园，许多帝王避暑的地方。然后我们去水立方，很多重大的体育比赛都在那举行。最后我们要去参观胡同 去了解一下老北京的文化。我想这次旅行一定很有趣，所以我们一定会玩得很高兴。

[初中英语国庆假期旅行作文

引言：培养小学生的英语写作能力,应从培养良好的书写习惯、扎实的词汇句型开始。接下来小编给各位读者总结了一些小学英语写作必备句型，希望大家认真打好基础，不断提高写作水平。

一、~~~ the + ~ est + 名词 + (that) + 主词 + have ever + seen ( known/heard/had/read, etc)~~~ the most + 形容词 + 名词 + (that) + 主词 + have ever + seen ( known/heard/had/read, etc)

例句：Helen is the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen.

海伦是我所看过最美丽的女孩。

Mr. Chang is the kindest teacher that I have ever had.

张老师是我曾经遇到最仁慈的教师。

二、Nothing is + ~~~ er than to + V

Nothing is + more + 形容词 + than to + V

例句：Nothing is more important than to receive education.

没有比接受教育更重要的事。

三、~~~ cannot emphasize the importance of ~~~ too much.

(再怎么强调…的重要性也不为过小学英语写作必备句型小学英语写作必备句型。)

例句：We cannot emphasize the importance of protecting our eyes too much.

我们再怎么强调保护眼睛的重要性也不为过。

四、There is no denying that + S + V …(不可否认的…)

例句：There is no denying that the qualities of our living have gone from bad to worse.

不可否认的，我们的生活品质已经每况愈下。

五、It is universally acknowledged that + 句子~~ (全世界都知道…)

例句：It is universally acknowledged that trees are indispensable to us.

全世界都知道树木对我们是不可或缺的。

六、There is no doubt that + 句子~~ (毫无疑问的…)

例句：There is no doubt that our educational system leaves something to be desired.

毫无疑问的我们的教育制度令人不满意。

七、An advantage of ~~~ is that + 句子(…的优点是…)

例句：An advantage of using the solar energy is that it won’t create (produce) any pollution.

使用太阳能的优点是它不会制造任何污染。

八、The reason why + 句子 ~~~ is that + 句子(…的原因是…)

例句：The reason why we have to grow trees is that they can provide us with fresh air.

The reason why we have to grow trees is that they can supply fresh air for us.

我们必须种树的原因是它们能供应我们新鲜的空气。

教案(Teaching Plan)是教师施教的课时计划或方案,是帮助教师有效地进行素质教育教学的依据.教案可以帮助教师有计划、有步骤地进行素质教育教学,充分利用课堂教学时间,高质量地完成教学任务.教案写得如何将直接影响教学效果的好坏.因此,在日常教学中,广大教师都非常注重写教案.那么写教案时应写什么呢?

一、写课题(Topic)和课型(Lesson Type)

课题相当于文章的标题,讲课时要首先告诉学生,并写在黑板上.因此要写得准确.课型是指该节课的讲授类型.初中英语的主要课型有:新授课(New lesson)、巩固课(Reinforcement Lesson)、复习课(Revision Lesson)、语音课(Phonetic Lesson)、听力课(Listening Lesson)、听说课(Aural-Oral Lesson)、阅读课(Reading Lesson)、语法课(Grammar Lesson)等.不同的课型应用不同的授课方式或方法,只有确定了课型,才能选择有效的素质教育教学方法.

二、写素质教育教学目标(Teaching Objective)

素质教育教学目标是教案的核心内容,是教师施教的准绳.教学目标要符合大纲对教材的要求.由于教学目标要在课堂上展示给学生,让学生明确,所以写素质教育目标时,要力求简明扼要,浅显易懂,便于操作和检测,一般3~4个目标为宜.

三、写素质教育教学的重点(Main Points)、难点(Difficult Points)和关键点(Key Points) 素质教育重点是课堂教学的主要任务;教学难点是师生顺利完成教学任务的障碍;素质教学关键是攻克教学难点的突破口.在教案中写清一节课的教学重点、难点和关键点,能提醒教师在讲课时注意突出重点、突破难点、抓住关键.

四、写教具(Teaching Tools)

课堂上需要什么教具要写清楚,如录音机、教材录音带、教学挂图、卡片、实物(或模型)、小黑板、刻印好的练习题、彩色粉笔、幻灯片等.

五、写素质教育教学过程(Teaching Procedure)

素质教育教学过程是教案的主要部分.写教学过程主要写以下几方面的内容:

1. 写教学环节.教学环节即教学任务是什么要写清楚,做到心中有数.目前有些教师采用"三阶段六环节"教学模式,即:准备阶段(自由交流、复习检查)、讲练阶段(导入课程、分层操练)和发展阶段(巩固发展、布置作业).

2. 写知识点和所用时间.写好知识点,教师使用教案时能一目了然,有的放矢.写好所用时间,能使教师从容掌握教学速度,合理安排每个教学环节所需的时间,充分利用课堂时间.

3. 写教师活动.不仅要写教师"教什么",还要写出教师"怎样教",即写清楚教师要教的内容,写出讲授这些内容的方法.写出课堂用语和各环节的过渡语.课堂用语要求简练、口语化,用学生已经学过的熟悉的、听得懂的英语来解释或表达新的教学内容.各环节之间的过渡语要自然流畅.写出使用教具的时机和方法,写板书内容等.

4. 写学生活动.写出学生学习的内容和学习方法,特别是怎样学应写清楚.不能简单地把学生活动写成听、读、思考、操练、做题等.

六、写课堂训练题(Exercises)

备课时精心设计的有针对性的随堂练习题和达标题要写在教案中.写清出示这些题的办法,如用小黑板、看刻印材料或学生已有材料等.写出这些题的答案和解题方法.

七、写课堂小结(Summing-up on Teaching)

课堂小结是教师帮助学生回顾和总结本节课的学习内容的重要环节.小结的方式和方法要在教案中写清楚,不论是教师引导学生总结,还是由教师归纳总结,都要注意把本节课的内容纳入知识系统之中,使学生在整体上把握知识.

八、写板书设计(Blackboard Designs)

板书是有声有色的教学语言,它具有直观性、形象性和启发性.因此,教师在课堂上要有计划

地使用黑板,板书什么内容、写在什么位置、用什么颜色的粉笔等要在备课时设计好,并写在教案中.避免课堂上东写一个句子、西写一个短语、一会儿写、一会儿擦、一会儿擦了又写的板书混乱现象.好的板书能使讲课的内容系统化、结构化,有利于学生复习本节课的知识. 写教案时要考虑的问题

1、如何开始备课

在教师着手备课之前，必须吃透课程标准（大纲）及教材，在此基础上，考虑学生的认知规律和实际的语言能力，以确定课题和教学目的，明确教学目标。从教学目标出发，确定重点和难点，考虑用哪些教学法来组织课堂。然后精心挑选、设计练习，确定要做、改、删、增的练习，列授课计划提纲，再逐步仔细预测各种教学技巧和教学手段的应用，特别是涉及可能修改计划、增删内容的教学步骤。

2. 思考几个问题

（1）教学技巧上，是否有足够的变化可以使课堂教学生动有趣？成功的外语课上总有不同的活动，使学生思维活跃，情绪高涨。

（2）不同教学技巧的应用和教学的组织有没有得到有序的、合乎逻辑的安排？理想化的课堂教学须朝着教学目标由易及难、循序渐进。建立在新知识之上的教学活动必须精心安排。

（3）整堂课的节奏设计得好吗？节奏的含义，可以有以下三个方面：第一，活动不能太短，也不能太长。如果课堂活动多而短，那么学生刚刚找到某活动的“感觉”，又得“跳到”下一个活动去了。这样不好。第二，教师应考虑如何把各种教学技巧、教学手段和教学组织形式揉合在一起。例如，一堂课上连续搞全班俩俩全班小组俩俩全班……的活动，每个活动五分钟，那么，这些活动是难以发挥其应有作用的。第三，控制好节奏也有利于各个教学活动之间的衔接。例如：

（4）整节课的时间有没有安排好？这是备课最难控制的因素之一。新教师往往容易提早授完所备内容，而后又易矫枉过正，不能完成课时计划。这里有两点值得提醒。预先准备一些“备用”的复习活动。如果提早授完已准备的内容，则进行复习巩固练习。

3. 学生的个体差异

随着教学过程的重心由教师向学生转变，学生的主体作用日益突出。课堂教学必须充分考虑学生的个体差异。我们主张，备课一般应以中等程度的学生为准，但也应适当照顾两头的学生。可以考虑以下五个方面：（1）教学内容适当包含一些较难或较易的项目，（2）针对不同水平的学生问不同难度的问题，（3）设计的教学活动尽可能让全体同学都参与。

4. 学生谈话与教师谈话

备课时要充分考虑教师与学生的谈话时间。一般的英语课上，总是教师说得多， 学生说得少。要注意让学生有较多的机会进行交际。

【—之怎样交朋友】下面是老师为同学们带来一篇关于我怎样交朋友的范文，供同学们写作时参考。希望对同学们有帮助。

How to Make Friends

For some, it’s easy to make new friends in school because they are outgoing. But for some others, it seems difficult. Here are some tips to make friends.

对有些人来说，在学校交友很容易，因为他们很外向。但是对其他人来说，这似乎比较困难。以下是交友的几点建议。

Firstly, be positive and outgoing. Only when you are positive and outgoing, others would like to talk to you and then make friends with you. Secondly, develop some interests. It’s easier for people to make new friends when you have common interests. They can supply topics to discuss. Thirdly, be a good listener. Let people talk about themselves before you talking about yourself. Finally, try to help your friends when they are in trouble, because a friend in need is a friend indeed.

首先，要积极外向。只有当你积极外向的时候，别人才会喜欢和你交谈然后和你做朋友。其次，发展一些兴趣。当有共同兴趣的时候，交新朋友对人们才更容易。他们能够提供可讨论的话题。再次，做一个好的倾听者。在你谈论自己之前先让别人说说他们自己。最后，当你的朋友遇到困难的时候尝试帮助他们，因为患难见真情。

怎样交朋友在我们交友的过程中是很重要的一件事，交到好朋友则一生受益，否则相反。

假如你是英国学生PETER在北京学习，请按下文给你的朋友MARY写一封信谈一下北京和伦敦的异同相同点：北京和伦敦都是首都和重要城市，都拥有众多人口，都是国家经济 政治 文化中心，都拥有许多历史，文化古迹不同点：伦敦；汽车靠左行小学作文 ，很多人坐汽车上班 阴天多 懂汉语人少 学生不充分利用时间

北京：汽车靠右行很多人骑自行车上班 晴天多 懂英语人多 学生学习勤奋

Dear Mary,

I have been living in Beijing for some time now and I find it very interesting here.

There are so many similarities between Beijing and London. They are both the capital of the country and are both very important cities. Both places have huge populations. They are both the economical, political and cultural center. They both have many historical and cultrual

I also found many differences in the two cities. In London we drive on the left side of the road, while in Beijing they drive on the right side. Most people in London go to work via public transportation, here in Beijing most people rides bycicles. In London the weather is always cloudy, here in Beijing most the the time it s sunny. And in London most student don t spend their time efficiently, but here in Beijing many people speak English cause they study hard.

Regards,

Peter

a western festival

Halloween is a western festival. It’s on Oct.31st. It’s a happy time for children because at night they put on the masks to attend the party. After the party, they knock at someone’s door and say: “trick or tread”. It means if you don’t give me the candies, I will play trick on you! At last kids can get enough candies for one year.

[万圣节初中英语作文

书面表达是英语写作的重要组成部分，有不少学生觉得用英语写作很难，不知从何练起。笔者教学实践发现，首先要具备扎实的基础知识，抓住课本教学来培养学生的写作能力，立足教材，由易到难，由浅入深，采取多种形式来加强书面表达训练，这样英语写作水平才能得到提高。

一是通过词汇教学训练写作能力。要写好文章不是一朝一夕就能达到的，必须从最基础的词汇入手。教学中，教师要注意加强词汇方面的训练，力求给学生交代清楚每一个词语的具体用法。对一些重点的、核心的词汇讲清，讲透每个词语的单独用法和搭配用法。为了更有效地与课本结合起来，每学完一个单元，根据本单元的单词、短语造句，举一反三，帮助学生扩大词汇量，使学生词不离句，强化写作训练。

二是通过一句多译练习训练写作能力。就七年级学生而言，他们虽然接触英语学习时间不长，但教师还是要注重引导学生多做一些一句多译练习，这样有助于启发学生的写作思路。考试时选择自己有把握的句子灵活地表达同一内容，减少失误，提高得分率。通过做汉译英练习，暴露出学生受母语影响的问题，对这些问题我及时进行讲评和纠正。这样，有利于培养和规范学生的英语表达能力。

三是结合课文进行各种体裁的写作训练。目前，信息来源的渠道多种多样，学生课文中有记叙、日记、通知、便条、书信、广告和说明等多种体裁，文中还有大量的插图，教师可利用图片让学生进行看图写作。要学好英语写作就必须从课文练起，从一些常见的文体练起，由短到长，由浅入深，循序渐进地进行。

四是通过背诵训练写作。培养学生的英语写作能力，以课文为中心训练写作能力非常重要，因为课文中的句子就是规范的英语范文。因此，每学完一篇课文或对话，教师就要要求学生背诵，然后默写。这样使学生把词语放在句型、段落、篇章中去理解、记忆和体味，以至于能够仿写、改写。

五是通过仿写和改写训练写作能力。仿写也是提高英语写作能力行之有效的方法，模仿写作中，格式、构思、表达方式等方面都可模仿。但要提醒学生注意灵活变通，语句要通顺，符合英语表达习惯。仿写前要从时态，句型，内容选材等方面对学生加以辅导，指导学生怎样模仿，特别提醒学生注意时态。

另外，改写也是一种很好的方法，改写就是对文章材料的文体、式样、句式等进行改编的一种训练方式。无论是改人称、改时态，还是改对话材料为叙述文字，这都有助于学生复习巩固所学知识，又能培养学生所学知识的迁移运用能力，还能起到提高学生的写作能力。

总之，要提高学生的英语写作能力，就要培养学生养成良好的学习习惯。即：重视词、短语、造句，优秀的对话和课文要背诵，多做翻译练习，练习改写和仿写，结合课文进行各种体裁的写作训练。只有坚持不懈，持之以恒，才能写出准确、地道、规范的英语文章。

When memory began for me, my grandfather was past sixty-a great tall man

with thick hair becoming gray. He had black eyes and a straight nose which ended

in a slightly flattened tip. Once he explained seriously to me that he got that

flattened tip as a small child when he fell down and stepped on his nose.

The little marks of laughter at the corners of his eyes were the prodnct of

a kindly and humorous nature. The years of work which had bent his shoulders had

never dulled his humour nor his love of a joke.

Everywhere he went, "Gramp" made friends easily. At the end of half an hour

you felt you had known him all your life. I soon learned that he hated to give

orders , but that when he had to, he tried to make his orders sound like

suggestions.

One July morning, as he was leaving to go to the cornfield, he said :

"Edwin, you can pick up the potatoes in the field today if you want to do that.

" Then he drove away with his horses.

The day passed, and I did not have any desire to pick up potatoes. Evening

came and the potatoes were still in the field. Gramp, dusty and tired, led the

horses to get their drink.

"How many bags of potatoes were there?" Gramp inquired. "I dont know.

"

"How many potatoes did you pick up?"

"I didnt pick any. " "Not any! Why not?"

"You said I could pick, them up if I wanted to. You didnt say I had to.

"

In the next few minutes I learned a lesson I would not forget: when Gramp

said I could if I wanted to, he meant that I should want to.

Gram hated cruelty and injustice. The injustices of history, even those of

a thousand years before, angered her as much as the injustices of her own

day.

She also had a deep love of beauty. When she was almost seventy-five, and

had gone to live with one of her daughters, she spent a delightful morning

washing dishes because, as she said, the beautiful patterns on the dishes gave

her pleasure. The bird, the flowers, the clouds-all that was beautiful around

her- pleased her. She was like the father of the French painter, Millet, who

used to gather grass and show it to his son , saying , "See how beautif ul this

is ! "

In a pioneer society it is the harder qualities of mind and character that

are of value. The softer virtues are considered unnecessary. Men and women

struggling daily to earn a living are unable, even for a moment, to forget the

business of preserving their lives. Only unusual people, like my grandparents,

manage to keep the softer qualities in a world of daily struggle.

Such were the two people with whom I spent the months from June to

September in the wonderful days of summer and youth.

My Class

here are forty-two students in my class, with 25boys and 17girls. It’s an active class, and the reason may be that the boys are more than girls. The classroom atmosphere of our class is very good, because we interact with teachers quite often. Our classmates are all united and helpful to each other. We often organize some activities to enhance the relationship between classmates and our regular activity is the English Day in every two weeks that we can only speak English during recess. Maybe it sounds a little difficult but it really funny and classmates enjoy it very much.

[我的班级初中英语作文

March 12th is Tree Planting Day. This year our school bought enough trees

before that day . On that day , we didnt had classes . The teachers and our

classmates planted trees around our school.

We began to planted trees as soon as we got to school . some students dug

the holes . Some students put the trees into the holes.

Some students put the earth back to the holes. Then we pushed the earth

hard with our feet . At last we watered the trees as much as possible.

From then on we looked after the trees carefully and the trees grew very

well. It made our shcool more beautiful .And How happy we are!