初中英语说明文写作模板【汇总20篇】

The summer holiday is coming. I’m going to have a good rest and learn to

relax myself. I will read more useful books because reading more books is not

only interesting but also helps me learn more knowledge. I will try to spend

more time in chatting with my parents and help them to do some housework. I am

going to take part in the social activities so that I can know more about the

society. If possible, I’d like to make a trip to Xiamen. I’m sure I’ll have an

interesting and meaningful summer holiday. I am looking forward to it..

选修课(Selective Courses) This term our school laid down a new rule about selective court. For the first two weeks, we may sit in as many classes as we like before we decide on which courses to choose. We jumped for joy. The first week I attended classes for four evenings on end and found out that most of the teachers took it serioualy. They were busy in "winning votes" for fear, that later on no one would attend their lectures.

For example, the teacher of Modern Literature of Taiwan said, "Actually the flrst two hours of my lecture were only a prelude. The real contents have not been involved. In the furore, we shall discuss such famous writers as Qiong Yao, Xi Murong, etc, and such famous aetresses as Lin Fengjiao, Lin Qingxia etc. We have lots of vedio-taped films to watch. These are confined only to those who co-major in this court." See, after all, the last sentence is the core of everything he said.

The teacher of Appreciation and Critics of Modern Opera said, "We have a variety of contents and the teaching method is changable. For instance, l may choose one act from a play and let you perform it in class. If you do a good job, you can put on the play at the school theater festival. Also, we shall arrange for you to watch current plays. The school is in charge of the traffic and tickets, Of course, only those who co-major this course are eligible." You see, the most important thing comes at last through twists and turns.

[新年计划初中英语作文三篇

英语说明文阅读答题技巧

说明文是以“说明”为主要表达方式，用来介绍或解释事物的状态、性质、构造、功用、制作方法、发展过程以及内在事理的一种实用文体。接下来小编告诉你英语说明文阅读答题技巧。

题型一：分析说明文的句子作用

这种题型的特点是：在文中抽出一个句子或一个文段，要求分析这个句子或文段在全文结构上的作用。这种题型解法很简单：首先判断句子或文段是在文首、文中、还是文末;然后再按如下规律答题即可。一般情况下，句子或文段在文中不同的位置有不同的作用：在文首，作用多是统领全文、总起全文或引出下文;在文中，作用多是承上启下;在文末，作用多是总结全文。

题型二：提出说明文说明的问题的解决办法

这种题型的特点是：开放性强，要求针对文中所说明的某种现象或某个问题，提出合理的解决办法或应对措施。命题的形式通常有：

①应如何正确看待或防范“……”？请你略作分析。

②从上文对“……”的说明中，你能得到什么启示？

③针对文中所提到的“……”问题，请你提出几条合理的建议。

题型三：引用古籍或名言的目的。

先要理解所引古籍或名言的含义，现联系说明的内容，看看这两者间有何内在联系，就能领悟其引用的目的了。在说明的开头文段或中间叙述有关的故事，究竟起何作用：

在文章开头叙述故事，其目的往往是为了引起读者阅读的兴趣，或者是为了引出说明对象。

在文章或段落中间叙述故事，往往是为了增强说明文的可读性，同时也为了说明事物的来源或作用。

怎样快速做好英语阅读理解

先看题目后看文章。一般大多数人做阅读时都是先看文章再做题，这也是考试的最一般方法。这种方法的缺点是往往在做题目的时候由于印象不深需要重新看文章寻找答案。而先看问题，带着问题去看文章，那么看到与问题相关的语句就仔细看，无关的可以粗略的看，这样既准确的找到了问题的答案又节省了时间。

每段的首尾句要认真的看。阅读理解的题目中都会出现主旨题。例如：what is the main idea of the first paragraph?对于这类题目的答案一般都在段落的首句，有的时候也会出现在尾句中。所以一定要认真看首尾句。

运用猜测法。在做阅读理解题时，猜测也是一种能力。同样一篇文章，有些人简直不知道该如何下手，而另一些人能运用自己平时在生活中的经验积累，根据上下文进行逻辑推理，排除错误的选项，找出最有可能的选项。当然，这也是建立在一定的知识积累上的，所以平时要多注意知识的积累。

细节题用快速阅读法。有些细节题，比如which of the following sentence is nou true?对于这类题则快速跳阅文章，找到相关语句，仔细核对比较，直到找到正确答案。

最后要注意平时词汇的积累。词汇的积累是每一个学习者必须面临的巨大工程。记单词最好的方法是多读些自己感兴趣的英语原著，先去猜词的意思，实在猜不出的时候再查字典，这样对单词的印象就极为深刻，不容易忘记。这比拿着单词本背单词效果要好的多。

英语阅读理解学习方法

资料的选择

首先，历年考试真题是必备的资料，真题是一个标准，做真题可以把握试题难度，出题角度，了解命题重点。其次，考研阅读辅导书，这种资料贵精不在多。做完后，我们应该反复的研读真题，思考不同类型文章的出题风格，从中摸索规律以提高阅读水平与做题技巧。

积累词语

要提高阅读水平，词汇量与短语量非常重要，打个比方：造房子要砖瓦材料，词汇就是阅读英语的砖瓦材料，没有相当量的英语词汇，阅读英语是无法进行的。所以要提高阅读水平，我们就得学会积累词语。我们不妨这么做：在通读全文后看第二遍，遇到生词尽可能根据上下文来猜，仍猜不出意思的，就把这些生字查好词典，然后抄写在一本可随身携带的小本子上。每天有空时，就拿出这小本子背诵记忆，这样做不费时，效果却很好，因不断接触，反复记忆，词汇量增加得很快。

阅读能力的提高

阅读能力的测试包括阅读速度，理解程度以及记忆能力等。要想获得满意的英语成绩，最根本的方法就是提高词汇量，加强阅读训练，同时熟悉一些阅读技巧和做题方法也是至关重要的。每个人都有自己习惯的做题方法，不能说哪种方法更高明，要大家纷纷仿效。一种方法是先快速浏览问题，然后带着问题通读全文，了解文章的大概内容，这一遍要快，不理解的地方跳过，然后做题。这时我们心中已大概知道答案的分布，跳过无关部分，快速找到答案所在处，仔细阅读，反复推敲，直到选出正确答案。可以用直接法和排除法相结合选择答案，排除法是四个选项都看，逐一排除选项，选出正确答案。这种方法可提高正确率，但花费的时间较长。

另一种方法是先浏览文章后面的问题， 然后带着问题去读文章。

读完文章后我们常有这样的情况：句子都能看懂，但读完文章印象却不深，这就牵涉到对文章框架结构的整体理解。如何学会对文章的整体理解呢?首先，要重视文章的题目和文章的首句。因为文章的题目就是文章的主题，文章的内容就是环绕主题展开。首句很关键是因为首句是文章的导入，点明作者写文章的意图，背景等。接着的每一段的第一句也很重要，因为每段的第一句实际上多半是每段的主题句，然后进行陈述或论述，逐步展开，给予例证，最后把该段内容用一句话来小结，所以每段的最后一个句子常常是该段的结论句，而整篇文章的最后一句就往往是这篇文章的结论或作者写这篇文章的用意所在。

英语阅读理解实用解题技巧

一、事实细节题

对于事实细节题，剖析一下不难看出，事实细节的内容不会单独出现，它总会与前前后后的段落内容相呼应。考生只要抓住整体大纲，看懂主题，利用内容间的因果关系，通过时间空间的关系转换，并对细节进行深入的剖析了理解，确定主题，将零碎的细节组成一个有机整体，就能深刻理解材料的内容，从而轻松解决问题。

二、词句理解题

词句理解题主要讲究的是理解题意，通过短文的词、短语或句子的理解来充分理解题意，，碰到不熟悉的词语要避过，先略读再通读，仔细推敲，尤其是对语境的理解要准确。

三、推理判断题

推理判断题最主要的就是注重文章结构的逻辑关系，抓住关键词，结合有关的生活和社会常识，理清文章的结构层次、文章内容和文章的中心思想，推断作者的写作意图和写作目的，进行推断。

四、归纳概括题

适合这类题型的阅读理解通常具体反映在文章的题目或一段短文的小标题上;很多文章从一开头就直接说出观点，表达中心思想。所以对于这类题型，一定要提示学生注意主题句和主题段，绝大多数的短文类似于语文的老三段，注意段与段之间的联系，注意隐藏的中心思想，准确了解文章结构，把握句与句之间的关系，注重逻辑关系，把握住文章的脉络即可。

五、图表理解题

图表题一般最简单，主要考察的就是学生的思维模式，注意逻辑关系，分析其中的细节，找出符合图示所要求的必要条件。

in this holiday l was very happy.why? because my famliy go to beijing.we saw tiananmen.the sky was blue ,tiananmen was red and yello.it is very nice.then i played with my mother and father in xiangshan.in the afteroon we went to yuanmingyuan.

look at yuangmingyuan, i was very sad.in the evering we ate some litto food.

beijing was very big.i love it very much.

曾几何时，我们已全然忘记语文是什么东西。只是机械地把一些文学性的知识刻进脑子里。假如给我一点想象的空间，我想我可以把它形容成这几种东西：醋、糖、苦瓜、辣椒。 你是否有过这种感觉？盛夏的星空下，回忆刚刚读过的一则故事，那些字里行间流露的情感在脑中萦绕，幻化成一幅幅生动的画面。

又恰好，那是一则感人的故事，开始你可能会义愤填膺地咒骂其中的坏人，同情并感动于其中的善良与美好。慢慢地，你会发觉在那些掏心掏肺的呐喊过后，胸腔里满是微酸的感觉，就像有人在你的胃里倒入了一杯醋，然后不断地发酵，而内心里的文字开始清晰地呈现。语文这东西带给你酸酸的幸福。

也许从你牙牙学语的时候，或者稍稍可以说一些不连贯的话语时，你更喜欢做的是捧着一本小人书而不是对着一堆小棒数一二三四五语文容易让人产生兴趣，就像小孩子喜欢各式各样的糖果。你开始爱上“海日生残夜”的奇幻，你开始爱上“月下飞天镜”的奇美，你开始爱上“淡妆浓抹总相宜”的奇雅。语文这东西让你爱上糖果在心中融化的甜美。 语文不是时时服从于我们的奴隶，它也会发怒。

当我们觉得语文实在太容易的时候，它就会毫不留情地给我们一些教训，它会摘下一棵苦瓜让你尝尝。当你因为考试失利而痛苦的时候，是不是就会感觉一股苦味从心底蔓延？这就是忠实的朋友给我们的一个小小的警告。它让我们更清楚地认识到自己的过失。语文这东西，像苦瓜一样难以人口却又回味无穷。 语文这东西，你与它真心相待，它就会回报你一颗火热的心。我们常常因为有了它的陪伴，生命变得绚丽多彩。

语文是抽象的东西，但语文又是感性的、形象的。它在我们生命的轨迹上留下了坚实的脚印。我们终将老去，然而语文却会永远年轻。语文这东西，让我们眼中含泪，却嘴角上扬。 语文这东西，爱你没商量！

Christmas is also known as Christmas, translated as "Christ mass", western

traditional festival, every year in December 25th. Mass is a kind of church

service. Christmas is a religious festival, because regard it as to celebrate

the birth of Jesus, named "christmas".

Most of the Catholic Church will be first in the 24, Christmas Eve, i.e.,

the early morning of December 25 at midnight mass, and some Christian will be

held caroling and on December 25 to celebrate Christmas; Christian another

branch of Orthodox Christmas celebration in the annual January 7.

Christmas is a public holiday in the western world and in many other

regions, such as Hongkong, Macao, Malaysia, and Singapore in Asia. The Bible

actually did not record the date of birth of Jesus, Christmas is a public.

英语作文虽然不像语文作文在考试

高三英语作文写作技巧：练习

“没有规矩，不成方圆，英语作文写作技巧。”对于一般英语学习者而言，写出优秀的文章有赖于后天习得，但并不意味着机械背诵、生吞活剥，或者照搬照抄、人云亦云。所谓研习，需要有独立思考和个人的判断，本着“他山之石，可以攻玉”的精神，汲取文章的精华部分加以研究。研习主要侧重两个方面，包括文章章法和语言表达。文章章法指文章的行文思路、布局谋篇、结构安排、逻辑顺序。许多学习者面对一个话题，可能存在两种不同的困惑，一是下笔千言，但离题万里;二是思绪万千，却无从落笔。导致两种困惑的根源皆在于欠缺思考问题、组织思路的恰当方式，以至于文章不得要领、章法紊乱。这就要求我们从全篇脉络角度多研习范文，之后领悟如何以演绎法行文、怎样用归纳法谋篇以及如何围绕特定话题拓展思路等等。此外，研习还要侧重于语言表达，包括遣词造句和句子、段落之间的各种衔接手段，以期在自己日后的写作中派上用场，因为英文写作皆通一理。只有善于借鉴，勤加研究，才会借他人的优势和长处，提高自己的写作水平。

高三英语作文写作技巧：背诵

背诵是提高写作的又一有效途径。要学好写作文，首先要处理好语言输入与输出之间的关系。前者是后者的前提条件。如果头脑空空如也，就根本谈不上写出像模像样的文章。只有读过大量东西，并且有意识地将其中精彩部分储存于记忆之中（commit the highlights to memory），才能保证下笔流畅、文通字顺。因此，背诵对于写作极为重要。但背诵不是机械记忆，而是有选择性的背诵，是有意义的记忆。因为机械背诵的结果要么是记忆很快就荡然无存、了无痕迹，要么是无法活学活用、付诸实践。背诵包括五个方面：重点词汇、常用套语、精彩句子、优秀段落、经典篇章。

高三英语作文写作技巧：重点词汇

美妙的用词及搭配皆在此列，像fall victim（受害），stand a fair chance（大有希望）这种地道的动宾搭配要勤加记忆。为了积累写作词汇，应将文中同属一个话题的用词汇总归纳，组成主题词族（topic family）。归类记忆可以使自己日后即写即用，得心应手。下文是一篇阐释爱心的优秀文章，多处用词精巧，现将文中关于爱心这一主题的词汇总结如下：

emotional strength 情感的力量

the noblest of human emotions人类最高尚的情感

no thought of gain不计得失

the lamp of love爱心之灯

help the victims of natural disasters支援自然灾害受害者

donate whatever they can倾囊相助

help their needy fellow citizens 帮助有需要的同胞

be ready to give a helping hand 随时准备伸出援手

—When we use the word "love"， we do not simply mean an attraction to a person of the opposite sex， which is a very narrow definition of the word。 Love is emotional strength， which can support us no matter how dark the world around us becomes。 In fact， throughout history people of many different cultures have regarded love as the noblest of human emotions。

As an example of the power of love， we should remember how the Chinese people of all nationalities respond to the call to help the victims of natural disasters every year。 Although their incomes are still low by international standards， people all over the country do not hesitate to donate whatever they can — be it money or goods — to help their needy fellow citizens。 Moreover， they do this with no thought of gain for themselves。

In my opinion， the best way to show love is to help people who are more unfortunate than we are。 We should always be ready to give a helping hand to those who are in trouble， no matter whether they are family members or complete strangers。 In this way， we can help to make the world a better place， for the darker the shadows of sorrow become， the more brightly the lamp of love shines。

当我们用“爱”这个词时，我们不仅仅指异性对一个人的吸引，这只是对这个词非常狭隘的解释，小学生作文《英语作文写作技巧》。爱心是一种情感的力量，不论我们周围的世界多么黑暗，爱心都能支撑我们。事实上，纵观历史，不同文化背景的人都把爱看成是人类最高尚的情感。

说到爱心的力量，我们马上就会想起每年中国各族人民是如何响应号召支援自然灾害受害者的。尽管按照国际标准他们的收入还处于低水平，全国人民毫不犹豫地倾囊相助——不管是钱还是物——帮助那些有需要的同胞。而且，他们这么做并不考虑自己的得失。

我认为，表达爱心的最好方式是帮助比我们更加不幸的人。我们应该随时准备向有困难的人伸出援助之手，无论他们是家庭成员还是素昧平生。这样，我们就能够助一臂之力把世界变成一个更美好的地方，因为，悲伤的阴影越黑暗，爱心之灯的光芒就越闪亮。

[高三英语作文写作技巧

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

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。

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3. 在海滩游泳，欣赏海水日出和日落等美景。

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4. 吃海鲜，买纪念品；

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5. 谈感受。

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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.______________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

在多年的雅思教学中，我发现学生在实际考试中面临着不同的写作障碍，影响了考试成绩，雅思英语考试中应该如何克服写作障碍。归纳起来大致有以下几个方面：

一、真情流露，无从下笔

有的考生在考试时见到作文题，顿感思路塞车，好像有许多话要说，但又不知究竟应从那里写起。明智的做法是“投其所好、尽情发挥。”考生不妨把作文的要求量化到每一个段落，一篇250词左右的作文一般不会超过15句话，把这15句话根据题目要求分配到各段中去，每一段大概只说那么几句话，事实上往往是说得越多错误越多。因此，每句话紧扣提纲，见好就收,这才是最稳妥的对策。

二、心里明白，难以表达

在考场上有的考生题目看得懂，提纲也明白，就是不知道该说什么，头脑里一片空白。这是在雅思写作考试中的一种常见的现象，针对这一现象，最有效的办法就是要善于联想到一些具体的事实，具体的例证和具体的现象。事实上，雅思的作文题目一定是一个具有社会普遍型话题，其目的是让不同教育背景的考生都有话可说。因此，考生一定能就题目联想起具体细小的事情再形成观点。把看得见摸得着的事物带来的思考变成作文里的实质内容，这不失为一种很好的策略。

因此，当头脑出现空白时，应该由具体细小的、琐碎的、微不足道的事物所引发的思考形成观点，再进行论述。这种定式思维的形成需要多下功夫多练习。

三、一味追求标新立异，导致无从下笔

考试时通常发现有的考生聚精会神的坐在那里冥思苦想，非要想出一个与众不同的观点。陷入这种境地的考生，显然犯了一个根本性的错误，参考时间为40分钟的作文，一般应在35分钟之内完成,再用几分钟的时间检查语言错误。可有的考生十几分钟一句话都写不了，就是因为他太进入角色了，这是考试中一个很大的误区。

考作文的目的纯粹是通过这一命题形式，考查考生的英语水平如何，雅思英语《雅思英语考试中应该如何克服写作障碍》。命题人关注的是书面表达能力，而不是看一个人有没有内容，思想有没有深度，所以“一味追求标新立异”是没有必要的。

四、构思、写作不统一，落实有困难

实事求是的讲，要求考生完全运用英语思维来写作文是不现实的。很多考生在实际写作过程中，脑子里想的是中文句子，然后再把中文句子译成英文。因此采用“得其意，忘其形”的方法，忘掉中文的语法结构，句法形式则可能要整个地打乱，“钻进去，跳出来”。所谓“钻进去”就是要看意思是否到位了，“跳出来”就是要忘记中文的语言形式。实际上把英文译成中文，关键是要在转换中把意思表达出来。

针对构思、写作不统一，落实有困难情况。必须摒弃翻译中追求一一对应的关系，并机械地把中文译成英文的方法，应该把中文句子结构彻底地忘记，然后用比较简单的“万能”英语表达。平时不妨做一做这样的练习，通过阅读不认识词条的英文注解，然后试着把单词译成中文词，再去对照英汉词典的汉语释义，慢慢地就会开始领会用英语表达的门道了。

五、被动心态压抑新构思

尽管雅思考试作文为规定式命题，但考生仍可积极主动地发挥。其主动性在于采取回避的策略，表达上采取迂回的方式，即运用不很复杂的语言。内容的取舍上避重就轻地写比较易于表达的内容。很多人在写作过程中从头至尾都处于被动状态，当有内容想要表达清楚的时候，却又发现种种途径都不可能表达好，只好硬着头皮把自己意识到没把握的东西勉强写上去。连自己都意识到可能是错误的东西，只会产生于己不利的负面影响。所以，当有的内容感觉一点找不着，英语实在表达不清楚的时候，就应该彻底地放弃。单词拼写错误也是雅思考试作文写作的一大问题。常用单词是不能拼错的，有的单词平时会拼写，考试时突然没把握了，不妨换一下或许还能想起另外一个难度大一点、拼写有把握的来代替。应该回避明确知道自己不会拼写的词。如果没法换一个词，将句子改换一种说法亦未尝不可。有的考生在考卷上没把握的地方标上问号，或者把两种可能都写上，让判卷老师选择，这个方法是不可取的。

总之，不能让自己陷人被动，想说什么，用什么方式说。说多少，说到什么程度。一切都应由考生主动把握，这样才会减少心理上的压力，

When the leaves from the green turn yellow, the wind gently blow, leaves the name of the child like a yellow butterfly fly down; when the trees off the green summer, put on the golden autumn; when the rice field covered with a Zhang "gold carpet", the fall has unwittingly came to our side. When we enjoy the beautiful spring, the autumn rhythm of the ground up.

Autumn as bright as the pearls, smooth broken jade children, scattered scattered, intermittent, silent, fluttering to sway. And threw it upon the high eaves; and sprinkled it on the dead branches; and leapt to the earth;

Autumn drip on the window, thrown a slight luster, pattering, playing into a autumn march. They seem to be a group of lively and lovely children, drooping to fall on the umbrella, like walking on the umbrella. These "children" like weaving a gray mantle account, hanging between heaven and earth. I seem to see the hazy sky there is a slim girl looming, she seems shy up, put on a layer of mysterious veil. And as if a "city beautician" drive a huge sprinkler in the water, the city should be washed spotlessly.

Autumn winds, blowing away the hot summer, bring cool. Gradually, the rain is getting bigger and bigger, one of the meaningful, let you back to the past, let you miss the hometown, rather than that it is worry, it is better to say that this is a taste of beauty it

Rain is fine, a picture is so sweet, it is to celebrate the crop harvest smile, it is so that the mountains and plains of the fruit red face. "Autumn wind and rain worry about the era of early in the motherland golden autumn gone.

I love the rain, because she put the world with a mysterious clothes!

I am studying in a middle school now, it is my second year. If you ask me

what my occupation is, I will answer you that my occupation is student. I have

studied for many years, many students don’t like being a student, but I am not

of them, I enjoy being a student. For me, I don’t have to worry about the money

issue, I can go to play with my friends, the most important thing is, I like

reading all kinds of books. I especially like to read the books about travel. I

have a dream, when I earn enough money, I must travel around the world. So I

must work hard to realize my dream.

秋天，带着丝丝薄情，卷着瑟瑟萧风，似乎凉到心里去了，然而，秋凉，人心更凉...为何不让我们的暖意去温暖这个本不该萧瑟的秋？

——题记

那年，银杏甚好，如一把把金黄的罗扇，缀于小巷的银杏树上。淡色阳光洒在红砖瓦砌成的小巷上，显得柔和又不失温暖。斑驳的树影星星点点的洒落在地，如梦如幻。我吃过午饭，来到小巷，缓缓踱步，欣赏眼前的盛世美景，似有什么牵引着我一般，不由的沿着小巷，踏着绵绵的银杏叶，向前走着。抬头望着树上的金罗扇，余光不经意间撇到了哪里......

一位大约七旬的老人，一件军绿色的大衣裹在身上，上面打着不计其数的补丁。大衣将老人干瘦如枯木的身体严实的包住，更显瘦弱。老人面上布满皱纹，一道一道，在他脸上划上岁月的痕迹，半眯着的眼眸浑浊不堪。老人面前站着一位穿着时尚，耳戴耳机的年轻小伙，一脸不耐烦的表情。老人似乎下了很大的决心，将那枯枝般的手伸向小伙，拽住他的裤脚，干涩沙哑的嗓音：“行行好，给我点钱可以吗......”可是换来的却是小伙冰冷的话语：“死乞丐，滚远点......”和头也不回的背影。

我看到老人，心中有些许不忍，却又没有勇气去帮助他。这时，似为我的懦弱不齿一般，一阵秋风挂过，瑟瑟的凉意。我恍然大悟，秋天是一个凉意萧瑟的季节，竟然如此，又怎么能让人心在凉薄呢？木心先生说过:有些事没做过，却一定要去做。我想这便是一件了。

那片银杏叶至今还在我的书中，它时时刻刻提醒着我，世间万物皆可凉薄，但人心不可。只有人心不凉薄，才能使这个萧瑟的秋天暖意洋洋。谁说秋天必定萧瑟？只要每个人心中都怀揣着温暖，那这个秋天必定不会萧瑟！

[初中一年级作文写作

Water is the source of life.We cant live without water.However,with the

increasing population and industrial development,water pollution has become a

serious problem.Large amounts of wastewater go into rivers and seas directly

without being treated,which can be dangerous to people.Also lots of people pay

no attention to saving water in daily life,while in some place water is badly

needed.

Its time for us to take some measures to improve the situation.Factories

should treat the wastewater before letting it go into rivers.We can play a

positive role in saving water.For example we can reuse the water for wishing

rice to wash vegetables and then clean a mop.

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

Time spent at a university is a most worthwhile period in a young persons

life. This is a time when a student begins to form his or her ideas about life

in general. Attending classes and studying in the library keep a student busy

and provide him or her with access to valuable information， adding to his or her

knowledge base.

Campus life can also be rich and colorful. Most universities offer a

variety of extracurricular activities such as sports events， contests， and other

social gatherings， enabling the students to experience relief from study and

homework. Students often form lifelong friendships through the varied

experiences of university life.

During the time a student spends at university， he not only develops his

intellectual abilites，he also develops social skills as well as knowledge and

wisdom necessary for choosing a future career. By learning how to balance

intense study and recreation， a student will be well prepared for the challenges

of future responsibilities.

Leaving school How times flies!We have spent three years in the school I am very sad that I have to say goodbye to you.Ive learned much in the past three years. Our teachers worked hard and took good care of us. All the students studied very hard and were all very friendly to each other.

We will go to different senior schools next term. Lets keep in touch with each other. And I also hope everyone will have a bright future.

As a student, my main target is to study well and then make progress step

by step. When holiday comes, it is time for me to play, and I should be happy,

while playing all the time makes me feel empty in my heart. I have done nothing

at all. I want to do something meaningful to enrich my life. So a target is

needed for me. I set a small goal, such as, read a book, or help my mother with

her work. Everytime when I finish my target, I will feel so satisfied. The

meaningful life is to do something useful and make you feel happy.

Oh! it was winter holiday. i was very happy. i read my favourite books. i have many wonderful books. but i could not read these books too much. i also had a lot of homework to do. i like playing computer games, too. it’s very interesting. but i could not play it too much. i wear glasses, i’m very sad. it’s not good for my eyes to play computer games too much.

Oh! it was the spring festival. it’s chinese traditional festival. people were very happy. they went shopping, cleaned their houses, had supper together……i went to my grandparents’ home with my parents. my grandparents were very happy to see us. they prepared many kinds of nice food, such as fish, meat, vegetables and fruit. in the evening, we watched tv and lighted fireworks. we also knocked on people’s doors and gave some presents to them. after the spring festival, we went to shanghai to go shopping. we bought clothes, shoes and some delicious food.

I had a good holiday, i think. i also have very nice school life now.

Yesterday ,I went to a zoo with my parents .

When we got to the zoo, we climbed up a little hill first. We can see many kangaroos on the hill, I played with some kangaroos. Then, we went to a pond. I fished in the pond, and got a big fish and 2 small fishes. I was very happy at that time. After fishing, we walked on grass. There are many parrots on the grass. And we were surprised that one of them can speak English. I spoke to it, and it said ‘hello’ to me. That made a lot of fun for me.

In the afternoon, we went to see monkeys, pandas, snakes and big sharks. And I took many photos from them. I also rode a horse and painted a mask for fun.

When we back home, it almost got drak. But I’m very happy, because I had a good time at the zoo that day

I am a girl of ten, and I live in a small mountain village far from

Taiyuan. The only person that lives with me is my mother, because my father is

away for eight years, working in a city.

During the Spring Festival, my father came back home. He looked thin and

tired. He gave my mother two thousand yuan, and told her that he would work even

harder, earn more money, and then he could take us to the city He stayed at home

for only ten days.We are living a poor life now. But what I want most is not

money, but my father. I miss him very much!