高考英语写作高频词汇【汇总20篇】

导语：谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦。节约是我们中华民族的优良传统，因此我们不应该浪费一点食物。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的相关英语作文，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

As is shown in the picture, two men had a big dinner in a restaurant, but much of the food was left and some was even untouched at all. When the waitress asked them to pack the remaining food, they felt very surprised, thinking that it was unbelievable for them to do things like that with too much money in their pocket.

It is a pity that many people act like the two men in the picture. In my view, we should pack the leftovers when we have meals outside. As we all know, saving is a fine tradition for our Chinese people and therefore we shouldn’t waste a bit food. Also, there is not enough food in the world and there are many people starving. In addition, we students should form the habit of saving food and give away some to the people in need. Finally, we have the responsibility to help people around us realize the importance of saving.

Only in this way can we build up an economized society and live a happy and healthy life.

【参考译文】

正如图中所示，2人在餐厅吃了一顿丰盛的晚餐，但大部分食物都是左，有的甚至根本没有被人动过。当女服务员要他们把剩下的食物打包时，他们感到非常惊讶，认为他们做的事情是难以置信的，在他们的口袋里有太多的钱。

这是一个遗憾，许多人的行为就像在照片中的男人。在我看来，当我们在外面吃饭的时候，我们应该把剩下的食物包好。我们都知道，节约是我们中华民族的优良传统，因此我们不应该浪费一点食物。还有，世界上没有足够的食物，有很多人在挨饿。另外，我们学生应该养成节约食物的习惯，并且给人们一些需要的人。最后，我们有责任帮助我们周围的人们意识到储蓄的重要性。

只有这样我们才能建立一个节约型社会和健康愉快的生活。

所谓材料作文，是要求写作者根据所给的一段文字或图画等具体材料，按照作文命题要求，进行写作的一种作文形式。它的特点是读写结合。写作者要经过阅读材料、理解分析、提炼主旨、联想想象、筛选甄别、文字表达等步骤，才能完成一篇文章的写作。材料作文的类型有：根据文字材料作文、看图作文、扩写、缩写、改写、续写等。例如2005年中考作文题。

高考历年满分作文选

材料作文写作中需要注意的是：

1.要读懂材料。认真阅读材料，理清材料思路，明确材料指向，归纳材料要点，把握材料寓意，最终提炼写作中心。这是材料作文写作的关键，也是考场作文能否及格的第一步。

提炼中心练习。阅读所给文字，归纳写作要点：

小时候妈妈经常教育我们说：“滴水之恩，当涌泉相报。无论何时何地，都不要忘记别人对你的恩情，这才是做人的根本。”现在我也用妈妈这句话教育我的孩子，希望他做一个知恩图报、懂得感激的人。2002年6月的某一天，儿子放学回来，一进门就说：“妈妈，我们学校要给受灾地区捐款，这一次我捐100元。”“为什么？”“因为这次受灾地区有陕西省，我很担心周至县枣春小学的孩子们，还有我住过的老乡家是否被水淹了。妈妈，他们会被水淹死吗？还有那些可爱的小狗。”说着说着儿子的眼圈红了起来，我也被他感动了，于是从包里拿出100元递给他。他所说的地方是他2001年随星星河记者团采访过的地方。

这则材料只要找到点题句——希望儿子做一个知恩图报、懂得感激的人，即“感恩”，中心内容就迎刃而解了。

2.要联系实际。确定写作中心后，内容构思是要选择切入点，从身边小事、眼前情境、街头见闻等入笔，徐徐展开生活画卷，联系作者的学习、生活实际，写实事、抒真情、谈看法、说体会。

3.要力求出新。在文章观点无误的前提下，展开多角度的思考，突破思维定势，克服从众心理，独辟蹊径，力求写出人无我有、人有我新、摄人心魄的好文章。还是“感恩”的材料，一位同学的作文是这样开头的：

family，家庭。F代表爸爸，father；a代表和，and；m代表妈妈，mother；i代表我，I；l代表爱，love；y代表你们，you。把汉语的意思连在一起，就是“爸爸和妈妈，我爱你们”。

那晚，我和一个语文课代表，为了帮老师查点什么，晚上八点左右，才在同学们的关心声与道别声中，走出了校门。也就在此时此刻，我才想起我忘记把晚归的事情告诉给这个世界上最爱我，最疼我，最关心我的人——我那恩重如山的家人。

4.要锤炼语言，巧用修辞，力求使文章达到内容与形式的和谐统一。

5.避免材料作文跑题的方法是要注意开头、结尾的写法，做到首尾呼应，反复点题。

Since we were born as a little baby, we get help from others all the time.

Our parents raise us, our teachers teach us and our friends company us.

Therefore, it’s important for us to be grateful to those people who give us a

hand. Being grateful is a way to show them our appreciation and our love. No one

in the world is supposed to love us without any conditions. Moreover, Being

grateful to others and to what you get can lead you are ready to help others,

too. I think this is the most important impact on people that being grateful. If

we are all show our appreciation to others and then help others, we could build

a friendly and harmonious society.

开头部分:

How nice to hear from you again. Let me tell you something about the activity. I’m glad to have received your letter of Apr. 9th. I’m pleased to hear that you’re coming to China for a visit. I’m writing to thank you for your help during my stay in America.

结尾部分：

With best wishes. I’m looking forward to your reply. I’d appreciate it if you could reply earlier.

在英语教学中，培养学生听、说、读、写的能力是相辅相成的。经常练习写作，可以巩固和发展听说能力 ，还可以促进阅读能力的提高。写作能促使学生勤复习、多思考。通过对一词一句反复推敲，有助于提高使用 语言的准确性。学习用英语写作是培养英语思维能力的重要途径之一，有了一定的英语思维能力，英语学习就 能产生一个相应的飞跃。因此，在高中阶段指导、培养学生写英语作文是不容等闲视之的。

用英语解释生词，为学生打好写作基础。教师应创造语言环境，通过耳濡目染、潜移默化，培养用英语思 维的习惯。在教每课的单词和词组时，要尽量用学生学过的单词、词组进行解释。刚开始时，可由教师用英语 解释生词，后来可让学生根据汉语释意，用自己学过的单词、词组解释。这样，经过一段时间的训练，学生的 英语思维能力就会有所提高，为英语写作打下较好的基础。在作文时，如果不知道某个东西的英语表达方式而 又无词典可查，这时学生就会用其释义来代替，如用“a person who nakes clothes”来代替“atailor”， 这虽不完全符合英语语言习惯，但对初学写作的高中生来说还是值得鼓励的。

通过缩写和改写课文，培养学生的英语概括能力。缩写课文会激励学生去认真钻研课文内容，有助于加深 学生对课文的理解，提高学生归纳总结和进行简要表达的能力。缩写课文允许改动原意，不允许删去主要内容 。缩写课文一般应该用自己的话来写，不能只停留在拼凑原文的词句上，也不要逐句、逐段照原文去改写。这 些均通过示例让学生明白和掌握，并在实践中让他们仔细加以体会。改写课文可以培养学生举一反三的语言表 达能力，熟练掌握英语表达方法，促使学生去钻研、去思考，调动学习的积极性，学生把学过的知识运用到实 际中去，这对于提高英语水平大有裨益。改写，除了我们通常所说的句子、段落的释义之外，还包括用其他体 裁改写整篇课文。如高中英语第一册第三课短剧“The Lost Necklace”可改写为记叙文。有的课文，如高中英 语第一册“The Blind Men And The Elephant”和第十课“At A Tailors Shop”等，就可以让学生改写成短 剧，并让他们在班上表演。有的课文故事是第三人称叙述的，如“The Footprint”，就可以让学生用第一人称 加以改写，使他们身临其境，自由发挥。这样可创造情景，促使他们“下笔如有神”。

以多题材、多形式的自由作文训练，加强意念功能的培养。经过一段时间的缩写和改写的笔头训练之后， 学生对写作有了一定的基础和兴趣，就可以放手让他们进行多种题材的自由作文训练，使学生在自由表达思想 和内心感受中，加强意念功能培养。(1) 练习写周记日记是培养学生英语自由写作能力的第一步。写周记日记 ，学生不受内容和经验的限制，可就熟悉的题材，充分发挥自己的想象力，自由表达。(2) 看图作文新颖活泼 ，能激发学生英语写作的积极性。可以用流传较广的传说、故事作图，让学生写记叙文。比如画几幅老鼠商议 给猫挂铃铛的图，让学生以“The cat and the bell”作文。也可画一幅漫画，让学生写简易议论文。如画一 幅之人向三个方向划一条小船，让学生写出情景加以评论，并命题。(3) 作文可由教师统一命题，也可由学生 自由命题。命题作文要注意先易后难，开始让学生写一些自己熟悉、易于表达的题材。如：“Our School”、 “My Family”、“A Letter To Somebody”、“ARepectable Teacher”、“Life In Summer Vacation”等。 在此基础上，提高一步，写一些较难的题目。如:My Idea, Money And Happiness等。刚开始练习命题作文写作 时，可让学生课外完成，规定交作文日期即可。经过一段时间后，可要求他们在课堂上完成，借以培养他们的 思考能力，提高快速写作的能力。

通过讲评帮助学生逐步掌握写作要领。作文批阅应与课堂讲评相结合，一方面在班上朗诵优秀作文，说明 其好在哪里。另一方面要分析各种典型错误，尤其是汉式英语，务必通过讲译，使学生进一步了解错误产生的 原因，以及如何纠正。为了加深印象，避免讲评中烦琐指点，最好对各种错误进行分类整理，教师应注意分类 的合理性和系统性。

Pride goes before a fall 骄者必败

Fish in troubled waters 浑水摸鱼

Business is business 公事公办

The style is the man 文如其人

More haste，less speed 欲速则不达

Great minds think alike 英雄所见略同

Misfortunes never come alone 祸不单行

Hedges have eyes，walls have ears 隔篱有眼，隔墙有耳

Man proposes，God disposes. 谋事在人，成事在天

Beauty is in the eye of beholder 情人眼里出西施

Time and tide wait for no man 时不待我/岁月无情

A young idler，an old beggar 少壮不努力，老大徒伤悲

A man should not bite the hand that feeds him 不要恩将仇报

Health is better than wealth 家有万贯财，不如一身健

Out of office，out of danger 无官一身轻

In time of peace prepare for war 居安当思危

The tongue cuts the throat 祸从口出/言多必失

Out of sight，out of mind /far from eye，far from heart 眼不见为净

All shall be well，Jack shall have Jill 有情人终成眷属

[高考英语语法:形同意合的谚语口译

英语写作对很多同学来说是件头疼的事，今天，小编就为大家整理了高考英语作文模板，无论高考英语作文出什么类型的题目，套上这些模版都能拿高分。

英语备考高考英语作文模板：图表作文

图表作文写作模板

The chart gives us an overall picture of the 图表主题。

The first thing we notice is that 图表最大特点 .

This means that as 进一步说明。

We can see from the statistics given that 图表细节

图表细节一 . After 动词-ing ：细节一中的第一个变化， the动词-ed+幅度+时间(紧跟着的变化) .

The figures also tell us that图表细节二 .

In the column, we can see that accounts for (进一步描述).

Judging from these figures, we can draw the conclusion that (结论).

The reason for this, as far as I am concerned is that (给出原因). b或是 It is high time that we (发出倡议).

审题不抓关键词。

专家认为，在近几年的中考评卷中，发现相当一部分考生审题不抓关键词，这样在写作时就很难抓住重点，容易跑题。如

“动力来自……”这个作文题的关键词是“来自”，考生只有将“来自”作为重点才能写出好文章。

不少考生没有审题抓关键字的意识，看一眼题目就急着动笔，有的考生考前背过一些范文，一到考场就往里套，不仔细审题，这样最容易“下笔千言，离题万里。”要养成审题的习惯，对作文题目要逐字细看，明白题目的

要求后再下笔。

语言贫乏缺少文采。

专家说，有的考生写文章不会抒情议论，没有理性思辨语言，这样的作文很难拿到高分。考生在平时就要注意对语言素材的积累。

平时，考生可抽出时间阅读一些报纸杂志，如读者，每期都有不少亲情、励志方面的文章，对作文素材积累很有帮助。此外，还要注意古

诗词的积累，在文章中恰当地运用古诗词也是让文章增色的好办法。

文章较“平”缺少细节。

一些考生写的文章没有细节，没有重点，记“流水账”一样洋洋洒洒一大篇。在写作时要有两把剪刀，一把剪出自己最擅长的一件事，另一把在这件事中剪出要重点描写的部分。

如在写跑步时，早上怎么集合、怎么准备，都可以略写甚至不写，但发令枪响时自己如何紧张，跑的过程中

遇到的问题，这就需要详细描写。有细节的文章才有真情实感，才能打动人。一般来讲，一篇文章中抓住两个精彩的细节就够了，这需要考生平时苦练。

【提要】成人高考英语作文高考信息 : 2017成人高考专升本英语作文范文：征文稿

在日常生活中，因特网起着越来越重要的作用。请根据下表所给提示英文为某英文报纸写一篇题为On the Internet 的征文稿。

On the Internet

The internet is playing a more and more important part in our daily life. On the net, we can learn news both at home and abroad and all kinds of other information as well. We can also send messages by E-mail, make phone calls, go to net school, read various kinds of books and learn foreign languages by ourselves. Besides, we can enjoy music, watch sports or matches and play chess or cards. On the net, we can even do shopping, have a chat with others and make friends with them. In a word, the Internet has made our life more colorful.

[成人高考专升本英语作文征文稿On the Internet

某国际网站提供个人闲置物品交换服务。现在，你打算通过该网站将自己的一件闲置品与他人交换(exchange)。请你用英文在该网站上发帖，发布物品交换信息。内容应包括：

·你将拿出什么物品进行交换

·具体介绍该物品

·你希望换回什么物品

·请愿意交换的朋友给你留言

注意：

(1)词数100左右;

(2)格式不限;

(3)文中不得使用考生真实姓名和学校名称。

满分作文1

Title: Want a second-hand bicycle? Here it is!

Content:

内容：

Since I am going to graduate, the bicycle that I have ridden for three years is of no use any more. So I want to exchange it with whoever needs it.

自从我毕业后，我已经骑了三年的自行车不再使用了。所以我想和任何需要的人交换它。

The bike is in plain black and easy to ride. Though it’s designed for racing, you can use it for everyday life as well. With a lock behind the seat, it can be locked anywhere you like, removing the trouble of parking. Old as it, the bike functions well. And I’m sure you will love it at the first sight.

这辆自行车很黑，很容易骑。虽然它的设计，赛车，你可以使用它的日常生活，以及。有了一个锁在座位后面，它可以被锁在任何你喜欢的地方，消除了停车的麻烦。老了，自行车功能很好。我敢肯定你会爱上它的第一眼。

If you have a MP4 player and don’t want to keep it, you can exchange it with me. Anyone who has the intention please leave a message here, and I will contact you later.

如果你有一个MP4播放器，不想要它，你可以和我交换。有意者请在这里留言，稍后我会联系你的。

Thanks.

谢谢

高考给每位考生的压力又是顾名思义的，来自老师家长还是自身亦或是在这个特定的时间和环境下，要高质量地在规定时间内完成一篇好作文，实属不易，确实是高考。许多在平日里能写好作文的同学也很有可能会由于种种原因而临场发挥失误，头脑空白，抓不住主干，导致作文背题。也许还会在考试中间出现突发状况，这都是很正常的，如果遇到了我们该怎么办呢?下面我们就来为大家一一作出总结：

首先要强调的是，临场作文如果出现了一下几种情况，我们首先要保持冷静，切不可乱了套路，得想方设法去弥补挽救。

1.当你看到作文题目犹豫不决、举棋不定，难以下笔怎么办

应急方案：快斩乱麻，速建文骨。

由于情境的特殊性，一些平时作文成绩优异的同学也会出现“卡壳”思路断线等情况，越是在这种情况下你要做的是冷静了再冷静，别考虑太多，用“蒙太奇”的手法，快速将文章的骨架搭起来，然后填充成文。所谓“蒙太奇”，就是电影中把分切的镜头巧妙地组接起来。借用到作文上来，就是把几个能演绎共同主题的材料集中在一起组合成一篇文章。它有三个优势：一是材料没有时空的限制，非常的灵动;二是离题的可能性要小得多，如果不放心，再在首尾处巧妙地点一下题;三是省事，不必太费心思去考虑中间的起承转合，而且看起来条理非常清晰，让阅卷老师一目了然。这样既避免了不能及时下笔完整写就，同时又有“潜在高分”的可能性。

2.一时不知如何拟题

应急方案：(1)用切合文章主题的诗文名句做标题。(2)暂定一个题目，等文章写好后再做修改，以免最后忘拟题目。(3)用文章的观点做标题，语言要简洁。(4)从话题材料中找一个关键词或关键句作为标题，最好是能反映材料的主旨。

3.中心不明确怎么办

应急方案：用主旨串起材料，变一盘散沙为一线穿珠。

文章的含蓄与隐晦不是同一个概念，不能为追求含蓄而滑向了晦涩。况且，高考作文批阅有其特殊性，阅卷老师没有多少时间细细推敲或是探究考生文章中的微言大义。有了好的材料，要时时想到材料是为了印证或是阐释话题的，好材料犹如珍珠，要用从话题中抽出的主旨做线索，将颗颗珍珠串联起来。

4.发现立意偏差了怎么办

立意偏差是考生在临场发挥时最容易出现的一个问题，也是最头痛的问题，因为出发点出现了问题，后面的问题就会越来越大，得高分的希望是极其渺茫的。而此时时间又很紧张，不宜动“大手术”。

应急方案一：及早切断，转向正途。

如果是刚写了一两段就发现文章的立意有偏差，就要停下笔来冷静地审视一下已经写完的部分。如果这一部分虽然立意出现偏差，但后面还有挽回的余地，就要当机立断，利用有用部分努力向正确方向靠拢;如果仔细审视之后发现已写部分没有利用价值，就一定要忍痛舍弃，重新开始，这是不得已而为之的办法。

应急方案二：稍做过渡，强行扭转。

如“牵挂”这样的命题作文，由于没有注意到“牵挂”这个词语是有时间限制的，“牵挂”更多的是写现在的心理状态，而那些作为牵挂缘由的回忆充其量只能有机地穿插，如果写到一半篇幅的时候，你发现自己一直在回忆离世的外婆对自己种种的好，不经意间写成了“幸福” “感动”等作文了，怎么办呢?可以先用一句“外婆，知道你住院后，我每天都牵挂着你，我恨不得能飞到你的身边”简单过渡之后，就强行地往“牵挂”方向转，在剩下不多的篇幅里用排比段落来证明自己是如何“牵挂”病中的外婆：半夜做梦，梦到外婆病好了带着自己去看戏;在走廊尽头，一个人呆呆地想着外婆，不禁潸然泪下;折了很多千纸鹤，为外婆祈祷。最后再用抒情方式进行点题。看上去至少有三分之一的篇幅在写“牵挂”，虽然详略还是欠妥，但是它至少避免了继续写成 “幸福”或者“感动”的可能，而且让前面的种种“感动”和“幸福”成了后面牵挂的缘由，让人信服。

应急方案三：见缝插针，自圆其说。

如果说写了一半就发现偏题了还好处理的话，等到快结尾时才发现离题是最糟糕的了，但是也有办法，那就是看哪里有空，就往哪里穿插一些能紧扣题旨的抒情或者议论性的句子。虽然看起来修补的痕迹有些浓，但是至少比因为详略没有处理好任其离题要好得多。

希望以上的内容能够帮助到那些即将要高考的同学们，一颗冷静的心态很是关键，其次平时也要积累一些题材，有闲暇时间多做一些阅读，总结出一些万能的题材，方便在考试的时候可以随时的运用上。

叙事作文来源于生活，但又高于生活，小编收集了2018年高考记叙文写作技巧：文章如溪水，欢迎阅读。

叙事作文又称记事作文，在作文类别里因为贴近生活实际，而被是认为是较简单的一种作文体裁，对于小学生来讲，叙事作文往往又与另一个词联系较紧密---“流水帐”，叙事作文写作技巧。作为教师，我常在学生习作中发现“流水帐”这类文章，统观原因就是因为学生在写这类文章时，过于偏向“叙”、“记”，光叙事情的顺序，记录每一个细节，而忽视了叙事作文中的“思”、“情”、“议”，这些文章的枝叶，光剩下一副骨架，自然文章也就成了干枯的秃树，吸引不了人了。

叙事作文来源于生活，但又高于生活，生活只记录了事情的发生、发展、结果，是一本“帐”。陆游说：“尔果欲学诗，功夫在诗外”。这诗外的功夫即是对生活的体验，感受和认识，也就是“思”、“议”、“情”，将你们思考到的，你的观点说出来，你对这件事的感情色彩，表达在你的文章中，这样，文章才会丰满，再大的树干也需要枝叶的铺盖，才会生机盎然。

叶圣陶先生说：“生活如泉源，文章如溪水，泉源丰富而不枯竭，溪水自然活泼地流个不竭”，对学生来讲，生活的经历不算是丰富，固定的生活模式容易让学生产生公式化的记忆，叙起事来自然也就成了“流水帐”。但孩子的生活细节是丰富的，他们在日常生活中，对事物有着不同于成人的观察范围、观察视角、观察兴趣，如果将这些详细的叙述出来，作文自然也就丰富了。

作为教师，帮助学生深挖叙事过程中的“思”、“议”、“情”等方面的内容，可以起到画龙点睛的作用。

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

1) 主语+ cannot emphasize the importance of … too much.(再怎么强调……的重要性也不为过。)例如：We cannot emphasize the importance of protecting our eyes too much.

2)There is no need for sb to do sth. for sth.(某人没有必要做……)，例如：There is no need for you to bring more food. 不需你拿来更多的食物了。

3)By +doing…，主语can …. (借着……，……能够……)，例如：By taking exercise, we can always stay healthy. 借着做运动，我们能够始终保持健康。

4) … enable + sb.+ to + do…. (……使……能够……)，例如：Listening to music enables us to feel relaxed. 听音乐使我们能够感觉轻松。

5) On no account can we + do…. (我们绝对不能……)，例如：On no account can we ignore the value of knowledge.我们绝对不能忽略知识的价值。

6) What will happen to sb.? (某人将会怎样?), 例如：What will happen to the orphan? 那个孤儿将会怎样?

7)For the past + 时间，主语 + 现在完成式…. (过去……年来，……一直……)例如：For the past two years，I have been busy preparing for the examination. 过去两年来，我一直忙着准备考试。

8)It pays to + do….(……是值得的。)例如：It pays to help others. 帮助别人是值得的。

9)主语+ be based on….(以……为基础)，例如：The progress of thee society is based on harmony.社会的进步是以和谐为基础的。

10)主语 + do one’s best to do….(尽全力去……)，例如：We should do our best to achieve our goal in life.我们应尽全力去达成我们的人生目标

一、常规结构方法

1.记叙文结构比较灵活，开头、结尾、过渡，都有一定的讲究。如开头的方式有：开门见山式、设置悬念式、气氛渲染式、环境描述式、结果交代式等;结尾的方式有：呼应开头式、议论抒情式、自然结束式、戛然而止式等;构思的方法有：欲扬先抑法、埋下伏笔法、正反衬托法、虚实相应法、误会巧合法、设置悬念法等。

2.议论文结构一般有引论——本论——结论。引论的方式有：揭示论点式、引用名言式、设问启示式、叙述事实式、对比争议式、描述靶子式等;本论的方式有：分论点并列式、层层递进式、正反对照式;结论的方式有：卒章明志式、问题启发式、希望号召式等。

3.说明文结构一般为“总分总”或“总分”“分总”式。说明对象不同，说明展开的方式也常常不同。如动态说明常用时间顺序，静态说明常用空间顺序，事理说明常用逻辑顺序，可以用因果式、分类式、比较式、层进式等方式说明。

二、创新结构方法

1.片段结构

文章在结构上由看似独立的几个片段又能围绕同一主题而展开。

这种片段结构的主要特点是结构自由，可以避免起承转合，平铺直叙，使写作更为便利、容易;各片段相对独立，但又可以从不同角度，不同侧面来描述人物、事件，表达主题，丰富了文章的内容;表达形式更为自由灵活。

如作文《大自然三章》就是以片段结构的形式，将自然中的“鸟的心事”“蓝天的担忧”“鱼儿的规劝”的感慨组合成文，表达了对人与自然和谐相处的期望。

2.借用文体

写话题作文时文体不限，这时借用一些特殊的文体表现主题，往往能出奇制胜。这些特殊的体裁包括某些文学体裁，如小说、寓言、戏剧、童话、杂文等;某些应用文体如讲演稿、书信、日记、采访录、调查报告、现场演播、新闻报道以及某些领域内所专用的文体，如医疗诊断书、说明书、广告、调查报告、判决书、招标书等等。

考生可以根据自己的爱好与擅长来选择文体，扬长避短，取得创新的效果。这方面的例子很多，均因结构有新意，被评为满分作文或一类作文。

例如广东省一位考生以猪八戒奋不顾身下井救小孩为被评论对象，让代表社会上种种不正确名利观的“嘉宾”一一亮相，以现场演播的形式演绎主题。作者设计的现场为“敢讲敢说”演播室，主持人为“崔人进”，主题为“猪八戒能否得2017年度感动心灵奖”，“嘉宾”为“感动评委会成员、八戒亲友团、各界代表”，还特别注明“唐僧师徒亲自出席，高老庄乡亲组成了亲友团，嫦娥作为评委出席”，开始时还“先看大屏幕”，作为现场演播的程序都出现在文章中，给人以强烈的现场感。读后，我们仿佛置身于电视转播现场，被文章独特新颖的表现形式所深深吸引。

3.故事新编

故事新编就是对人们熟悉的经典故事进行改造，在原有情节的基础上再创作、加工，即对原故事进行改写、续写，或者借用历史人物、经典故事中的人物形象来表达现实生活的内容和主题。采用这种方法的好处是，取材便利，方便构思，易于出新;可以起到借古喻今的效果，使文章显得轻松、风趣。

如《新愚公和智叟的故事》一文，作者将一个尽人皆知的故事加以改造，构思颇为新颖、巧妙。湖南考生写的《西游记后传》，作者将西游记进行了一番续写与改写，演绎了师徒四人取经的离奇故事，文章把大唐灭亡的原因归咎于唐玄宗没有读取回来的真经，故事新颖，立意深远，实在是一篇绝妙的佳作。

4.特殊的视角

观察的角度不同，会有不同的效果。所以我们可以采用一些特殊的视角来叙述故事，表达主题。特殊的视角是指普通人以外的特殊人物，或者动物、植物等人类以外的事物的视角。另外，还可以选择多主体视角，比如一个故事设几个主人公，每个人都站出来表述这个故事。采用特殊视角可以使文章达到新奇的效果，造成一种新鲜感，使描写不落俗套，令人耳目一新。

例如广东的一位考生写的《月光下的一只孤老虎》一文，作者采用特殊视角，以一只老虎的口吻自述悲剧，引起人们对野生动物生存环境的关注。贵州的一位考生写的《给地球人的一封公开信》一文，作者采用特殊的视角，以特殊主体——外星人的口吻叙事议论，表明对人类破坏环境的尖锐批评。

5.镜头式结构

有些作文材料并不新鲜，但一些聪明的同学能借助电影蒙太奇的手法，通过镜头组合、画面切换以及画外音等形式来展示作文丰富的内涵。这样的文章往往因形式的新颖、结构的巧妙而平中见奇，令人耳目一新。

比如，题为《生活中的亮点》的作文：文章运用蒙太奇的表现手法，剪切生活中四个镜头来表现“亮”。作者将生活中的四个场景，分别标示出地点(小巷中——街头——商店中——回家路上)，就像一部电影剧本，新颖的结构形式，给人以全新的感觉。镜头式结构，往往能减少过渡及铺垫文字，有利于集中笔墨叙述事件、刻画人物，从而使文章主题更集中，节奏更明快。

6.问答式结构

以“提问”和“回答”来组成文章，新鲜别致。其中的“问”实际是作者的提问，组成文章的纲目;其中的“答”，就是文章的主体，这样的结构，可以设计成互问互答，也可以设计成自问自答。

比如，题为《挫折四问》的作文，作者以四问四答的形式布控全文结构，“挫折是什么”“挫折真的存在吗”“挫折与成功的界限在哪里”“挫折给我什么启示”四个“问”形成了一个逐层深入的议论阶梯，使得文章结构井然，给人一气呵成之感。

7.一线串珠式结构

面对复杂的事情、繁多的内容，最有效的方式莫过于用一条线索把有关材料贯串起来，使之浑然一体。这个线索，可以是某个人，可以是某一事物，可以是某一事件，也可以是人物思想感情的发展变化，或者是时间的推移、地点的转换等等。

作文线索的设置，要注意两点：一是所设置的线索，要能联系文章各部分，把组织材料和表达主题统一起来;二是线索要有始有终，贯串到底。

导语：提高作文写作水平的方法之一，就是大量练习写作作文。下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的高考作文题，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

一块悬于珠玑古巷门楼上雕有“祖宗故居”的石刻，一块镶在珠玑楼上题有“珠玑古巷，吾家故乡”的牌匾，简简单单的几个字，道出这故乡背后承载的深沉的历史。

走进这条仅761米长的狭窄小巷，也走进了这条千百年长的古巷。761米的长度，承载了几亿人认祖归宗的情结，承载了一段北民南迁的血泪史，承载了无数凄美可歌的传说。走在这鹅卵石铺砌的小路，小路两旁颤颤微微的伫立的是各姓氏的故居，仿佛在用无声的言语来诉说着千年的兴衰，千年的变迁。信步走去，眼睛不由的在寻找着自己姓氏的故居，即使它是破败的、狭窄的，但还是难以掩饰寻根的喜悦。面对堂上供奉的姓氏先祖，看着泛黄族谱上记录的虽不熟悉但却亲切的名字，这间小小的故居仿佛我们一姓的王国，里面的一切都只属于我们这一姓氏。虽然我不是岭南人，这里也不会是我寻根故地，但是，我还是点了一柱清香，面对着堂上的姓氏先祖，诚心拜上三拜。“五百年前是一家”是遇到同姓时的第一反应。谁敢说，五百年前这间古居的主人和我的祖先不是亲兄弟呢?走出古居，遇到两旁同样兴奋的同学，有个想法忽然闪现脑际，原来我们的祖先曾经是邻居，难道我们今生相遇的缘分从那时就积累下了?不相信命运之说，但这奇妙的渊源不由的让你多想。

岁月的沧桑在门楼故居上留下了斑驳的痕迹，那经历了岁月洗礼之后的苍老，似乎更让向往它昔日的繁华与光鲜。

明末屈大均着《广东新语》云：“珠玑巷名，始于唐张昌。昌之先，为南雄敬宗巷孝义门人。其始祖辙，生子兴，七世同居。敬宗宝历元年，朝闻其孝义，赐予珠玑绦环以旌之，避讳敬宗庙讳，改所居为珠玑巷。”珠玑巷创于唐而兴于宋。北宋末年，宋室南迁，中原人民为了躲避战祸，纷纷南迁。这些南迁的人在兵荒马乱中，扶老携幼历尽艰辛，向着一个未知的地方前进。前方是古来相传的瘴气之地呀，背井离乡的苦痛，与前途未卜的迷茫让他们更加失落。这些身心惧疲的南迁先民们，在越过大虞岭之后，眼前出现了一块肥沃的土地，简直是世外桃源一般。他们不想继续漂泊下去了，在这块远离了战火硝烟的土地上，他们开始了新的耕耘，把它当作自己的第二故乡来开发。南迁的汉民带来了北方先进的文化与技术，给珠玑的繁荣带来了推动力。明朝一首写珠玑巷的诗就体现了他的繁华：“长亭去路是珠玑，此日观风感黍离。编户村中人集处，摩肩道上马交迟。”

小小的珠玑巷，在几百年间，目睹了人民一批批从北方而来，又目送了一批批南迁之客。76姓166族都在此停留，或长或短，但他们无不都把珠玑作为他们的乡梓乡。珠玑巷承载了那么多的乡愁，那么多的眷恋，它早已不再仅仅是一条破败的鹅卵石小路了。

沿街北行，走过一间间挂有姓氏先祖画像的故居，遥想着自己正处于某朝某代的珠玑巷中。又是一个兵荒马乱的年代，岭南清净之地早已不再安宁。善良的百姓面对欺压，只有躲避。全族全巷相约在某个晨曦微露的时刻举巷南迁。相约的时刻来临了，马车早已等候在门前，而主人却迟迟不愿出来。昏黄的煤油灯下，夫妇相视而坐，这世代居住的故土啊，怎么舍得离开你?安土重迁，一个根植于中国人血液里的观念，叶落归根，一个不可动摇的民族信仰。多少不舍，多少无奈!目光落在堂上供奉的先祖，忽然明白了孩提时代，祖父讲“吾家本在山西洪洞大槐数”时，眼中流露的那种奇怪的眼神……族长催促了，所有的人家都动身了，立在门前，在一次回望这片土地，要把它刻在脑海里，融在血液中。抱起膝前的小儿女，告诉他们：“这里是我们的故乡，千万不能忘本啊!”懵懂的孩童不懂的什么叫故乡，但是还是点点头，把它记在了心理。马车碾过鹅卵石铺成的小路，开始了继续的南迁之路。他们走了，比祖辈走的更远，甚至走出了中华的版图，散落在各处，落地生根，开创不同的事业，但是，祖祖辈辈口耳相传的就是这样一句话：“珠玑古巷，吾家故乡”……

走进这条前百年长的悠悠古巷

我陷入了浩荡的长河

古时的鹅卵石密密麻麻的沉寂

那是史书浓郁的回忆

一条古巷，几多风雨

秦时明月依旧

迁徙的脚步在耳边催促

弥漫的战火消散已久

多少人回望的古巷

在冷霜的笼罩中延伸

在华夏后裔的血液里定居

身在异乡心在故土

多远了，多久了

都有一股力量在深深的吸引

那是根，根深叶茂

那是源，源远流长

其实，不是我在古巷深处行走

轻轻走进

这条千百年长的悠悠古巷

古人说“凤头豹尾”，就是说开头要写得有姿有彩，像凤凰的头那样，有人说：“好的开头等于成功的一半”，这些都说明了开头的重要，高考作文开头的五个经典句式。同样，好的开头，对于高考作文来说，也具有重要意义。

那么，什么样的开头是好的呢？文无定法，开头无固定的格式，衡量好坏的标准只有一个，那就是看它是不是文章的有机组成部分，能否为文章的内容和中心服务，能否吸引读者读下去。

由于时间与篇幅的限制，考场作文的开头讲究简洁、生动、优美，可考虑选用如下开头方法。

1、开门见山式

所谓“开门见山”，是一种比喻的说法，指的是写文章时直截了当入题的一种写法。如《谈骨气》一开头就亮出观点：“我们中国人是有骨气的。”《白杨礼赞》一开头就触及题旨：“白杨树实在是不平凡的，我赞美白杨树！”这种方法在各类文章的写作中得到广泛的运用，占有很大的比例。它的表达角度，可以是开头直叙本事，也可以起笔点题；可以开宗明义揭示主旨，也可以单刀直入点明敌论。如此等等。由于这种写法干脆利落，入题快捷，不枝不蔓，所以应为考场作文开头的首选方法。

2、背景渐入式

自然科学告诉我们宇宙是一个大系统，社会科学告诉我们，人类社会又是一个大系统。一棵树是在一座森林的系统之内，一片叶又属于这棵树的系统。一个人属于社会这个系统，一根指头又属于这个人的系统。因此，任何单个事物，任何一种现象都离不开它所属的系统，即它赖以生存的社会背景或自然背景。如《孔己已》开头：“当街一个曲尺形的大柜台……可以随时温酒”。《在烈日和暴雨下》开头：“六月十五那天，天热得发了狂！”这些开头或交待事情发生的时间、地点、节令、气候或阐述论题的背景、环境等。在考场作文时，有些题目乍一看，觉得突兀，不可捉摸，但联系背景一想，便豁然开朗了，作文素材《高考作文开头的五个经典句式》。如1999年的高考作文题目是《假如记忆可以移植》，联系近几年的科技发展，克隆技术的问世了，基因可以移植了，航天技术更是突飞猛进。近几年来，我国的经济持续发展，经济建设取得了突出成就。联系这些背景，文章的内容可写了，联想与想象也便有了立足点了。

3、设问置疑式

先倒叙事情的结果，设置悬念，或先设问破题，引起说明或议论。如《枣核》的开头：“动身访美之前，……可是却很蹊跷。”又如《万紫千红的花》开头设问：“花为什么会有各种美丽鲜艳的色彩呢？”这种开头方法，其目的是设置悬念，引起读者的关注，激发读者的兴趣，同时增加文章的曲折，显现文章的布局之美。这种开头技法在中考作文中的频率很高。当然，这种开头形式要注意巧妙运用，避免单一、或追求形式上的好奇。

(其实，这种开头的形式是很丰富的，如：

①先提出一个悬而未决的问题。

②先截取一个精彩的事件片断。

③先交待一个起线索作用的物件。

④先安排一个引发故事的场景。

⑤先介绍与故事情节紧密相关的人物。)

4、名言警句式

开头引用警句、名言、诗句或俗语、谚语等，可以达到吸引读者，帮助突出中心的作用。如《回声》开头引用了艾青的一首诗。《怀疑与学问》开头引用了程颐的话：“学者先要会疑”等。这种开头法，也是一般考生容易掌握和便于使用的方法。试想，哪个考生记不得几首古诗，几句格言，几条名言呢？考场作文，因题而异，相机引用，又何乐而不为？名言警句式开头运用得自如，往往能增强开端的气势，使人感到突兀、峥嵘、高远。当然，引用时要尽量准确，避免出现知识性错误。

5、精辟设喻式

开头设喻，以引起读者对要说明的事物或道理的兴趣。如《中国石拱桥》开头：“石拱桥的桥洞成弧形，就像虹。”《马说》开头：“世有伯乐，然后有千里马。”以伯乐与千里马的故事为喻引出中心论点，精辟设喻式多用于议论文的开头，它能使文章发端新颖，增强文章的吸引力和表达效果。既然是“设喻”，就得注意所言之“他物“与本题有一定的相似之处，不能牵强附会。

此外，还有抒情议论议式，刻画人物式等开头法，在此不一一赘述。

总之，考场作文怎样开头，这决定考题所规定的内容，文章的性质和考生独特的构思。各位考生拿到题目后，勿必三思而后行，切忌草草了事。

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。

1. 不用说……

It goes without saying that …

= (It is) needless to say (that) ….

= It is obvious that ….

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

不用说早睡早起是值得的。

2. 在各种……之中，……

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

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

在各种运动中我尤其喜欢慢跑。

3. 就我的看法……;我认为……

In my opinion, …

= To my mind, ….

= As far as I am concerned, …

= I am of the opinion that ….

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

在我看来，玩电脑游戏既花费时间也有害健康。

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

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

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

随着台湾经济的快速发展许多社会问题产生了。

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

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

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

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

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

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

我们应当保持公共场所清洁。

6. 花费 spend … on sth. / doing sth. …

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

我们不应该在我们不感兴趣的事情上花太多的时间。

7. how 引导的感叹句

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

那至少可以证明你很诚实。

8. 状语从句

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

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

如果你不坚持努力工作，你就会失去这次机会。

⑵ 如此 ……，以至于…… so … that …

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

当时，我非常伤心，最后都想放弃了。

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

每当我想到我家附近那一.��清澈的小溪我就忍不住感到悲伤。

9. 宾语从句

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

我想知道是否…… I wonder whether …

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

他认为我不应该阻止他参加这个俱乐部。

10. Since + S + 过去式, S + 现在完成式.

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

自从他上高中，他就一直很用功。

减压

假设你们班要在下星期一举行题为"The Ways for Students to Relax"的班会，请结合报道的内容。用英语写一篇80字左右的发言材料。

内容包括：

1. 简要介绍造成现在学生学习压力大的原因。

2. 你认为来自于English Online调查结果的放松方式是否有效，为什么？

3.谈谈你个人自我放松的有效做法（至少三点）。

Dear fellows,

Not only adults but also we students often feel stressed because we have too much homework to do, and we are very busy studying every day, we don’t have our own time to do what we are interested in. We are very tired and sleepy all day, so we should learn to deal with it. What should we do to relax?

From the result of the survey, I think doing sports with classmates is a good way to relax. Because it’s good for our health and it can make us relaxed.

I also have three ways to relax ourselues. First, we can listen to music. Second, we can go to the movies with our parents on weekends. Don’t study at home all the weekend. Third, when we feel tired, we can think about something interesting.

I hope my suggestions can help you.Thanks!

[高考英语话题作文减压

以下是由语文迷网小精心整理提供的关于高考的英语写作技巧，一起来看看吧。

一、要善于模仿

一些同学的办法往往是背一堆范文，然后再到考场上进行一个“剪切”、“粘贴”的工作，真正的模仿重点永远要放在一定的句式结构上，而非个别的词汇。有一个句式说：“…for the simple reason that…”表示某种现象的原因是什么，用在高考(课程)写作中，我们就可以拿来解释为什么自行车在中国如此的流行：“The bicycle is very popular in China for the simple reason that…”。然而，很多同学一谈到原因仍然是“…because…”。如果要表示“总是能够”的概念，很多同学提笔就会写can always，但理想的句子应该是用双重否定表示强烈的肯定，用never fail to。

二、要灵活变通

在批改过上万份同学们英语(课程)作文中，经常能发现一些将中文生硬地翻译成英文的表达法。有一句话叫做“立志如山，行道如水”，写英文作文，一定要有决心把它写好，有信心把意思表达清楚，这是“立志如山”;但关键是遇到问题时要有个灵活的态度，能像流水一样变通解决问题。有个翻译界的故事说：在某大型国际会议的招待会上，一道菜是用鸡蛋做的。与会的客人问翻译：“What is it made of”本来是非常简单的一个问题，结果翻译太紧张，忘了“egg”这个词，但是他急中生智，回答：“It is made of Miss Hen’s son.”这里，就是一个灵活变通的范例。绕道表达，是写作中应该常常运用的一种方法。

三、要细心观察

注意英语中一些表达上的习惯。比如在正式文体的写作中，很少用 “it isn’t”这样的略缩形式，而往往是一板一眼地写作 “it is not”。同理，在正式文体中的日期一般不缩写，阿拉伯数字一般会用英文表达(特别长的数字除外)。

许多同学在写作文时，习惯于把 “since” “because” “for”这样的词放在句首引导原因状语从句。事实上，在我们见到的英语报刊杂志文章中，这样的从句一般都是放在主句之后的。另外, “and”也常常被误放在一句话的开头，表示两个句子之间的并列或递进关系。其实，经常留心地道的英语文章能发现，如果是并列关系，完全可以不用连词;如果是递进关系，用 “furthermore” “what is more”更为普遍。

四、要心有全局

英文写作如果结构意识良好，应试写作就简化成为一个填空的过程了，适当地填入观点、素材，文章就自然而然立起来了。

临考在即，同学们要牢记英语写作的基本要领，特编顺口溜如下：细审题，巧构思，列要点，防遗漏。写日记，同汉语;书信，通知格式要牢记。看清图表细梳理，写人记事按顺序;完稿后查遗漏，整洁干净莫忘记。