写作

简单地说，文章写作题就是要求考生写一篇文章。下面小编就从文体、内容、语言和结构四个方面为大家详细分析，希望可以帮助大家写好申论文章。

一、文体

申论文章必须写成议论文。申论文章写作题虽然没有文体限制，但一般都会要求“观点鲜明”、“内容充实”，而议论文最能使文章的观点突出，详细的议论还能够使文章内容更加丰富深刻。此外，申论考试阅卷时间较短，要使阅卷老师在极短的时间内快速抓住文章观点、明确文章结构，议论文无疑是最好的选择。

采用议论文意味着申论文章必须具有论点、论据、论证三要素。

1.论点。即文章所要议论、阐释的观点，是作者所要表达的核心看法或主张，无论是阐释分析问题还是提出具体措施，都要紧紧围绕论点进行论述。

2.论据。即立论的根据，是作者用来证明论点的理由和事实。论据可分为事实论据和道理论据。

事实论据是对客观事物的真实描述和概括，是证明论点的最有说服力的论据。所谓“事实胜于雄辩”就是这个道理。文章写作题常用的事实论据包括具体事例、概括事实和统计数据等。

理论论据是指来源于实践，并且已被长期实践证明为正确的观点。文章写作题常用的理论论据包括经典著作中的理论、权威性的言论(如名人名言)等。

3.论证方法。即用论据证明论点的方法和过程。议论文的论点要解决“证明什么”的问题，论据要解决“用什么来证明”的问题，而论证则是解决“如何证明”的问题。申论文章写作常用的论证方法有举例论证、对比论证、引用论证和比喻论证。

二、内容

1.观点鲜明、正确

这一条要求包含两个方面：

(1)观点鲜明。鲜明，就是考生要明确地表示肯定什么、否定什么，赞成什么、反对什么。对某件事情、某种现象发表议论，必须态度明朗，观点明确，要让阅卷者清晰地认识到文章的基本观点是什么，是围绕什么问题而展开论述的，而不能让阅卷者雾里看花。议论文不需要朦胧美。

(2)观点正确。观点正确包含三个方面的含义：

一是观点符合命题者的命题要求，没有离题。

二是观点符合客观实际，符合认识规律，经得起实践检验。如“坚定的信念是一切事业成就的前提”，这种观点虽然有一定的激励作用，但并不科学，也不严谨。

三是观点符合官方看法，符合社会主流价值观。申论考试是录用政府工作人员、模拟政府具体工作的考试，必然要求应试者从政府立场出发思考问题，因此考生提出的观点必须符合政府意志，并同中央政策精神保持一致。“主流价值观”是维护社会正常秩序的一个基础，观点符合社会主流价值观也是对公务员的必然要求。

2.见解深刻，有一定高度

这是对申论文章的较高层次的要求，即作者思考问题时要尽力向更深层次挖掘，看到问题的本质。文章要避免大而无当、思想空泛，或面面俱到、认识肤浅，要对实际工作的开展有一定的价值。

杜绝思想空泛的毛病，考生可以把论题范围变窄，并注意选择论述角度，适当缩小题目，论在实处。要杜绝认识肤浅的毛病，一要把研究的问题“吃透”，抓住要害和本质;二要强化政治理论素养，让自己具有扎实的理论基础;三要克服蜻蜓点水式的浮躁心态，从理论或实践上做深入认真的分析。这样的文章才会具有深刻的见解。

3.逻辑严谨

逻辑严谨，是指运用论证方法组织材料论证论点的过程合乎逻辑、合乎事理、严密周全,不存在以偏概全、论据证明不了论点、自相矛盾等逻辑错误。

4.联系实际

联系实际就是观点要与实际情况相结合，要通过例举实际情况来论证和支持观点。文章的论据要贴近现实。申论文章最忌假、大、空，空有观点而无事实佐证的文章会显得空洞无物、苍白无力，在考试中绝不可能得到高分。

联系实际具体要做到：首先，文章立意要以实际情况为依据，从具体问题出发。其次，要有具体事例作为观点的佐证。

5.内容丰富

即文章要论点全面、分析充分。具体要求：

首先，文章论点要全面。考生在提出中心论点(即总论点)的基础上，还要对其进行分解，提出分论点，用以丰富中心论点的内涵。

其次，分析充分，要有理有据。这要求文章不能仅仅停留在提出观点阶段，还要对观点进行分析阐释。比如分析观点提出的依据、现实意义、面临的问题以及具体的措施等，分析要做到深刻、有条理，论点明确，论证充分。

三、语言

1.简洁规范

2.有一定文采

即语言的使用在保证简洁、流畅、规范的基础上要生动、丰富。这是近年来申论考试对文章写作提出的新要求。考生可以少量引用俗语、诗文，恰当使用比喻、反问、设问等修辞手法，适当使用排比整齐、富有气势的句式，以增强文章的表现力和感染力。

四、结构

1.结构完整

结构完整，首先要求文章要有题目、开头、主体内容和结尾。开头、结尾各自独立成段而不可与主体内容合并在一起。其次要求文章应在开头提出论点，主体部分重在分析和解决问题，结尾得出结论，三者缺一不可。

结构是文章的“筋骨”，缺少任何一部分都不算完成整个文章的写作意图。

2.条理清晰

申论文章有清晰的文章脉络，文章层次要鲜明。第一，要按照正确的逻辑顺序组织安排文章的段落，例如“提出问题——分析问题——解决问题”的逻辑顺序。第二，文章要尽量简化层次。申论文章较短，1000字左右的文章如果分为十几个段落明显是不合适的，文章会显得杂乱无章，每段内容必然也稍显单薄，无法将内容论述深刻。

但从另一方面讲，文章也不可不分段落，或仅开头、结尾分段而主体部分不分段。“开头——主体——结尾”的“老三段”在申论文章中不能体现清晰的结构脉络。一般情况下，申论文章的主体部分应在三到六个自然段为宜。

一、举实例

思维短路，举实例!提出一个观点，举实例!提出一个方案，举实例!而且者也是我们揭示一个观点最好的方式，任何情况下，只要我们无法继续文章，不管三七二十一，尽管举例子!

In order to attract more customers， advertisers have adopted every possible simulative factor in ma-ki-ng ads， such as sound， light， colours， cartoon films and human performance. For instance， to advertise a certain food， advertisers will ask an actor or actreto sit at a table and devour the seemingly delicious food while they fime him or her.

更多句型：

To take … as an example， One example is…， Another example is…， for example

二、做比较

方法：写完一个要点，比较与之相似的;又写完一个要点，再比较与之相反的;

世界上没有同样的指纹，没有相同的树叶，文章亦同，只有通过比较，你才会发现二者的相同点(through comparison)和不同点(through contrast)。下面是一些短语：

相似的比较：

in comparison， likewise， similarly， in the same manner

相反的比较：

on the other hand， conversely， whereas， while， instead， nevertheless， in contrast， on the contrary， compared with …，

三、换言之

没话说了，可以换一句话再说，让你的文章在多一些字，或者文邹邹地说，是让读者更充分的理解你的观点。

实际就是重复重复再重复!下面的句子实际上就三个字 I love you!

I am enthusiastic about you. That is to say， I love you.

I am wild about you. In other words， I have fallen in love with you.

或者上面我们举过的例子：

I cannot bear it.

可以用短语表达：I cannot put up with it.

因此可以这样说：I cannot bear it. That is to say， I cannot put up with it or I am fed up with it.

in more difficult language， in si-mp-ler words， put it more simply

中国人民抗日战争，是中国人民反抗日本侵略的正义战争，是世界反法西斯战争的重要组成部分，也是中国近代以来抗击外敌入侵第一次取得完全胜利的民族解放战争。在这场战争中，中华民族同仇敌忾，浴血奋战，创造了弱国打败强国的光辉业绩。今年是中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利70周年，在这特殊的时刻，重新审视抗战历史，弘扬抗战精神，对于我们铭记历史、缅怀先烈、珍爱和平、开创未来，实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦，具有非常重要的意义。

一、中国人民抗日战争是一场神圣的全民族抗战

在抗日战争中，中国人民空前团结，共御外侮，抗击日本法西斯的侵略。可以说，全民族抗战是中国人民抗日战争胜利的重要法宝，中国共产党提出的抗日民族统一战线政策，是全国能够形成这种空前团结、全民族共同抗战局面的基本保证。

1931年日本发动“九一八”事变后，面对日本的武装侵略，中国共产党从民族大义出发，率先提出武装抗日的主张。在事变爆发后的第三天，中国共产党便发出《为日本帝国主义强暴占领东三省事件宣言》，明确提出联合全国工农兵士劳苦民众，“反对日本帝国主义强占东三省!”并随后组织东北抗日联军，在极端艰苦的条件下与日军进行殊死战斗。1935年，日本制造华北事变，企图将华北五省分离出中国，民族危机进一步加剧，在民族危亡的紧要关头，中国共产党率先提出在国内建立抗日民族统一战线。8月1日，中国共产党发表《为抗日救国告全体同胞书》，即八一宣言，主张“联合一切反对日本帝国主义的民众(日本国内劳苦民众，高丽、台湾等民族)作友军，联合一切同情中国民族解放运动的民族和国家作同盟，与一切对中国民众反日解放战争守善意中立的民族和国家建立友谊关系”。1936年12月西安事变发生，面对国内复杂的局面，中国共产党派出以周恩来为首的代表团奔赴西安，全力促成西安事变的和平解决，迫使蒋介石答应停止“剿共”，联合红军共同抗日等六项条件。不仅如此，红军中的黄埔将领，也向国民党军中的黄埔同学发出呼吁：“当此民族危亡之生死关头，过去之眥怨嫌隙，均应为民族利益而一概扫除。今后之道路，应为恢复黄埔时代之革命精神，精诚携手，不分彼此，共赴国难”，有力地推动了全国抗日民族统一战线的初步建立。

1937年7月7日，日军发动卢沟桥事变，挑起全面侵华战争。事变爆发后的第二天，中国共产党便发出《中共中央为日军进攻卢沟桥通电》，指出“平津危急!华北危急!中华民族危急!只有全民族实行抗战，才是我们的出路”，号召中华民族团结起来共同抗日。7月15日，中国共产党向国民党提交了《中共中央为公布国共合作宣言》，这个宣言，再次显示了中国共产党以民族利益为重，促成国共两党正式合作抗日的诚意。9月22日，国民党中央通讯社发表《中共中央为公布国共合作宣言》。次日，蒋介石发表谈话，指出团结御侮的必要，实际上承认了中国共产党的合法地位。至此，抗日民族统一战线正式形成。

全国抗战爆发后，全国人民在抗日民族统一战线旗帜下，不分阶级和党派，不分民族和地域，不分老幼和男女，同舟共济，积极投身抗日救亡的神圣事业。如在北平，长辛店的工人组织战地服务团，担任救护工作，还运来铁轨、枕木、麻袋等修筑防御工事，协助第29军固守宛平城;在上海，妇女团体开办救护训练班，一个月内训练妇女达1200多人，分配到各个伤兵医院做护理工作。不仅如此，香港、澳门、台湾同胞也积极参加抗战，1938年6月，宋庆龄领导的、由国内外知名人士发起的保卫中国同盟在香港宣告成立。保盟在港澳同胞配合下，广泛联络海外侨胞和全世界所有爱好和平民主人士，从海外华侨和许多国家的援华团体募集到大量捐款、物资，为支援祖国抗战做出了杰出贡献。

抗战进入到相持阶段后，面对日本对国民政府采取的诱降方针，以及国民党愈演愈烈的反共摩擦，中国共产党审时度势，适时提出了“坚持抗战、反对投降”，“坚持团结、反对分裂”，“坚持进步、反对倒退”三大口号。在各抗日根据地内，中国共产党实行三三制政权和减租减息等政策，尽可能地团结一切可以团结的力量共同抗日，努力维护抗日民族统一战线，坚持全民族抗战。可以说，在整个抗日战争中，由于中国共产党的积极倡导、努力推动，抗日民族统一战线才得以建立和坚持下来。在抗日民族统一战线旗帜下，国民党爱国官兵在正面战场坚持抗战;广大民众积极投入到抗日救亡运动中，为抗战做自己的贡献;台湾、香港、澳门同胞以不同的方式参加进来，海外侨胞也积极支援祖国抗战。正是由于抗日民族统一战线的确立，形成了全民族团结抗战、共同御侮的局面，从而在根本上保证了抗日战争的最终胜利。

二、中国人民抗日战争是世界反法西斯战争的东方主战场

在第二次世界大战中，世界上主要有四大战场：中国战场、太平洋战场、欧洲战场和北非战场。二战期间，中国率先开辟世界第一个大规模反法西斯战场，始终抗击着日本陆军主力，制约着日本的“北进”和“南进”，有力地配合与策应了其他战场的反法西斯战争。

日本发动全面侵华战争后，中国人民展开全国性抗战，在亚洲首先开辟了大规模反法西斯战场。在日本战略进攻，中国战略防御期间，中日双方投入总兵力达400余万人，战线长达1800多公里，战火遍及中国10多个省区，战区面积约160万平方公里，中国直接或间接卷入战争的人口达4亿之多，至1939年欧战爆发，中国已独立全面抗击日本法西斯的入侵达3年之久。

1941年6月苏德战争爆发后，德国外交部长里宾特洛甫曾指令德国驻日大使奥托将军，令其说服日本参加对苏作战，但遭到日本军方的反对，时任日军参谋总长的杉山元指出，日本“大部分兵力现在正用于中国”，北进苏联“实际上办不到”。1941年底，德军兵临莫斯科城下，里宾特洛甫再次向日本提出联合军事行动，从东西两面夹击苏联，但再次被日本拒绝，日本大本营统帅部决定，“按既定方针继续对中国作战”。中国的抗战不仅遏制了日本的北进计划，而且牵制了日本的南进步伐。欧战爆发后，1940年，当时的纳粹德国横扫西欧，法国败亡，英国退守孤岛，苏联和美国还没有参战，可以说此时正是世界反法西斯格局处于最困难的时期，也是日本南进的最好时机，但也就在这一年，中国共产党领导的八路军在华北敌后发动百团大战，历时近5个月，毙伤日军2万余人，给予华北日军沉重打击。曾任日军华北方面军司令官，与八路军多次进行交战的寺内寿一大将，在出访德国时明确告知德方：“中日战争不结束，南进是办不到的。”可见，中国的抗战，不仅鼓舞了世界反法西斯战争的士气，而且在战略上为美英加强太平洋地区的防务，争取了宝贵时间。

中国战场不仅制约着日本的“北进”和“南进”，从战略上配合盟军的作战，而且给予盟军切实的援助。太平洋战争爆发后，中国抗战虽处于极为困难的境地，但仍根据国际反法西斯同盟的战略需求，毅然派出10万远征军，紧急开赴缅甸，与盟军共同对日作战。作为亚太地区盟军对日作战的重要战略基地，中国为同盟国提供了大量战略物资和军事情报。中国军民还对在作战中负伤的盟军飞行员进行救援，至1945年春，先后被营救的美军飞行员即达70余名，其中包括后来曾任美国总统的吉米·卡特，有力地支援了同盟国的反法西斯斗争。

在战争期间，中国是建立国际反法西斯统一战线的积极倡导者和有力推动者，从根本上保证了世界反法西斯战争的胜利。

早在全面抗战爆发前的1937年3月，毛泽东在同美国记者史沫特莱的谈话中，就提出了中、美、英、苏、法建立太平洋联合战线的主张。中共中央在1941年12月9日公布的《中国共产党为太平洋战争的宣言》中，明确指出：“中国与英美及其他抗日诸友邦缔结军事同盟，实行配合作战，同时建立太平洋一切抗日民族的统一战线，坚持抗日战争至完全的胜利。”在中国的推动下，1942年1月1日，由中、美、英、苏4国领衔26个国家，在华盛顿签署了《联合国家宣言》，标志着世界反法西斯同盟的正式形成，为世界反法西斯战争的胜利奠定了坚实的基础。

中国的持久抗战，有力地配合了同盟国的反法西斯战争，赢得了国际上的高度赞誉与评价。美国总统罗斯福在1945年1月6日致国会的国情咨文中表示，“忘不了中国人民在七年多的长时间里怎样顶住了日本人的野蛮进攻和在亚洲大陆广大地区牵制住大量的敌军”。苏联崔可夫元帅在其回忆录中也表示，“甚至在我们最艰苦的战争年代里日本也没有进攻苏联，却把中国淹没在血泊中。稍微尊重客观事实的人都不能不考虑到这一明显而又无可争辩的事实”。总之，在世界反法西斯战争中，中国人民抗日战争开始时间最早，持续时间最长，抗击日军最多，付出代价最大，是世界反法西斯战争的亚洲主战场，对彻底战胜日本法西斯起到了决定性作用。

三、伟大的抗战精神是实现中国梦的精神动力

中国人民抗日战争的胜利虽然距离今天已经整整过去了70年，但抗战精神应当永久存在于每个国人的心中。在抗战胜利70周年之际，弘扬抗战精神，勿忘国耻，实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦，是时代赋予的重要使命。

2014年7月7日，在纪念全民族抗战爆发77周年活动上，习近平同志发表重要讲话，指出：“新的历史条件下，全党全国各族人民要大力弘扬伟大抗战精神，不断增强团结一心的精神纽带、自强不息的精神动力，继续朝着中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦奋勇前进，不断以坚持和发展中国特色社会主义的新成就告慰我们的前辈和英烈!”同年9月3日，习近平同志在纪念中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利69周年座谈会上，进一步指出了抗战精神的内涵：“在中国人民抗日战争的壮阔进程中，形成了伟大的抗战精神，中国人民向世界展示了天下兴亡、匹夫有责的爱国情怀，视死如归、宁死不屈的民族气节，不畏强暴、血战到底的英雄气概，百折不挠、坚忍不拔的必胜信念。”可以说，伟大的抗战精神，是全国人民万众一心，百折不挠，实现中华民族伟大复兴中国梦的精神动力，对于当今时代具有重要的启示意义。

历史证明，中国共产党是领导中国人民团结一心，实现祖国统一的核心力量。抗日战争是在中国共产党提出的抗日民族统一战线旗帜下，以国共合作为基础的，全国各族人民团结一致共同对敌的一场全民族战争。抗战期间，全国各族人民不分党派，不分阶级，不分阶层，纷纷义无反顾地投入到保家卫国的滚滚洪流中，筑起了捍卫中华民族的钢铁长城。抗战精神，仍然是当今沟通海峡两岸，包括海外华人的一条重要纽带。近年来，在中国共产党的积极推动下，两岸的沟通、联系越来越多，各种学术交流也日益频繁，进一步密切了两岸关系。历史证明，中国共产党始终领导中国人民团结一心，积极致力于祖国统一大业的早日实现。

历史证明，中国共产党是领导中国人民坚定不移走和平发展道路、维护国际和平秩序的核心力量。抗日战争中，中国共产党积极提倡建立国际反法西斯统一战线，主张联合世界其他国家共同抗击德意日法西斯国家的侵略，以尽早恢复世界和平。不仅如此，中国共产党还在战争期间积极参与国际事务，1945年联合国制宪会议在美国旧金山召开，会议最终通过了《联合国宪章》，中共代表董必武出席了会议，并作为中国代表团正式成员之一在《宪章》上签了字，表明中国共产党一开始就支持并参加了新的国际安全组织的建立，参加了以《联合国宪章》为基础的二战后国际秩序的建立。新中国成立后，中国共产党吸收了反抗日本侵略的历史经验，提出了和平共处五项原则，主张在国际交往中互相尊重主权和领土完整、互不侵犯、互不干涉内政、平等互利、和平共处，至今仍然是中国对外关系的重要准则，在国际上广受承认和欢迎。历史证明，中国共产党始终不渝走和平发展道路，努力维护国际秩序的和平与稳定。

不忘抗战历史，弘扬抗战精神，是当代每个国人的神圣使命，正如习近平同志所言：“历史是最好的教科书，也是最好的清醒剂。”当年，中国人民万众一心，众志成城，用鲜血和生命创造了“战争史上的奇观，中华民族的壮举，惊天动地的伟业”，铸就了伟大的抗战精神!其后，从解放战争到改革开放，中国人民在中国共产党领导下，又战胜了无数的曲折和困难，而蕴含于其中的伟大力量，从某种意义上讲，正是对抗战精神的继承。如今，抗战精神依然充满无限的生机与活力，是中华民族在伟大复兴征程上取之不尽、用之不竭的精神财富和力量源泉。作为新时代的主人翁和建设者，我们应当从抗战精神中汲取营养，将伟大的抗战精神转化为实现国家富强、民族振兴的强大动力，勤奋学习，扎实工作，奉献于实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦的追求之中，不断以新的辉煌成就来告慰抗战英烈和前辈!

12月1日是世界爱滋病日。每年的12月1日都被作为“世界艾滋病日”以号召全世界人民行动起来，共同对抗艾滋病。

目前，我国的毒品和艾滋病形势非常严峻，学校是禁毒与预防艾滋病的重要阵地。艾滋病的全称为获得性免疫缺陷综合症，是一种由逆转录病毒引起的人体免疫防御系统方面的疫病。人体处于正常状态时，体内免疫系统对机体起着良好的“防御”作用，抵抗各种病原体的袭击。一但受艾滋病病毒感染之后，人体的这种良好防御系统便会受到破坏，防御功能减退，因而这时病原体及微生物得以乘机经血行及破损伤口长驱直入。此外，身体中一些不正常的细胞，例如癌细胞，也同样乘机迅速生长、大量繁殖起来，发展成各类癌瘤。也就是说，艾滋病病人主要表现为免疫系统受到严重损伤，机体抵抗力下降，以至诱发严重感染和一些少见的癌瘤。

1981年美国发现首例艾滋病之后，艾滋病病病毒在全球范围内的传播速度惊人。为了提高公众对艾滋病危害的认识，世界卫生组织将每年的12月1日确定为世界艾滋病日，号召世界各国在这一天举办各种活动，宣传和普及预防艾滋病的知识。据统计，近20多年来我国艾滋病感染者已超过100万。

艾滋病是一种可怕的病，一旦感染，我们目前的医疗水平是无药可救的，但是只要我们洁身自好，科学预防，是完全可以避免患上艾滋病的，作为学生我们应该做到以下两点：

1、首先要学会保护自己，要远离可导致性骚扰和性暴力的环境和场所，比如不要出入夜总会、歌厅;晚上不要单独外出;休息时间在网吧、游戏厅等场所不能玩得太晚等。

2、不和他人共用牙刷、不共用电动剃须刀，不吸毒品，不纹身，不纹眉，不纹唇线和扎耳朵眼，不和别人共用针头和注射器。不到消毒不规范无营业执照的医疗机构和诊所拔牙治牙。

同时我们也要知道一般性的接触，比如握手，共同进餐，共用学习用品，公用电话机，打喷嚏、咳嗽，蚊虫叮咬，游泳等均不会感染爱滋病。

一、充分准备，打好基础写作短篇小说与写作中、长篇小说一样，在写作前必须进行充分的准备。首先，在执笔 写小说之前，必须具有一定的思想修养和生活积累。其次，读过较多的文艺作品，喜爱文学 创作，有一定的文艺修养和文艺理论的基础常识。茅盾在《创作的准备》开头就指出："世 界文学史上的巨人们留遗给我们的不朽的著作，以及他们毕生的文学事业的经历，就是这题 目--创作的准备的最完美的解答。理论家们从这些文学巨人们的业迹研究分析解释， 写了很多论文，数十万言一厚册，也就是给这题目作注脚。"再次，在写作小说之前，从事 过表达方法的基本练习，并从事过一般散文尤其是速写的写作练习。"一个初学写作者最好 多做些基本练习，不要急于写通常所谓小说，不要急于成篇。所谓基本练习，现在通行的速 写这一体，是可以用的。不过我觉得现今通行的速写还嫌太注重了形式上的完整，俨 然已是成篇的东西，而不是练习的草样了。作为初学写作者的基本练习的速写，不妨只有半 个面孔，或者一双手，一对眼。这应当是学习者观察中恍有所得时勾下来的草样，是将来的 精制品所必需的原料。许多草样斗合起来，融和起来，提炼起来，然后是成篇的小说。"(《茅 盾论创作》第358页)所以，我们要学习写作小说，必须从思想、生活、技巧各个方面下 苦功，打下坚实的基础。当然，对这个问题的认识不能绝对化。这并不是说，我们要等思想、 生活、技巧三关都完全过好之后再进行创作。不少青年作者的经验说明，初学写作者就是要 勇于创作实践，写是最好的基本训练。不要怕失败，失败是成功之母。小说创作和其它文体 的写作一样，没有什么捷径，小说的技巧只有自己从多次实践中逐步摸索出来。别人的技巧， 只能作借鉴，创作还是要靠自己。

二、认识生活，熟悉人物 创作需要生活，对生活不熟悉，不理解，就无法反映和表现生活。社会生活是文学艺术 的源泉，人是社会诸关系的总和，只有熟悉、理解社会生活，才能熟悉、理解各类人物。不 熟悉、不理解各类人物，就无法进行以塑造人物形象为中心的小说写作。茅盾在谈他怎样开 始小说创作时说："我是真实地去生活、经验了动乱中国的最复杂的人生的一幕，终于得了 幻灭的悲哀，人生的矛盾，在消沉的心情下，孤寂的生活中，而尚受生活执着的支配，想要 以我的生命力的余烬从别方面在这迷乱灰色的人生内发一星微光，于是我开始创作了。我不 是为的要做小说，然后去经验人生。"他还说;"好管闲事是我们做小说的人最要紧的事，你 要去听，要去问。"(《创作的准备》)因此，一个小说作者应像阿·托尔斯泰说的那样："他 溶化在生活洪流之中，溶化在集体之中;他是一个参加者。"

小说写作需要的生活不是指日常生活、饮食男女之类，能成为小说素材的"生活"，至少应该有三个条件：

1.具有较鲜明、生动的形象;

2.具有独特性;

3.具有一定的思想 内涵。因此，当作者在观察生活的时候，无论对人物、对故事、对环境，都应从上述三点出 发，勇敢地扬弃那些琐屑的、纷纷扰扰的"流水帐"，抓住真正有用的写作素材，渗透作者 的思想、感情，使生活素材逐渐变成自己的东西。 三、严格选材，深入开掘 1931年，沙汀和艾芜写信给鲁迅，请教短篇小说的题材问题。鲁迅回信说："只要 所写的是可以成为艺术品的东西，那就无论他所描写的是什么事情，所使用的是什么材料， 对于现代以及将来一定是有贡献的意义的?quot;"两位是可以各就自己现在能写的题材，动手来 写的。不过选材要严，开掘要深，不可将一点琐屑的没有意思的事故，便填成一篇，以创作 丰富自乐。" 高尔基也说过："在短篇小说中，正如在机器上一样，不应该有一个多余的螺丝钉，尤 其是不应该有多余的零件。" 这就告诉我们，写作短篇小说必须严格选择题材，深入开掘。那末，短篇小说怎样进行题材的选择和主题的开掘呢?

短篇小说的选材要做到：

(一)撷新去陈，根据时代需要选材。短篇小说的题材是没有什么限制的，凡是人类涉 足的领域、产生的事件，都可以经过选择作为作品的题材。但是，从美学价值和社会意义来 考虑，我们就必须撷新去陈，尽量选择我们这个时代、这个社会所需要的题材来写。

(二)以小见大，根据体裁特点选材。短篇小说这种体裁的形式特点，要求作者不能象 写长篇小说那样写人生的纵剖面，而必须写人生的横断面，就象是横着锯断一棵树，察看年 轮可以知道树龄一样，短篇小说虽写人生中的一角、一段，也就可以窥见整个人生。鲁迅、 茅盾、巴金等作家为了在短篇小说中反映他们所处的时代，在写作短篇小说时，都是选取主 人公人生道路上的某一段作为题材的。因此，有经验的小说家在谈创作经验时就指出，创作 短篇小说必须善于"截取"、"选择"。如王蒙在《谈短篇小说的创作技巧》中就说过，短篇 小说构思的很重要的一点就是要"从广阔的、浩如烟海的生活事件里，选定你要下手的部位。 它可能是一个精彩的故事，它可能是一个给人留下了深刻印象的人物，它可能是一个美好的 画面，它也可能是深深埋在你的心底的一点回忆，一点情绪，一点印象，而且你自己还一时 说不清楚。这个过程叫作从大到小，从面到点，你必须选择这样一个小，否则，你就无 从构思无从下笔，就会不知道自己写什么。"

(三)扬长避短，根据自己生活选材。一般来说，作者应该写自己熟悉的题材，因为这 些题材是在自己的生活中积累的大量素材的基础上提炼出来的，写起来容易驾驭，而且能写 得生动、深刻。当代小说家中的佼佼者大多是从写自己生活经历中的人和事开始走上小说创 作道路的。 选材是短篇小说写作中的第一个重要的环节。选材的目的在于从大量的素材中选取可以 写入小说中的题材--生活中有典型意义的片断。要达到这个目的，我们必须具有从纷纭的 生活现象中"捕捉"题材的能力。这种"捕捉"生活中有典型意义的片断的能力，对于小说 创作极为重要。茅盾在他的《短篇小说选集后记》中指出："在横的方面，如果对于社会生 活的各样环节茫然无知;在纵的方面如果对于社会生活的发展方向看不清，那么，你就很少 可能在繁复的社会现象中，恰好地选取了最有代表性、即具有深刻的思想的一事一物，作为 短篇小说的题材。"所以，短篇小说在选材时，不能只着眼于事件的故事性和吸引力，而要 着眼于把生活的侧面、片断放到整个时代的背景上去考察，要把握住社会的"纵"的和"横" 的两个方面，善于从平凡的日常生活现象中捕捉住不平凡的东西，从而由时代和社会的一角 反映出时代和社会的全貌，使读者从生活海洋中的一朵浪花看出奔腾澎湃的大海。

对于短篇小说题材的"开掘"--主题的提炼同样要十分重视。"几乎在所有的情况下， 作家心中首先想到的总是小说的主题，或者说思想内容。他构思小说的情节是为了表达这一 主题，创造人物也是围绕着这一主题。好的小说总是有一个好的主题的。"([英]《小说家的 技巧》) 衡量一篇小说的美学价值，重要的并不是看题材本身，而是看作者对于题材所开掘的思想的 深度--主题提炼的程度。所谓开掘，就是要深入发掘生活素材所内涵的本质意义的东西; 作者对生活素材的本质意义开掘得越深入，主题思想就越深刻，作品的教育作用也就越大， 美学价值也就更高。所以说，一篇没有好的主题的小说，是无法登上大雅之堂的。 李师东在《一个新的文学层面的诞生》中评论九十年代的新生代作家时指出："八十年代的 文学，是以对表现疆域的拓展的掘进、对表现手段的探索和实验为其显著特征的。与前几茬 作家相伴随的是冲突和对抗、张扬和摒弃、试验和沿袭、超前和滞后、创新和守成、反拨和 建立等源远流长的话题。直至今天，我们仍然能在文学创作和文学批评中感受到来自不同思 想观念、文化背景的冲撞和对举。""在九十年代新的时空下，这一茬更为年轻的青年作家得 以走上文坛，正在于他们明显疏离了前几茬作家习惯关心的话题，而与社会的新的变化和进 展保持了同步相向的趋势……把个人的情绪与时代的生活面貌和精神处境勾连在一起，谋求 与九十年代社会的契合，体现中国社会新的进展，这正是他们的努力。以一种消解的姿态， 达到对文学的整合，以反先锋的方式，回归到朴素的情感姿态，以个人化的方式，进入到文 学创作之中，这正是这个新生代作家群的文学用心。"(中国华侨出版社1996年出版的"新 生代小说系列"总序) 应该指出：小说写作中对材料的分析与科学研究中对材料的分析是根本不同的两回事。

"一个文学作家应当走的创作过程的道路，是和社会科学家研究过程的道路相反的。""社 会科学家所取以为研究的资料者，是那些错综的自然的现象，文学作家的却是造成那些现象 的活生生的人。社会科学家把那些现象比较分析，达到了结论;文学作家却是从那些活生生 的人身上，--从他们相互的关系上，看明了某种现象，用艺术手段来说明它，如果作 家有的是正确的眼光，深入的眼光，则他虽不作结论而结论自在其中了。"(《茅盾论创作》 第466页)因此，小说作者的分析工作是与自己对人物、事件的观察、感受，对生活的体 验、理解结合在一起的，这种分析是理性的，但是它是融化在形象思维中的。

许多小说作者的创作实践告诉我们，有的作品的主题是在人物之前产生的，而有的主题 是在有了人物之后才确定的。例如茅盾创作《春蚕》，是先有了主题，"其次便是处理人物， 构造故事。"(《我怎样写〈春蚕〉》)而王蒙说他的许多短篇小说并不是先有了主题然后再去 写的。他说："《夜的眼》是什么先行呢?是感觉先行，感受先行，是对城市夜景的感受先行。 这里头有我个人的感觉，但又不全都是。……《夜的眼》就是写一个长期在农村、在边远地 区的人对大城市、对我们生活的感受。……这个感受饮食着深思对我们生活的深思，这个深 思还没有做出明确的结论，但是它充满了深思。"王蒙又说："《夜的眼》还有一个主题，这 也是我在最近才明确的，就是写了我们生活中的转机。……所谓转机，充满了艰难，充 满着历史的负担，但又开始有了新的东西，大有希望。《夜的眼》里既有负担，又有希望; 既有伤痕，又有跨越伤痕向前进的努力;既有思索，又有感受;既有想不清的地方，又有相 当清楚的地方。我觉得《夜的眼》里包含的东西是比较多的。"(《漫话小说创作》)

总之，我们对小说的材料必须深入开掘，对主题必须刻苦提炼。而在构思时、写作中， 是不能将主题提炼、人物刻划割裂开来的。可以是主题先行，也可以是人物先行，还可以是 感受先行。而且，主题可以是一个，也可以是几个，即写成多主题的小说。

四、刻划人物，塑造典型

人物的刻划和典型的塑造，是小说写作中最重要的工作。茅盾指出："典型性格的刻划， 永远是艺术创造的中心问题。"

怎样才能写出典型的人物形象呢?我们当然要充分运用叙述、描写、议论和抒情等等表 达方法，采用比喻、象征、夸张、拟人……等等修辞手段，使人物生动、形象，活灵活现， 栩栩如生。但是，仅仅这样还是很不够的，小说写作与一般记叙文写作的一个重要的不同之 处，就在于小说要进行艺术概括，运用虚构、想象的典型化方法刻划人物性格，从而创造出 具有个性的又体现时代精神、社会牲特征的典型形象。为此，就"必须使现象典型化。应该 把微小而有代表性的事物写成巨大的和典型的事物--这就是文学的任务。"(高尔基《和青 年作家们的谈话》)

典型化的基本规律就是个性和共性的高度统一，使"每个人都是典型，但同时又是一定 的单个人"。这就要求我们努力实现恩格斯提出的要求："现实主义的意思是，除了细节的真 实外，还要真实地再现典型环境中的典型性格。"

所谓典型环境，一般指一定的自然环境和社会环境即现实环境，其实，它"更应该包括特定 的种族环境、地域环境、历史文化环境等各种稳态的以及动态的大环境要素。一个具有永恒 意义的艺术典型，正是诸种直接的现实环境以及全部的民族、历史、文化等深度环境和综合 环境所共同培育而成的。"(郝雨《在典型创造上用力》，1997年10月14日《文艺报》) 所谓典型性格，指的是人物必须是充分的共性和鲜明的个性的高度的统一体。人物的共性要 从人物的个性中体现出来。"人们常说，近年来的小说创作故事情节的枝干上并没有结了多 少人物之果，即是指作品重在把握围绕事件所交织起来的复杂的社会现实，但缺少栩栩 如生、呼之欲出的人物形象。这恐怕就与缺少有深度的、富于个性魅力的性格刻划有关。因 此只有在深刻把握现实关系的同时，深刻地把握人物内在灵魂，使身份与性格有机 结合而不能偏废其一，才能达到现实主义创作所要求的典型化高度。"(任玖珊《现实主义话 题再热评论界》，1997年10月14日《文艺报》)

一、议论文的概念：

以议论为主要表达方式，运用准确严密的语言分析事理、阐明作者观点的文体。

二、议论文的分类：

从内容上来看，一般可分为政治论文和学术论文。通常所说的议论文，主要指的是政治论文。从论证方式来看，议论文又分为立论和驳论两种。①立论：在论证中逐步树立自己的论点。②驳论：在论证中以反驳对方观点来树立自己的论点。

三、议论文的特点：

内容具有理论性，结构具有逻辑性，语言具有概括性、准确严密。以理服人、以情动人。

(一)、议论文三要素：论点、论据和论证。

1.论点：是作者对所论述问题的见解和主张，是议论文的灵魂。议论文一般只有一个中心论点，有的议论文还围绕中心论点提出几个分论点。要区别中心论点和分论点。论点应该是一个明确的判断，是作者观点的完整陈述。是一个概括力很强的句子。它可能在文章的开端，也可能在文章的中间或末尾，许多时候文章的标题正是一个中心论点。如果文章当中没有一个适合做中心论点的句子，那么，就要由我们自己来归纳了。

另外，可以通过“认为”、“必须”、“由此可见”、“要”、“是”、“不是”等表示肯定或否定的关键词来寻找论点。

2.论据：是证明论点的材料，是支撑论点的材料，是作者用来证明论点正确的理由和依据。它被论点统率，为论点服务的。

任何论点，只有被充分的根据作证明后，才会有说明力;没有根据的论点，既使正确，即使深刻，也不能说服人。所以作者在表明自己观点态度的同时，，也必须提出充足有力的根据，比如赞成什么，为什么赞成，认为某个现象不好，根据是什么，这样才能做到有根有据，以理服人。

论据的两种类型：事实论据和道理论据。

事实论据：包括有代表性的事例、确凿的数据、可靠的史实等。所用的事例可以是具体的，也可以是概括的。如果运用了事实论据证明论点，同时就是使用了举例论证方法。如《谈骨气》中文天祥宁死不投降、齐人饿者不食嗟来之食、闻一多面对国民党特务的手枪拍案而起，就是三件事实。

作为事实论据的材料必须真实、确凿、并且有代表性，所选的事例和观点要统一，否则就失去了事实论据的说服力，影响了议论效果。

道理论据：指经过人们的实践检验的、为社会所公认的正确理论，包括社会科学理论，如哲学理论;也包括自然科学的原理、定律、公式及广为流传的谚语、名言、譬句等。

注意，有的时候道理论据也指作者的推理。描述性的话，即便是领袖和名人说的也不能算作道理论据。如《俭以养德》中所用的鲁迅和高尔基的话都是描述性的话，鲁迅的话展示了他节俭的生活作风;高尔基的话展示了列宁节俭的生活作风，二者都是事实论据。

论据的作用：无论是事实论据还是道理论据，作用都是证明作者的观点，只是我们在阅读时，要分析直接和间接证明作者的哪个观点。答题时往往要求答出直接证明的那个观点，这个观点未必是全文的中心论点。

3.论证：指运用论据证明论点的过程和方法。是论点与论据之间逻辑联系的纽带。论点解决“需要证明什么”的问题，论据解决“用什么来证明”的问题，论证解决“怎样证明”的问题。

(二)、议论文的论证方法。常见的有以下四种：举例论证、道理论证、对比论证、比喻论证。

1. 举例论证：列举确凿、充分、有代表性的事例证明论点;

例如：《发问的精神》一文举出了下列事例：牛顿对苹果落地要问出个所以然，从而创立了“万有引力”说;瓦特把壶水滚沸当做问题研究，发明了蒸汽机;释迦牟尼对极普通的人生现象寻根究底，创立了佛教;孔子在太庙里看见每样事物都要问，向老子问礼，成为万世景仰的圣人。通过列举四位名人的事例，论证了发问精神的可贵。

又如，《谈骨气》一文列举了三个事例：南宋丞相文天祥率众坚决抵抗元军，被俘后誓不投降，慷慨就义;古代一个穷人宁肯饿死，也不吃嗟来之食，;民主战士闻一多面对国民党特务的暗杀，愤怒痛斥国民党特务。三个事例从不同角度证明了“我们中国人是有骨气的”。这一中心论点

2. 道理论证：用马列主义经典著作中的精辟见解、古今中外名人的名言譬句以及人们公认的定理公式等来证明论点。

例如《论求知》第十段列举“读史使人明智，读诗使人聪慧，演算使人思维精密，哲理使人思想深刻，伦理学使人有思想，逻辑修辞使人善辨”这六门科学知识的作用进行论证，归纳出“知识能塑造人的性格”的结论。列举的内容丰富翔实，得出的论断令人信服。由于道理论证所引用的材料都是被客观实际所证实的科学结论，或是被人们所公认的道理，具有理论的权威性和思想的深刻性，因而具有不可辩驳的力量和说服力。

例如：《“偃旗息鼓”和“圆满结束”》一文，文章引用《辞源》中关于“偃旗息鼓”的两个出处，《辞源》作为具有权威性的古汉语工具书，作为理论论据有一定的权威性，而这两个出处有力地论证了“偃旗息鼓”与“圆满结束”不是一回事，中间不能画等号，指出滥用成语的不良文风的危害，有力地论证了自己观点的正确。

3. 对比论证：拿正反两方面的论点或论据作对比，在对比中证明论点。

例如：《纪念白求恩》一文用白求恩“对工作的极端的负责任，对同志对人民的极端的热忱”与不少人对工作不负责任，“对同志对人民”“冷冷清清，漠不关心，麻木不仁”进行对比;用白求恩“以医疗为职业，对技术精益求精”与“一班鄙薄技术工作以为不足道、以为无出路的人”进行对比，具体论证了学习白求恩的共产主义精神。

又如：《想和做》一文将“有些人只会空想，不会做事”与“也有些人只顾做事，不动脑筋”进行对比，指出其危害，论证了“想和做是分不开的，一定要联结起来”。这样运用正反对比，使正确与错误分明，让人们摒弃错误的，接受正确的，增强了论证的效果。对比论证是一种综合的论证方法，可以包括事实的对比、道理的对比以及有相反效果的比喻句的对比。有时一段文字中不止一种论证方法，一定要找全

4. 比喻论证：用人们熟知的事物作比喻采证明论点。

又如《论求知》的第四段用“人的天性犹如野生的花草，求知学习好比修剪移栽”这一组比喻来论证“求知可以改进人的天性”的论点。这样写，使论述的道理通俗易懂。

论证方法都有其作用，

举例论证，用典型事例论证中心论点，可以增强文章的说服力，令人信服。

道理论证，引用名人名言，古代典籍，可以提高文章说理的权威性和可信度。

(三)、议论文的结构。

关于议论文的结构有两种说法：

第一种分法：议论文最基本的结构是，提出问题(也叫引论)、分析问题(也叫本论)、解决问题(也叫结论)。又可以分两大类：一是逐层深入的论述结构，叫“纵式”;一是并列展开的论述结构，叫“横式”。(这种分法作为了解)

第二种分法(考试常考)：议论文的论证结构大体分为三种形式：

1.“总—分”式，反映作者演绎推理的思维形式。它先提出论题或论点，然后从几个方面进行论证。

2.“分—总”式，反映作者归纳推理的思维形式。它先对所要论述的问题分几个方面剖析，再顺理成章地归纳总结出结论。

3.“总—分—总”式，它反映作者综合运用演绎推理和归纳推理的思维形式。先总出论点，然后从几个方面论述，最后总结全文，形成结论。相对于前两种结构形式来说，这种结构形式的引论、本论、结论都较齐全，比较常见。

(四)、议论文的语言——准确性、概括性,生动性, 鲜明性. 理解重点词语的含意，评析文章语言的风格。通过语境即上下文，联系文章的论述内容和论证特色来理解词语的含意，并分析语言，评析语言风格。

议论文的语言风格与作者的生活、个性和阅历有关。有的简洁平实，有的含蓄幽默，有的典雅华丽，有的清新自然. 议论文运用判断推理的逻辑推理，它要求议论语言周到，没有疏漏，无懈可击。否则议论文所提出的论点就立不起来，从而失去了文章的战斗力。所以严密性是议论文语言的第一要素。此外，议论文是说理文，要求文章应有明确的概念，严密的推理。若要达到这样的效果，必须注意语言的准确性。是非明确才能以理服人，色彩鲜明才能以情动人。无论是立论还是驳论，目的都是要树立自己的观点;为了达到这个目的，优秀的议论文的语言都具有是非明确、色彩鲜明的特点，否则就不能以理服人、以情动人。

(五)、议论文的论证方式：

议论文的论证方式有以下两种：

①立论：直接提出并阐明论点的论证方式叫立论。用这种方式写作的议论文被称为“立论文。” 《继续保持艰苦奋斗的作风》就是一篇立论文。

②驳论：通过反驳对立的论点来阐明自己的论点的议论方式叫驳论。这类议论文常称为“驳论文” 。

阅读“驳论文”，首先要弄清文章反驳的观点，如《中国人失掉自信力了吗?》一文针对当时有些人散布中国人对抗日前途失去信心的悲观论调进行批驳。

其次，弄清反驳的方法，一般有三种方法：驳论点;驳论据;驳论证。由于议论文是由论点、论据、论证三部分有机构成的，因此驳倒了论据或论证，也就否定了论点，与直接反驳论点具有同样的效果。一篇驳论文可以把几种反驳方式结合起来使用以加强反驳力量和说服力。

A.反驳论点：即对对方的论点进行批驳，指出它是荒谬的、虚伪的，这是驳论中最常用的方法，又分为直接反驳和间接反驳。

直接反驳即直接指出对方的荒谬。这种方法有的是引用确凿的不可辩驳的事实，有的是从理论上进行透彻的解剖和分析。

间接反驳又分为两种方法：一种是对一些对方的论点进行合乎逻辑的引申，使敌论点露出马脚，以此驳倒对方，即归缪法。另一种是证明与对方相对立的论点是正确的，那么相反也就证实了对方的论点是错误的，即反证法。

B.反驳论据：即揭示对方论据错误，以达到驳倒对方论点的目的。因为论点是由论据来支撑的，驳到了论据，就使论点站不住脚。

C.反驳论证：即揭露对方在议论过程中的逻辑错误，如大前提、小前提与结论的矛盾，对方各论点之间的矛盾，论点与论据之间的矛盾等。

在议论中，虽然有立论、驳论两种议论方式，但并不是完全分割开来的，因为破的目的也是为了立，所以在运用时，立论和驳论常常是相互联系，交替使用的。

1、我们爱我们的民族，这是我们自信心的泉源。--周恩来

2、我死国生，我死犹荣，身虽死精神长生，成功成仁，实现大同。--赵博生

3、中国人搞出的理论，首先要为中国人服务。--吴仲华

4、爱国的主要方法，就是要爱自己所从事的事业。--谢觉哉

5、常思奋不顾身，而殉国家之急。--司马迁

6、锦城虽乐，不如回故乡;乐园虽好，非久留之地。归去来兮。--华罗庚

7、能够献身于自己祖国的事业，为实现理想而斗争，这是最光荣不过的事情了。--吴玉章

8、人民共享人生出彩机会--习近平阐述中国梦

9、宁做流浪汉，不做亡国奴。--丰子恺

10、锦绣河山收拾好，万民尽作主人翁。--朱德

11、大江歌罢掉头东，邃密群科济世穷。面壁十年图破壁，难酬蹈海亦英雄。--周恩来

12、望升官发财之人，决不宜来我处。那些望升官发财之人，决不宜来我处;如欲爱国牺牲一切，能吃劳苦之人，无妨多来。我们的军队是一律平等待遇，我与战士同甘苦已十几年，快愉非常。因此，无论什么事都好办……我为保持革命军队的良规，从来也没有要过一文钱，任何闲散人来，公家及我均难招待，革命办法非此不可。--朱德

13、惟有民魂是值得宝贵的，惟有他发扬起来，中国才有真进步。--鲁迅

14、位卑未敢忘忧国。--陆游

15、我爱我的祖国，爱我的人民，离开了它，离开了他们，我就无法生存，更无法写作。--巴金

16、我爱中国固因他是我的祖国，而尤因他是有那种可敬爱的文化的国家。--闻一多

17、中国的文人，历来重气节。一个画家如果不爱民族，不爱祖国，就是丧失民族气节。画的价值，重在人格。人格--爱国第一。--李苦禅

18、真正的爱国者是爱人类的，爱国决不是排外。--马铁丁

19、有了中国文化历史知识基础以后，爱国主义就有了根。章士钊有句话叫“灭人之国先去其史”。中华民族的伟大在于文化传统，而继承传统最重要的是靠历史教育。--任继愈

20、英勇非无泪，不洒敌人前。男儿七尺躯，愿为祖国捐。--陈辉

21、一身报国有万死，双鬓向人无再青。--陆游

22、一个真正的爱国主义者，用不着等待什么特殊机会，他完全可以在自己的岗位上表现自己对祖国的热爱。--苏步青

静，是一种感觉，一种美丽。

喜欢静，喜欢一个的静，尤其是喜欢晚的静，是一种透心砌肺的静。

静，是一种享受。每当夜深人静万籁俱寂时，总喜欢一个静静地坐在草坪上，看彩云追月，看繁星满天，让思绪在无边的空中遨游。远处，重重叠叠的山峦，在朦胧的色中若隐若现，起伏不已;近处，万家灯火，灯光璀璨，一切都是那么的安详静谧。偶尔有几丝风穿过树林，发出“沙沙”的响声，却更加重了夜晚的宁静。柔柔夜色，点点星光，习习凉风，在这样的氛围中，你可以什么都想，又可以什么都不想，只要静静地享受这一刻，就是一种最大的幸福了。

静，是一种思考。远离白天的喧嚣，远离都市的浮华，在静寂中回一回首，倾听一下生命流逝的声音。让匆忙的脚步不再奔波，让疲惫的灵魂不再漂泊，思想在静寂中得到洗涤，灵魂在静寂中得到升华。反省过去，剖析现在，展望明天，未来的道路，因为思考而显得更清晰明了。

静，是一种喧泄。越是在人群中，你越容易失自己，只有当你一个独处时，才是最真实的你。面对夜晚的静，我们不需要再刻意地伪装自己，不必再故作的快乐与洒脱。其实，我们同样有着最坚强的外表，最脆弱的心灵，同样有着太多的失落、迷惘与空虚。让所有的心事在天空下暴露无遗，夜晚的静是我们最忠实的听众。

静，是一种力量。不经历风雨，怎么见彩虹?不经历寒冬，怎有生机勃勃的春天!经过夜晚的沉寂，在静寂中默默积蓄力量，等待新的挑战与奋发。竹叶青青不肯黄，枝条楚楚耐寒霜。始苏万物春风里，更有笋尖出土忙。

静，是一种感觉，一种源于灵魂深处的感觉。忙碌的生活中，别忘了在心灵植一方静土，你会发觉，生活有着另一种的美丽，一种无以言传。只能用心慢慢去品味的美丽!

一、议论文的结构合体

议论文,分析事实,论证道理,当然要遵循一定的思维规律;这种思维规律反映在文章的外部形态上,就是具有一定体式的文章的结构。怎样写议论文才算“合体”呢?

一是根据议论问题的一般思维模式,应当是按“提出问题、分析问题、解决问题”( 或曰“引论”、“本论”、“结论”) 三大块构成。“提出问题 ”即在议论文开头一般要鲜明地提出中心论点,“分析问题”即在文章的中间要围绕中心论点展开分析论证,“解决问题”即在文章的结尾部分或者得出综合性结论, 或者提出前瞻性希望等。这一点,众所周知,兹不赘述。

二是分析问题即本论部分,要按一定的向度分层展开论述。所谓“向度”即论述展开的方向。这个“向度”有四个: 是什么,为什么,怎么样,何果。一般情况下, 一篇中学生议论文作文,其本论部分只要从这四个向度中选择一个或者两个展开即可。但无论是从哪个向度展开, 其分论点之间都要形成一定的联系。一般来说,有并列式、递进式和对照式三种。

所谓并列式,就是围绕中心从同一个向度列出几个分论点,逐一论证。如果仅仅围绕一个向度写,那么几个分论点之间的关系大多是并列关系 。

递进式同并列式结构相比,除了论点之间的意义联系不同以外,其段落的结构模式与并列式相同,就不再说了。

所谓对照式,就是从论题的正反两个方面入手,进行正反对比论证得出结论。其优点是结构简洁,论证充分,容易上手。最简单的对照式是在提出观点后，一段从正面论证观点,一段从反面论证观点,最后得出结论。还有一种对照式结构是在正面进行论述或者摆出论据后,紧接着用转折或者假设的方式从反面展开论述。

二、思路入格

议论文是论述问题的,当然要有一定的思路,即议论文各部分之间要有必然的内在联系。我们知道,议论文是论证问题的,你在提出议论文论点后,就要摆事实,讲道理,让你提出的论点令人信服地确立起来。因此,中心论点和各分论点之间就应当是因果联系,即中心论点是“果”,分论点是“因”。这个因果联系就是议论文的思路之“格”。

作为一个高中生的议论文作文,最起码要做到在中心论点和各分论点之间 ,论点和论据之间要有一定的因果联系。

学生提出中心论点后,只要围绕中心论点问一个“为什么”,就能找到提出分论点的方向。如中心论点是“只有坚守,才能使人的思想品德升华,才能成就一番事业”。稍加分析,就可发现这个观点是在说“坚守”的重要性,于是,分论点就要回答“为什么坚守很重要”这个问题。那么就可从“为什么”和“何果”这两个向度来立分论点。如“坚守是一种执着,使绝望变成希望”,“坚守是一种信念,使普通变得高尚”,“坚守是一种职责,使平凡变得伟大”。如果我们要检验这三个分论点和中心论点之间有没有必然的内在联系的话,只需在这三个分论点之前加上“因为”,在“坚守很重要”之前加上“所以”,再连起来念一下即可。

同样,分论点和议论文的论据之间,也应当是因果联系。如在“坚守是一种职责,使平凡变得伟大”这个分论点后面,就可这样展开论述:“边防战士的坚守,使国家安定祥和;人民教师的坚守,使桃李满天下;白衣天使的坚守,使病魔为之屈服。”又如在“自由是思想的漫飞”这个分论点下可以这样展开论述:“行动可以受制于客观现实,思想却永远享受绝对的自由。有了这份思想的自由,才有了集豪放与浪漫于一身的诗仙李白;才有了身陷囹圄还在感叹‘故国不堪回首月明中’的落魄后主李煜;才有了向往‘面朝大海,春暖花开’的天才诗人海子。总之,因为这份思想的自由,社会才会在其牵引之下不断地进步,才会创造出一个个永载史册的人类奇迹。”

三、粘连有术

一篇像样的议论文,除了议论文的结构合体、思路入格外,还有更重要的一个方面,就是对论点的恰当阐述和对论据的中肯分析;没有这样的阐述和分析,议论文论点论据就不能粘连起来,而这个粘连是有“术”的。

(一) 观点+过渡+事例+分析

这个步骤中最重要的是“过渡”和“分析”。所谓“过渡”就是要在观点和事例之间,用适当的词句来勾连,以接通文气,使观点和议论文材料在语言形式上畅通无阻。所谓“分析”,就是事例叙述完之后,还必须对事例进行适当的分析评论,指出其本质特点,使事例和论点在内容上联结在一起。

(二) 观点+过渡+论据+分析+归纳

这种议论文论证方式就是在第一种的基础上加了一个“归纳”。所谓归纳,就是从多个事例中提炼出必然性的东西。既然要从多个事例中提炼,那么,“论据”部分,就应是两个或三个以上。

(三) 一般道理+个别道理

即“演绎推理法”。前面的分析归纳是从个别到一般,而演绎推理法是从一般到个别,用普遍性的真理(论据)来证明特殊的论点的方法。

导语：文章中常见的写作手法、表现手法及其作用文章中的写作手法、表现手法之类的题，是阅读写作中我们经常失分的题目，究其原因，主要是学生们什么是写作手法、什么是表现手法不清楚，不明白，因而在做题的时候觉得无从下手。今把各种写作手法和表现手法罗列到下面。

写作手法和表现手法的作用也附到后面，供大家参考。常见写作方法、表现手法：联想、想像、象征(托物言志)、比较、对比、衬托、反衬、烘托、以小见大、借景抒情(情景交融)、伏笔和铺垫、前后照应(呼应)、直接(间接)描写、扬抑(欲扬先抑、欲抑先扬)。

作用分别如下：

1、象征(托物言志)：通过咏物来抒情，常常借助于某些具体植物、动物、物品等的一些特性，委婉曲折地将作者的感情表达出来。 作用：首先是它把抽象的事理表现为具体的可感知的形象。其次是可以使文章更含蓄些，运用眼前之物，寄托深远之意。

2、衬托：以他体从正面、反面两个角度陪衬本体。作用：突出本体的××特征。

3、对比：把两种相反的事物或一种事物相对立的两个方面作比较。作用：鲜明的突出了主要事物或事物的主要方面的××特征。

4、借景抒情：通过描写具体生动的自然景象或生活场景，表达作者某种真挚的思想感情。作用：做到情景交融，使文章充满诗情画意。

5、先抑后扬：先否定或贬低事物形象，尔后深入挖掘事物特点及内在意义，再对事物予以肯定、褒扬。作用：突出强调了事物(人物)的特征。

6、侧面(间接)描写：侧面烘托出该人物的××性格、品行和技能，使得文章结构更加集中紧凑，表达更为简洁精练。作用：直接和间接描写方法结合运用，可以使被描写的人物或景物的特点更加鲜明、突出。

7、伏笔和铺垫：作用：内容前后照应，情节严丝合缝。

8、照应：记叙文：使文章浑然一体，整体感强，突出主题。议论文：强化××论点。 散文：反复地抒发××情感，增加情感的深度。

9、联想：由一事物想到另一事物的心理过程。作用：丰富文章内容，使人物形象更丰满，性格更鲜明突出，情节更生动感人。

10、想像：在原有的感性形象的基础上，创造新形象的心理过程。作用：为塑造形象、表现主题服务。使读者接受美的陶冶。 写作手法指写一首诗，使它好的所有的手法，它可以有很多方面，修辞方面，表达方式方面，表现手法方面等。表达方式：

11、记叙：记叙人物的经历或事情的发生、发展、变化过程。

12、描写：用生动形象的语言对人物、事件、环境所作的具体描绘和刻画

13、议论：对人和事物的好坏、是非、价值、特点、作用等所表示的意见

14、抒情：表达作者强烈的爱憎、好恶、喜怒、爱乐等主观感情。有直接抒情，也有间接抒情。

修辞手法：

1、比喻：用一种事物或情景来比作另一种事物或情景。可分为明喻、暗喻、借喻。有突出事物特征，把抽象的事物形象化的作用。

2、借代： 借用相关的事物来代替所要表达的事物。借代可用部分代表全体，具体代替抽象，用特征代替人。借代的运用使语言简练、含蓄。

3、夸张：对事物的形象、特征、作用、程度等作扩大或缩小的描述。有更突出、更鲜明地表达事物的作用。

4、对偶：用结构相同、字数相同的一对句子或短语来表达两个相对或相近的意思。从形式看，语言简练，整齐对称;从内容看，意义集中含蓄。

5、比拟：把物当作人来描写叫拟人，或把人当作物来描写叫拟物。比拟有促使读者产生联想，使描写的人、物、事表现的更形象、生动的作用。

6、排比：把内容紧密关联、结构相同或相似、语气一致的几个句子或短语接连说出来。

7、设问：先提出问题，接着自己把看法说出。问题引入，带动全篇，中间设问，承上启下，结尾设问，深化主题，令人回味。

8、反问：用疑问的形式表达确定的意思。用来加强语气，表达强烈感情。使用反问句式，语气冷峻，强调了历史之必然。

9、起兴：兴是先言他物以引起所咏之辞

表现手法：

1、联想：由一事物联系到与之有关的另一事物，或把事物中类似的特点联系起来造成一个典型。

2、想象：人们在已有材料和观念基础上，经过联想、推断、分析、综合，创造出新的观念的思维过程。

3、虚实结合：是指现实的景、事与想象的景、事互相映衬，交织一起表达同一样的情感。

4、衬托 或烘托：指的是以乙托甲，使甲的特点或特质更加突出。有正衬和反衬两种。

5、颔联、颈联写妻子的美丽，反衬诗人惆怅痛苦的心情。

6、渲染：对环境、景物作多方面的描写形容，以突出形象，加强艺术效果。

7、象征：通过特定的、容易引起联想的具体形象，表现与之相似或相近特点的概念、思想和感情。

8、对比对照：把两种不同的事物或情形作对照，互相比较。

9、抑扬：把要贬抑否定的方面和要肯定的方面同时说出来，只突出强调其中一个方面以达到抑此扬彼或抑彼扬此的目的。有先扬后抑和先抑后扬之分。

10、照应：指诗中对前面所写的作必要的回答。恰当运用这种方法使结构显得紧凑、严谨。

11、动静：对事物、景物作动态、静态的描写，两者相互映衬，构成一种情趣。

12、正侧描写：对描写对象进行正面的直接的描写是正面描写;描写对象周围的事物，使对象更鲜明、突出的是侧面描写。

13、直抒胸臆:即景抒怀，表达诗人面对自然景象所产生的富有哲理性的思想。

14、借景抒情:融情于景,诗人要表达的思想感情正面不着一字，全然寓于眼前的自然景象之中，借自然景物抒发感情。

15、托物言志:在描摹事物以尽其妙的基础上融入作者的感情，寄托作者的心志。

16、意象：意象，就是诗中熔铸了作者思想情感的事物。

17、意境：作者通过丰富的想象，将思想感情与作品的生活图景融为一体而形成的艺术境界。这是诗人的主观感受、感情以及对生活的理解、认识和客观事物的外在形貌特征以及内在的意蕴的融合统一。

18、用典：用典有用事和引用前人诗句两种。用事是借用历史故事来表达作者的思想感情，包括对现实生活中某些问题的立场和态度、个人的意绪和愿望等等，属于借古抒怀。引用或化用前人诗句目的是加深诗词中的意境，促使人联想而寻意于言外。

《青松》

春天来了，蒙蒙的春雨像乳汁一样哺育着万物。松树以在春雨的哺育下开了花，一朵朵黄色的小花开在枝头，迎着温暖的春风笑着。笑着。夏天到了，雷雨交加，松树在风雨中挺立，那一片片绿得发亮的叶子还仍然在枝头欢笑着，那风雨中一声声清晰而动听的声音，像一股足以擎天撼地的生命力一样。令我肃然起敬。我爱青松，更爱它那种精神。秋天到了，白花凋零，绿草荣枯。有许多树的叶子都落光了，而松树却的秋天的风雨中舒展着它的枝叶，它的叶子像一根根，一束束细长的针，在瑟瑟的秋风中摆动着，好象在说“我不怕风”。寒冷的冬天，鹅毛般的大雪在空中飞舞着，凛冽的寒风吹着响亮的口哨，猛烈地摇着松树，一大片一大片的雪花往松树上压，它的枝杈上积满了厚厚的雪。风和雪都想征服松树，但是，松树却用它那顽强的意志，一次又一次地战胜了风和雪，等待春天的到来。你看，又一阵风过来，它们一棵接一棵，伴着风声连成一片，响成一片，大抵是在嚎唱。你听，这唱声多么悲壮，多么慷慨激昂。风雨中，青松依旧是一棵一棵雄壮的青松夜渐渐深了。

《仙人掌》

仙人掌，嘿，这真是一种生命力顽强、奇特的植物!仙人掌，是一种生命力十分顽强的奇特的热带植物。盆栽的仙人掌，它百折不挠的性格十分让人吃惊，有水、无水、天热、天冷它都不在乎。它翠绿的身体长着一块块长满硬刺的掌状茎，它么没不断向上生长，像叠罗汉似的。一片“绿色的手掌”里又长出一片“绿色的小手长”，使人产生不少遐思。它生长在什么地方都以这个姿势矫健地挺立着。在炎热久旱的夏天里，其它盆栽都已经垂下了头，而仙人掌像勇士一样抬着头，眺望那蓝蓝的天空;在寒风刺骨的冬天里，别的盆栽早已被主人捧回室内，可是仙人掌坏顶着风霜，不惧周围的环境。它从来不讲究，它一扎下根，就好像在说：“这地方真好，就在这里生长吧!”仙人长浑身是硬刺，什么野兽见到它都马上止步。害虫想啮食它，身子总被扎得千疮百孔。一快绿色的仙人掌折断到地面，大家都以为它枯死了，不，如果你这样任为就错了，它用身体的养份生出根，又培养出一棵青春焕发的小仙人掌，这是真正的“落地生根”。它的顽强生命力谁可比得上呢?这看起来很平凡的植物，谁料得到，它会长出美丽的小花，就像武士头盔上的彩缨。仙人掌是热带植物，它形状像手掌，故名仙人掌。它不畏酷暑，就是气温高达摄氏40度，它几天不喝水也能坚强地活下去。就这样它日日、月月、年年经受着烈日的考验，快活地生长着。人也要有这种不屈不挠的景神，不论顺境还是逆境，都要以坚强的意志生活着、工作着。仙人掌也是一味好药，人们有病，它可以帮忙，比如患了腮腺炎，只要用石头把它捣成酱，再用来敷在腮边，很快就可以痊愈。仙人掌没有使人一见就生羡慕之心的花朵，也没有多姿多彩的身躯。它浑身长满了针，使人一见觉得一股凉意涌来。它那默默无闻无私奉献的高贵品质多么令人钦佩。

《傲雪寒梅》

梅花，迎着寒风而绽放的花朵。它没有月季的娇艳绚丽，没有牡丹的国色天香，没有兰花的纯美，也没有荷花的高雅……但是，它拥有不畏寒冷，独步早春，傲立雪中的精神和崇高的品格。“墙角数枝梅，凌寒独自开。”就体现了梅花这种坚强不屈的精神与品质。

梅花属于蔷薇科，主干弯弯曲曲;树冠却是繁枝细杈;它的花蕾呈球形，花瓣则呈卵型，梅花有白色、黄|色、粉红等多种颜色。梅花的花朵不大，像一个个害羞的姑娘被那所剩无几的绿叶衬托着。梅花是在寒风中默默地开放，在寒风中悄悄地展示自己的风采。梅花的姿态优美，十分美丽，它的花瓣分五片，又分上下两层，花蕊是黄的。当梅花开的正旺时，你会闻到一股清淡的幽香，那香气既不平淡也不腻人。

据我所知，梅花的药用价值很高，不仅可以用梅花中提取的“芳香油”作为食品添加剂，而且医学界近来研究表明，梅的花蕾能开胃，生津化痰，活血解毒等。

“梅花香自苦寒来”，吹拂梅花的是凛冽的寒风;照耀梅花的是寒冬的残陽;滋润梅花的是残雪的雨露，但屹立在山顶的梅花依旧那样的雍容典雅。我们这一代的青少年儿童，就应像这傲雪的寒梅，在艰难困苦中磨炼，只有这样，将来步人社会，才能被社会所接受，为祖国的未来描绘光辉的一页!

我爱梅花，爱它的坚强和毅力。它在冰雪交加的冬天里不低头，迎着寒风绽放出美丽的花朵，使寒冷的冬季因为有它而增添了几分暖意和温馨。

作文作文，可以称之为“文”的，首先应当是成篇的语句。语句来自单个的字词，而单个的字词是从心的内里表达出来的。所以作文本身的目的，就在于表达内心的一种看法，一种体会，一种情感。

在前几年的优秀高考作文中，出现了一股“向古人致思”的热潮，以古为镜，以此明得失，观成败，品人生。写得好的文章，拿来众诗人文人，与全文融会，的确可以深化主题拔高思想内涵。这是一种文法思路，然一味向过去的兴衰看，写的多了，观者也难免生厌，聪明的模仿也并不一定能成为聪明的选择。

那么，怎样才能写出“新意”呢?怎样才能从数十万份试卷中跳出来，“闪亮”阅卷老师的眼睛?聪明的答案刚好与一句宣传口号一致——从我做起，从小事做起。

Let‘s cross the bridge when we come to it.船到桥头自然直。下面是小编为你带来的初中英语写作常用谚语，欢迎阅读。

1. All roads lead to Rome.

条条大路通罗马。

2. Well begun is half done.

好的开端是成功的一半。

3. East, west, home is best.

金窝、银窝，不如自己的草窝。

4. First think, then act.

三思而后行。

5. It is never too late to mend.

亡羊补牢，犹为未晚。

6. Time is money.

时间就是金钱。

7. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

患难见真交。

8. Great hopes make great man.

远大的希望，造就伟大的人物。

9. Where there is a will, there is a way.

有志者，事竟成。

10. Stick to it, and you‘ll succeed.

只要人有恒，万事都能成。

11. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

早睡早起，富裕、聪明、身体好。

12. A good medicine tastes bitter.

良药苦口。

13. It is good to learn at another man‘s cost.

前车之鉴。

14. Let‘s cross the bridge when we come to it.

船到桥头自然直。

15. No pains, no gains.

不劳则无获。

16. Nothing is difficult to the man who will try.

世上无难事，只要肯登攀。

17. Where there is life, there is hope.

生命不息，希望常在。

18. An idle youth, a needy age.

少壮不努力，老大徒伤悲。

19. A plant may produce new flowers; man is young but once.

花有重开日，人无再少年。

20. God helps those who help themselves.

自助者，天助之。

21. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

只工作，不玩耍，聪明孩子也变傻。

22. Diligence is the mother of success.

勤奋是成功之母。

23. Truth is the daughter of time.

时间见真理。

24. No man is wise at all times.

智者千虑，必有一失。

25. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

今天能做的事绝不要拖到明天。

26. Kill two birds with one stone.

一石双鸟。

27. Easier said than done.

说起来容易做起来难。

28. Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

天才一分来自灵感，九十九分来自勤奋。

29. He who laughs last laughs best.

谁笑在最后，谁笑得最好。

30. He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.

身体健壮就有希望，有了希望就有了一切。

31. No man is born wise or learned.

人非生而知之。

32. Action speak louder than words.

事实胜于雄辩。

33. Courage and resolution are the spirit and soul of virtue.

勇敢和坚决是美德的灵魂。

34. There is no smoke without fire.

无风不起浪。

35. Many hands make light work.

人多好办事。

36. Reading makes a full man.

读书长见识。

37. Wisdom in the mind is better than money in the hand.

胸中有知识，胜于手中有金钱。

38. Seeing is believing.

百闻不如一见。

39. Money is a good servant but a bad master.

要做金钱的主人，莫作金钱的奴隶。

40. It‘s hard sailing when there is no wind.

无风难驶船。

41. The path to glory is always rugged.

通向光荣的道路常常是崎岖的。

42. Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.

没有目标的生活如同没有罗盘的航行。

43. Quality matters more than quantity.

质重于量。

44. The on-looker sees most of the game.

旁观者清。

45. Joys shared with others are more enjoyed.

与众同乐，其乐更乐。

46. Happiness takes no account of time.

欢乐不觉日子长。

47. Time and tide waits for no man.

岁月不等人。

48. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it.

若要求知，必须刻苦。

49. Learn to walk before you run.

循序渐进。

50. From words to deeds is a great space.

言行之间，大有距离。

51. Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.

技能和信心是无敌的军队。

52. Habit is a second nature.

习惯成自然。

53. Two heads are better than one.

三个臭皮匠顶个诸葛亮。

54. Nothing is impossible to a willing mind.

世上无难事，只怕有心人。

55. You can‘t make something out of nothing.

巧妇难为无米之炊。

56. Nothing for nothing.

不费力气，一无所得。

57. He who makes no mistakes makes nothing.

不犯错误者一事无成。

58. Nothing seek, nothing find.

无所求则无所获。

59. A little of every thing is nothing in the main.

每事浅尝辄止，事事都告无成。

60. A great ship asks deep waters.

大船要走深水。

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

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

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

1.?????? Proverbs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Damaging Research

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

3. Education and Citizenship

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

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

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

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

4. The Teacher’s Role

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

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

5. Education Philosophy

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

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

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

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

6. Student Life

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

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

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

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

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

7. Adult Education

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

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

8. Moral Relativism in American

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Schools Should Teach Values

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. College Pressures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then why are you going?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. To Err Is Wrong

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

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

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

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

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

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

Playing It Safe

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

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

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

Different Logic

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

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

Errors as Stepping Stones

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

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

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

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

[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分

导语：冬天来了，描写冬天的作文、描写冬天景色的作文、冬天的校园作文是必不可少的。在写景作文中，如何把景物描写详略得当，寓情于景，把文章写的有吸引力，一定的写作技巧是非常必要的。下面和小编一起来看看吧！

一、写景作文的开头方法

1、开门见山。开头直接写某个季节到来时你想写的景物。譬如你想写冬天，你可以这样开头：冬爷爷的脚步越来越近了，我仿佛看到了他带着白色的雪精灵来了。

2、反问句开头。提出问题开头，引发读者兴趣，吸引读者的注意力，这种作文，要体现出与读者对话的色彩。譬如写冬天，你可以这样开头：在一年四季里，你最喜欢哪个季节呢?春的明媚，夏的热情，秋的收获，冬的冰雪，各具特色，精彩纷呈。我最喜欢冬的白雪纷飞，银装素裹。

3、引用法。在描写冬的景色时可以用：忽如一夜春风来，千树万树梨花开。等诗句来形容以让自己的文章更加的生动形象。应该注意的是，一是开头不宜过长，老师提倡的是50-80字，也就是说，最好控制你的作文稿纸的三行半，最好别超过5行。一旦超过，就显得“头重”了。二是语言要优美，要搜集些精美的词语，是开头显得文采飞扬。三是适当采用修辞方法，如拟人、比喻、排比等，使语言显得生动活泼，通顺流畅。

二、写景作文的层次和顺序

1、描写的景物固定，时间不固定——以时间来分类。

2、时间固定，描写的景物不固定——冬天的作文就可以写雪后的不同景象所展现出的状态，如落满了雪的地面，屋顶，或是还没落满雪，还能隐约可以看见水的小溪。

3、地点固定，时间也固定——以空间顺序分类。这种方法适用于冬天去游览某一景区，比如去某公园，就可以写先到了哪里看到了什么。

三、写景的几个要素

第一步是观察：观察是写好作文的基础，对于写景作文来说，离开了细致准确的观察，是绝对写不好的。观察必须确立好立足点。立足点可以是固定的 ( 空间方位 ) ，也可以是变换的 ( 移步换景 ) 。但无论怎样必须层次清楚。

第二步是抓住特征：写景物，要善于抓住在不同地区、不同季节、不同时间里的景物颜色、形态、声响、变化等方面的特征，不能生搬硬套，如冬天可以用白雪皑皑，银装素裹，瑞雪纷飞等形容词来形容，这样可以让你的作文更加的生动起来。

第三、要层次分明：层次就是文章的内容顺序，也即表达顺序。先写什么后写什么，心里要有数。比如可以先写近景再写远景，最后可以寓情于景，达到升华主题的目的。

第四、要动静结合：所谓动静结合，就是指描写景色时，不仅要写出景色的静态，而且要写出它的动态，使景色才能活起来，使读者的印象更深刻。例：夜里，下雪了，雪花簌簌的往下落。第二天，我推开门一看，对面的山白了，田野也白了。眼前的院子里也是一片白色，小狗在雪上踩着，踩出了一片小巧的梅花。

第五、要抒发感情，任何景物都是客观存在的，但这种客观存在的景物却能给人不同的感受。我们写景要写自己热爱的景色，表达一定的主题思想，要表达出对自然的热爱，这就是借景抒情。如：在写家乡的冬天时，可以表达我对家乡的喜爱或是思念，而这样的喜爱与思念就融入在我们所描绘的景中。

【范文】

冬季到了，气候慢慢冷了。树上的树叶像被剃头刀剃过的同样，光秃秃的。马路上的人们穿上了厚厚的棉袄，戴上了厚厚的帽子。小朋友的脖子也缩进了厚厚的衣领里。呼呼的冬风刮在脸上像刀子刺的同样。

一天凌晨，我推开门一看，院子里本来光秃的树上溘然“开”满了皎白的“梨花”。抬眼望去，远处更是银装素裹、花团簇拥，真是“忽如一夜春风来，千树万树梨花开”呀!再看看地上，宛若盖上了一层厚厚的棉被。啊，原来昨天夜里下了一场大雪。

我弯下腰，从地上捧起一把雪，细心地看了又看，发现雪花毛茸茸、亮晶晶的，宛若是一件件优美的艺术品。但是还没来得及细细把玩，它便消散得无影无踪。

我轻轻地走在雪地上，听着那“咯吱咯吱”的声响，我的心啊，都快沉醉了!

俗语说：“瑞雪兆丰年”。农人伯伯又要迎来一个充溢期望的春季了。

我爱冬季!

升初作文怎么写，怎么才能构思一篇好作文。孩子在忙碌的同时，家长也开始为孩子忙碌着，或在图书大厦买作文书，或要孩子背诵一篇好文章按题目套文，其实这样的方法是有一定风险的。撞中了叫运气，反之则倒霉。

那么在小升初的作文中，孩子们到底该从哪些方面去着手准备呢?

一、素材的多角度立意

意大利着名画家达芬奇的老师对达芬奇所说的自己画蛋的体会：即使是同一只蛋，只要变换一下角度，形状便立即不同了。这告诉我们对生活中发生的事件我们可以多角度分析。文章源于生活，它的立意亦应多角度进行。

我们以一个发生在同学们身边的事件为例。

今年春天，我和爸爸来到高尔夫球场，第一次学打高尔夫球。看教练做很简单，我按照教练的要求去做，却发现和想象的不同，要么杆碰不上球，要么球出去就偏离了方向，经历了一次次失败，我终于成功了。

就这一事例，我们可从如下角度立意：

1、最大的敌人是自己，战胜自己就会走向成功;

2、一招一式，看似简单，做起来难，失之毫厘，谬以千里;

3、成功需要方法;四、运动带来快乐

这样，一个素材，可以根据命题的不同，确定立意，设置情节，确定描写重点。但无论从哪个角度立意，打球的动作细节是不能丢的。

二、练习写好文章的细节

学生练习作文的过程中，很多孩子注意了情节的起伏，语言的流畅，但总感觉文章空泛，这是为什么呢?忽视了细节描写。

怎样写好细节，简单地说，细节描写要还原生活，去发现场景细节、服饰细节、语言细节、动作细节、心理细节等，按照生活本来的面目去描摹。一篇文章，恰到好处地运用细节描写，能起到烘托环境气氛、刻画人物性格和揭示主题思想的作用。

如何将陌生叔叔帮我把车修好写细，我们首先要还原生活场景，在头脑中勾勒出雪中修车图，再从这一图画中去寻找描写的细节。

这是一位同学的作文片断：叔叔迅速地摘下手套，用右手拿着链条，左手帮着把链条搬过去，链条一点点地扣上去了，一节一节地扣住了后轮的齿轮。咣当一声，链条滑了出来，这一次努力前功尽弃。我的心咯噔一下，万一叔叔告诉我修不好，我该怎么办呀!可事情并非如我想象，只见叔叔向拢起的双手呵了呵气，又蹲下了身子。他为了不让链条弹开，用右手把链条往前面齿轮上套住，然后右手拉住链条往后齿轮上移，左手护住链条不让它再滑出来。后来，他看到位置有些偏，就用左手把它移正再装，洁白的雪花落在了他冻得通红的满是油污的手上，我知道他的手一定很冷，很冷，可他的心一定很热，很热。终于，链条一节一节地和齿轮扣住了。他猛一转脚踏板，车子居然又完好地转动起来。文章中最直观的细节是叔叔修车的动作细节，摘、拿、套、拉、护、移、转等动词的使用，写出了叔叔雪中修车的不容易，突出了人物精神。其次应当是外貌细节和心理细节的描写衬托了人物美好的心灵。

每个人观察生活的角度和经历不同，再现的生活场景也就不同，但无论采用怎样的方法，我们达到这样一种境地为最好做到写人则如见其人，写景则如临其境。

三、整理生活中的素材

努力回忆六年来的校园生活，家庭生活中记忆尤为深刻的小事，哪怕是一次单手磕鸡蛋的经历都不要放过。因为孩子有对生活的观察、积累，有真实的体验、感受，他的表述一定会具体而生动，他所表达的情感一定是真实的。翻翻过去的作文、周记，从多个角度，搜集这样的素材，将细节完整地记录下来，进行分类整理。

有些家长大量地看作文选、杂志，想帮助孩子从上面搬些素材下来。我不大同意这样的做法，因为那不是孩子的生活，他很难像成人一样具有缜密的思维，进行合理的想象情节，他也很难描摹当时的细节，这样的作文不能打动读者。不如让作文选、杂志成为勾起孩子回忆生活的媒介，从与作者相似的经历中挖掘写作素材。如：从作文选上看奶奶为我掖被子的细节，想到冬天，妈妈买药回来，为我滴眼药时怕我嫌凉而搓手的动作，这样一来写母爱的文章就有了素材。

四、努力锤炼文章的语言

佳酿总是经过酿造才有它独特的芳醇，文章也是一样，经过锤炼的语言才是有生命力的语言，孔子说言之无文，行而不远。说的就是这个道理。

我们可尝试这样的几种方式，让语言焕发色彩。

在句式变换上下工夫。在表达强烈的情感时，可以将陈述句用反问、设问或感叹句的形式表达。

在准确地运用词汇上下工夫。在文章中可以用一些拟声词来丰富表达;另外，可使用叠词使描绘更加准确，而且能使语言具有节奏感，从而让语言富有音乐美。再有，四字词语和成语的使用，会使语言表达更为简练。 在恰当地运用修辞上下工夫。修辞不但使文章语言生动活泼，而且能调节音节，增强语言的音乐美，提高语言的表达效果。例如：风追着雨，雨赶着风，风和雨联合起来追赶着天上的乌云，整个天地都处在雨水之中一句，意思是说大雨来了。但是作者使用了拟人的手法，把风、雨当作正在奔跑的人，飞快地追赶天空的乌云，这样一说比大雨来了更能表现出雨来的之快、之急、之大。当然，修辞方法还有引用、夸张、排比、设问、反问等等，我们应根据需要采用。

“那年还没长大/常常让你牵挂/是我不好让你担心了吧/懵懂很不听话/也曾顶嘴吵架/我的脾气你没办法”

记得小时候很调皮，常常与邻居的哥哥姐姐一起去爬山。每次回家都会把衣服弄得脏兮兮的。妈妈每次都批评道：“又去爬山了？每次都把衣服弄脏，下次不许你再去了，不然就不帮你洗衣服了。”我总是潇洒地把头甩向一边：“不帮就不帮，哼！”当这个时候妈妈总是无奈的摇摇头。

“没想过天会塌/总要你等一下/有谁多晚都等我回家/伤了那的气话/我已说的谎话/你都微笑说算了吧”

小学二年级的时候，第一次与妈妈吵架，也许是因为继承了爸爸的固执，再加上那时的不懂事与任性，那天晚上我并没有在放学之后立即回家，而是去了一个朋友家。当天傍晚，爸爸找到朋友家并把我带回家。当推开家门后，我看到的不是一张生气的脸而是充满担心与忧虑的脸，泪水顿时不争气的流了下来…

“任岁月在你额头刻画/你说爱是唯一的解答/那皱纹是代价/斑白的发是惩罚/妈妈辛苦为家”

“爱，是唯一的解答”。是呀，老师也常常告诉我们母爱是世界上最无私最伟大的爱。您没有说而是做了，您用青春，时间与汗水为我写了一篇人生的前言，只是为了证明您对我的爱…

“亲爱的妈妈/休息你辛苦啦/我知道你很累/现在换我来背/我一定不让你后悔/我让未来很美/亲爱的妈妈/请别再流下眼泪”

亲爱的妈妈，感谢您十五年如一日的教育我，让我明白许多道理。现在。我长大了，虽然不能偿还您对我所做的一切，但是我会努力学习，让我们的未来很美，一定不会让你后悔，妈妈，休息，您辛苦啦……

[关于母爱的写作作文

一、简述所犯错误，并定性之。

这是对自己开的第一炮，一定要猛烈、响亮，不能不痛不痒。但切记，炮一定要往空中放，不可往实处打。聊天室里泡美眉是吧？那要这样检讨——“我单身时代养成的积习未改，不是一个好男人”，千万不能说——“我只不过想换换口味”。

二、描述犯错过程。

这部分内容一定要扎实、扎实、再扎实，新闻的五个W一个都不能少。但是一定不要漏掉一点，那就是在犯错过程中的心理活动。要凸现善与恶的搏斗，灵与肉的挣扎。搏斗得越惨烈，挣扎得越残酷，越能博得谅解和宽容。

三、剖析错误原因。

这是最见功力的部分，是决定一份检讨成败的关键。要彻底把自己打翻、砸烂、磨碎、煮熟，要揭开伤疤，触及灵魂，让杜鹃泣血，令岩石掉泪。这错误早期形成，长期发展，千里之堤毁于蚁穴，万里长城倒于自摸，百转千回不该这样走，千错万错不能这样错！当然千万不要批判、控诉周围的环境——多么强大，多么沉重，多么凶险，多么肮脏！我本出淤泥而不染，奈何淤泥高过头；我本纯洁又无辜，奈何大家都有辜。除非你想暗示自己没错。

四、分析错误的影响，假设继续犯的后果。

错误严重，辜负期望，影响很坏，教训深刻，若不是领导及时指出、老师及时发现、父母及时提醒、女友及时察觉、有关部门及时介入，后果简直不堪设想！“不堪设想”这个词用得好啊！不但省下了许多笔墨，而且推脱了不少责任。所谓不堪设想，说白了就是谁都没工夫去想。

今天晚上，我听到了一个急匆匆的脚步声，哦！原来是张老师。

咦？我仔细地打量着张老师，发现平时拿着皮夹子的张老师今天竟然拿了一个沉重的皮包。我刚在想：里面装的是什么呢？正想着，张老师拿出一大叠一大叠崭新的钞票，有一百的、二十的、十块的，哇，张老师发财了。切！张老师也真是的，发财了，还拿出来炫耀。

可张老师却说是发稿费。我说张老师，这也太夸张了吧！发稿费还拿着那么大个的皮包。一听才得知，原来要发”我是最亮那颗星”的稿费。难怪搞那么大。

开始发稿费时，我看到有人有两千多观看，稿费六百多。我当时震惊了。可看到下一个人时，我僵硬了。七百多块钱！全班异口同声地赞叹道：“哇！”张老师含着泪给了七百多块。一向抠门的张老师性情大变。到我时只有109块，张老师说给我110块。最后还加了句：“记得还我一块钱哦！”好吧，我就知道，张老师就从来没变过，还是那么吝啬。

同学们一位位拿到稿费后，我恍然大悟：原来，只要好好学习，写作，就能拿到稿费。自己挣的钱当然觉得有成就感。张老师给我们发稿费也不是闹着玩的。

我下定决心，一要写好作文。第一名，明年将属于我！

中秋的夜晚，我们全家一起在阳台上赏月。 夜幕降临，一轮金月徐徐升起。它大如金盘，黄得好看。在那月光皎洁的夜色中，我仿佛看见了一条月亮河盘在饭桌上，把饭桌映得白白的。那天，那月，那月亮河，那饭桌，都不知不觉地合为一体。

发呆了好久，再抬头看看月亮——她就像一位母亲，慈祥、和蔼的母亲。月色迷人，月儿也像一位婷婷玉立的少女，羞答答地散发出淡淡的香味儿。月亮又似变色龙，转眼间，它的颜色就由淡、金黄变成了淡白。月亮河也由淡黄转为淡白，美不胜收。猛然间，我想起了嫦娥奔月的故事。嫦娥那时候是做了怎样艰难的抉择呵!现在，她和她的小玉兔一定很孤独。我恨不得让自己长出一对儿翅膀，飞往那冷清的月宫，给她们作伴。

星星少得出奇。它们像万花筒，在月亮周围，忽而聚拢，忽而散开，在深夜中跳着舞。月，不见了，只剩下星星在一闪一闪地发光。不一会儿，月亮又从云层中现身了——这回，她的颜色又逐渐变成银白，接着，月亮河也是这样。月亮再次在两颗星星的护送下进入了云层，突然，我发现月亮河竟是那么透明，那么薄弱，好像马上就会消失似的!我不由得一下子紧张起来。等了一会儿，月亮河没有破碎，我那悬着的心才稳定下来。

夜深了，该睡觉了。 月儿高挂在夜空，月亮河仍在流淌。

多么美好的中秋月夜……