English Writing

Task C-3

Teaching contents 1. description 2. dialogue 3. introduction to this week’s assign

ment

Description

Description is painting a picture in words of a person, place, object, or scene.

It is generally developed through sensory details, or the impressions of one’s senses – sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

Sight

The pale yellow of the light in the room calmed the squirming( 蠕动的） participants.Her fat thigh squeezed through the narrow crack in the door.The majestic mountain view inspired the dragging hikers.

Sound

Tinkling bells alerted the assassins to danger.Murcio cooled in the symphony’s whispering melody.Roaring through the streets, 007 escaped.

Taste

They swallowed the bitter defeat and went home.He planted a sweet kiss on her salty, sweaty forehead.Palin read the letter that tasted to him like a bowl of sweet berries.

Smell

“Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” sniffed Hamlet.After being away, the spicy scent of Mom’s perfume enveloped him.

Touch

He ran his hands through the cat’s silky mane.A velvety( 柔软的） silence rolled in as Georgina slept on the fluffy pillow.A harsh thunder shook the desperate survivors to the core.

Now… Find one example for each sense in th

e excerpt of Amy Tan’s “ The Joy Luck Club”.

A tip on style

One way to enliven your prose is to avoid the use of the verb : am, are, is, was, were, etc. Very often you can trace a dull passage to the overuse of that pesky verb.

Look at these two examples:

(1) with the verb to be dotted here and there:

When she finally emerged from the house, Mary was stunned. The sun was blinding, but the weather was cold. All around her were frozen trees that had broken off at their waists. Everything was both beautiful and awful.

(2) Eliminating the verb to be forces you to think about your method of expression, often yielding a more poetic and precise passage:

Mary emerged from the house, stunned by a blinding sun. The trees, broken off at their waists, lay over the yard, each naked branch encased in a sleeve of ice. The day felt both beautiful and awful.

Exercise 1. The Summer Palace is one of the biggest and

oldest parks in China. It is the most beautiful park in Beijing as well. In the park, there are many famous architectures which make it quite different from other parks.

Refined version: Many famous architectural features distinguis

h the Summer Palace, one of the biggest and oldest parks in China, from just any other park.

2 Self-conception is the basis of

one’s attitude towards success and failure.

Refined version: Self-conception underlies one’s

attitude towards success and failure.

3 Ecological imbalance is the biggest

threat to the survival of wild animals and plants, even human beings.

Refined version: Ecological imbalance threatens the

survival of wild animals and plants, even human beings.

4 In the front, it was the sharp

slope of a cliff.Refined version: The front cliff sloped sharply.

Grammatical strategies for a more vigorous style Where possible, choose verbs which express

strong action. As often as possible, avoid passives, and othe

r forms of the verb to be. Note that the expletive ( 语助词，如 there be

中的 there ） often weakens what you can state more forcefully.

Do not repeat unnecessarily. Compress. - Louie Crew

A Student Passage There is a beautiful park near my house. The

name of the Park is Tian-Tan Park, which was built several hundred years ago. It is the biggest park in Beijing. The Tian-Tan Park is famous not only for its beauty but its quietness as well.

R: Near my house stands Tian-Tan, the biggest park in Beijing, built several hundred years ago and famous now for not only its beauty but also its quietness. (Compressed by 38.63%)

What is a Strong Verb? 1) Strong verbs show instead of tell Example: The tiger ate the antelope. The tiger devoured the antelope. Example: The Buffalo injured the hunt

er. The Buffalo gored （用角顶伤） the h

unter.

What is a Strong Verb? 2) Single verbs show better than verb/adv

erb combinations. Example: He uses time wisely when writin

g essays. He maximizes time when writing essays. Example: The lion ferociously ate the gaze

lle. The lion gobbled the gazelle .

Dialogue Dialogue reveals character and the relat

ionship between characters. No two people speak alike and you should try to give your characters a verbal as well as a physical distinctiveness. Do they use a certain turn of phrase? A slang word? A swear word? Do they stutter or um and ah? Are they pompous or verbose?

Dialogue Dialogue is also a means of exposition

(communicating essential information to the reader about the background of the story) and is one of the basic ways of activating your text by showing not telling.

Now focus on the dialogue part in the excerpt in textbook and in “ Four Directions”.

What do the dialogues reveal about the mother and the daughter’s characters?

Class activity-find yourself through dialogue Each group use one pi

ece of paper and one pen to write a dialogue in fifteen minutes.

Possible topics: Family relationship Friendship Academic pressure A movie you’ve just s

een

Now: *What does this dialogue tell you about the characters involved?

Rules for “QUOTATION MARKS”

1. Use a capital letter with the first word of a direct quotation of a whole sentence. Do not use a capital letter with the first letter of a direct quotation that is part of the rest of a sentence.Mr. and Mrs. Allen said, “We refuse to use pesticide.” Mr. and Mrs. Allen said that they “refuse to use pesticide.”2. If the quotation is interrupted and then continues, do not capitalize the second part of the quotation.“He likes to talk,” she said, “especially when he thinks he’s being funny.”3. Commas and periods always go to the left of the quotation marks.I commented, “I don’t think that book is appropriate.”

Rules for “QUOTATION MARKS” 4. Question marks, exclamation mark

s, and dashes go inside the quotatioin marks when they are part of the quotation, and outside when they are not.Where’s your copy of “The Raven”?“How cold is it outside?” my mother asked.

Rules for “QUOTATION MARKS” 5. Put quotes around titles of short stories,

poems, songs, articles, chapters.I love the poem “Annabel Lee,” the story “White knight at the Battlefeld,” the song “Yellow Submarine,” the article “Your Own Lunch,” and the chapter “Peace Be With You.”6. Use single ‘quotation marks’ around a quote that is in another quote.“Juan, will you read the poem ‘Annabel Lee’ out loud to the class?” asked Mrs. Peddicord.

Dialogue tags The ‘he said, she said’. These should

be kept to a minimum as otherwise it reads like verbal ping pong. You can also remind readers of who is saying what by interspersing it with action relating to the speaking character. For example: “‘… you’ll be the first to know.’ Carol softened her words with a smile.’ ”

众词表达“说” Admit Acknowledge Add Argue Boast Concede Continue Contradict

承认 承认 接着说 争辩；主张 夸口说 承认 接着说 反驳；否认

众词表达“说” Joke Maintain Pledge Refute Urge Warn supplicate

开玩笑地说 认为；主张 保证 反驳 敦促 告诫 恳求

EXERCISE : Take this imaginary scene between the judge a

nd the grandma and rewrite using the minimum of dialogue tags and superfluous adverbs:

‘I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t have time to talk,’ said judge Logan impatiently.‘But you must,’ said grandma Clarissa pleadingly. She grabbed his arm and held him as forcefully as her eighty years would allow her.‘Please unhand me!’ Demanded judge Logan.

‘Not until you hear what I have to say,’ grandma Clarissa stated steelily.

Assignment 1. write a story or part of a story with lots

of dialogue. 2. present your story next week in the for

m of role play. 3. each group member should contribute

and the mark will be given to the whole group.

4.The class should be given at least four copies of your script when you perform or showing your script on screen.

Now once again let’s focus on the dialogue part in the excerpt in textbook and in “ Four Directions”.but this time let’s see the dialogues alive:

How much difference is there between the dialogue in the original text and the dialogue on screen?