[其他] 见证学习的过程，说说我们进行的教材学习片段（GLENCOE COURSE 1）

Ester: 你太厉害了，你会玩棒球？谢谢！

He particularly liked to recall an occasion upon which he was asked to come on in relief of a pitcher who’d left men on first and third with nobody out.
他乐意提及有一次他被叫替换前一个pitcher, 那个pitcher造成对方一垒三垒都有人而没有一个人出局（是很糟糕的场面，如果三垒进入本垒对方就得分了）。

Players in the Negro leagues crowded into broken-down cars and bumped over rutted roads to makeshift ball fields with lights so bad that every pitch was a potential weapon.他们挤在破的卡车里，把路压平，好做球场用，在灯光不好的时候练球，会有很多危险。

这句里的Players in the Negro leagues crowded into broken-down cars又如何说呢？

本帖最后由 Ester 于 2012-6-22 20:29 编辑

Ester “黑人联盟球队的队员们挤在一辆破车里，在布满车辙的路上一路跌跌碰碰，到一片权且可以作为棒球场的地方。那里光线如此之暗，每一枚投出去的球都是一个潜在的伤人武器。”

Players【 in the Negro leagues】 crowded【into broken-down cars】 and bumped 【over rutted roads】to makeshift ball fields 【with lights so bad that every pitch was a potential weapon.】

您把 Preposition phrases 都圈出去。蓝色部分是句子的骨架。【 in the Negro leagues】是adjective prep phrase 修饰名词 players，中间两个是 adverb prep phrases 分别修饰两个动词， 最后一个复杂的prep phrase 也是起adjective 的作用，修饰名词 ball field。这样就清楚了。{:soso_e100:}

能把句子结构分析清楚, 基本上理解就比较正确了.

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-24 11:40 编辑


我的想法就是陪着孩子一起读读，孩子有自主的阅读，也有和我一起的阅读。

关于文章，我一般就挑几句问问，有的仅仅问问单词，课文前后还有些问题（教材上有），所以，如果孩子能大致说出我问的几个句子或单词，又能比较恰当地回答教材上的问题，那基本上就等于说，孩子读懂了这篇课文，我觉得这样就可以了。

特别有意思的是，孩子的很多解释，常常给我很多的启发，孩子不像我们大人，能用中文很到位地解释，直到你完全清楚，孩子有孩子解释的角度和理解，就是上面的蓝字部分，也是我整理后写出来的，虽然同样是代表了儿子所要表达的意思，但，总归是完整了，否则大家是看不明白的。

昨天把这篇课文的后半部分看完了，有时间，我整理一下帖出来，有些地方，儿子理解得特别有意思。

谢谢楼主分享！

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-26 14:09 编辑

这篇黑人棒球运动员故事的后半部分课文，继续讲完，蓝字部分是儿子的大致理解（只求大致意思，不求精确），大家帮着看看有没有不太准确的。

Throughout the early years of these adventures, the years of Satchel’s prime, he often barnstormed against the best white ballplayers of his day. St. Louis Cardinal great Dizzy Dean once told him, “You’re a better pitcher than I ever hope to be.” Paige beat Bob Feller and struck out Babe Ruth. And when Joe DiMaggio, considered by some the most multitalented ballplayer ever, beat out an infield hit against Paige in 1936, DiMaggio turned to his teammates and said, “Now I know I can make it with the Yankees. I finally got a hit off of ol’ Satch.”

Everywhere these confrontations took place, Satchel Paige would hear the same thing: “If only you were white, you’d be a star in the big leagues.” The fault, of course, was not with Satchel. The fault and the shame were with major league baseball, which stubbornly, stupidly clung to the same prejudice that characterized many institutions in the United States besides baseball. Prejudice has not yet disappeared from the game. Black players are far less likely than their white counterparts to be hired as managers or general managers.（黑人球员比白人球员，很少能当上经理） But today’s black players can thank Robinson, Paige, and a handful of other pioneers for the opportunities they enjoy.


Though the color line prevented Satchel Paige from pitching in the company his talent and hard work should have earned for him, he was not bitter or defeated. Ignorant white fans would sometimes taunt him, but he kept their insults in perspective. （无视他们的嘲笑）“Some of them would call you names,” he said of his early years on the road, “but most of them would cheer you.” Years later he worked to shrug off the pain caused by the restaurants that would not serve him, the hotels that would not rent him a room, the fans who would roar for his bee ball but would not acknowledge him on the street the next day.（球迷为他的球技而叫好，但第二天在大街上却不认识他） “Fans all holler the same at a ball game,” he would say, as if the racists and the racist system had never touched him at all.


When he finally got the chance to become the first black pitcher in the American League at age forty-two (or forty-six, or forty-eight), he made the most of it. On that first day in Cleveland, Satchel Paige did the job he’d never doubted he could do. First he smiled for all the photographers. Then he told the butterflies in his stomach to leave off their flapping around. （他不紧张）Then he shut down the St. Louis Browns for two innings before being lifted for a pinch hitter.


And still there were doubters. “Sure,” they said to each other the next day when they read the sports section. “The old man could work two innings against the Browns. Who couldn’t?”  But Satchel Paige fooled ‘em, as he’d been fooling hitters for twenty-five years and more. He won a game in relief six days later, his first major league win. Then on August 3 he started a game against the Washington Senators before 72,000 people.


Paige went seven innings and won. In his next two starts he threw shutouts against the Chicago White Sox, and through the waning months of that summer, his only complaint was that he was “a little tired from underwork。”（他厌倦了现在的工作） The routine on the major league level must have been pretty leisurely for a fellow who’d previously pitched four or five times a week.


Satchel Paige finished the 1948 season with six wins and only one loss. He’d allowed the opposing teams an average of just over two runs a game. Paige was named Rookie of the Year, an honor he might well have achieved twenty years earlier if he’d had the chance. The sports-writers of the day agreed that without Satchel’s contribution, the Indians, who won the pennant, would have finished second at best. Many of the writers were dismayed when Satchel appeared for only two-thirds of an inning in the World Series that fall. Paige, too, was disappointed that the manager hadn’t chosen to use him more, but he was calm in the face of what others might have considered an insult. The writers told him, “You sure take things good.” Satchel smiled and said, “Ain’t no other way to take them.”


Satchel Paige outlasted the rule that said he couldn’t play in the big leagues because he was black. Then he made fools of the people who said he couldn’t get major league hitters out because he was too old. But his big league numbers over several years—twenty-eight wins and thirty-two saves—don’t begin to tell the story of Paige’s unparalleled career. Playing for teams that no longer exist in leagues that came and went with the seasons, Satchel Paige pitched in some 2,500 baseball games. Nobody has ever pitched in more. And he had such fun at it. Sometimes he’d accept offers to pitch in two cities on the same day. He’d strike out the side for three innings in one game, then fold his long legs into his car and race down the road toward the next ballpark. If the police could catch him, they would stop him for speeding. But when they recognized him, as often as not they’d escort him to the second game with sirens howling, well aware that there might be a riot in the park if Satchel Paige didn’t show up as advertised. Once he’d arrived, he’d instruct his  infielders and outfielders to sit down for an inning, then he’d strike out the side again.


For his talent, his energy, and his showmanship, Satchel Paige was the most famous of the Negro league players, but when he got some measure of recognition in the majors, he urged the writers to remember that there had been lots of other great ballplayers in those Negro league games. He named them, and he told their stories. He made their exploits alive and real for generations of fans who’d never have known.


In 1971, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, inducted Satchel Paige. The action was part of the Hall’s attempt to remedy baseball’s shame, the color line. The idea was to honor Paige and some of the other great Negro league players like Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, however late that honor might come. Satchel Paige could have rejected that gesture. He could have told the baseball establishment that what it was doing was too little, too late. But when the time came for Satchel Paige to speak to the crowd gathered in front of the Hall of Fame to celebrate his triumphs,
he told the people, “I am the proudest man on the face of the earth today.”


Satchel Paige, whose autobiography was entitled Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, died in Kansas City in 1982. He left behind a legend as large as that of anyone who ever played the game, as well as a long list of achievements celebrated in story and song —and in at least one fine poem, by Samuel Allen:


To Satch
Sometimes I feel like I will never stop
Just go on forever
Till one fi ne mornin’
I’m gonna reach up and grab me a handfulla stars
Swing out my long lean leg
And whip three hot strikes burnin’ down the heavens
And look over at God and say
How about that!

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-28 18:23 编辑

接下来的一篇介绍美国第一位总统夫人的课文，比前面那篇黑人棒球手，要简单，好理解很多了。

全文如下，大家可以先看看。

P227 Eleanor & Roosevelt by William Jay Jacobs

Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But Eleanor was much more than just a president’s wife, an echo of her husband’s career.
Sad and lonely as a child, Eleanor was called “Granny” by her mother because of her seriousness. People teased her about her looks and called her the “ugly duckling.” . . .
Yet despite all of the disappointments, the bitterness, the misery she experienced, Eleanor Roosevelt refused to give up. Instead she turned her unhappiness and pain to strength.（她把不开心的事，转化为动力) She devoted her life to helping others. Today she is remembered as one of America’s greatest women.
Almost from the day of her birth, October 11, 1884, people noticed that she was an unattractive child. As she grew older, she could not help but notice her mother’s extraordinary beauty, as well as the beauty of her aunts and cousins. Eleanor was plain looking, ordinary, even, as some called her, homely. For a time she had to wear a bulky brace on her back to straighten her crooked spine.

When Eleanor was born, her parents had wanted a boy. They were scarcely able to hide their disappointment. Later, with the arrival of two boys, Elliott and Hall, Eleanor watched her mother hold the boys on her lap and lovingly stroke their hair, while for Eleanor there seemed only coolness, distance.
Feeling unwanted, Eleanor became shy and withdrawn. She also developed many fears. She was afraid of the dark, afraid of animals, afraid of other children, afraid of being scolded, afraid of strangers, afraid that people would not like her. She was a frightened, lonely little girl.
The one joy in the early years of her life was her father, who always seemed to care for her, love her. He used to dance with her, to pick her up and throw her into the air while she laughed and laughed. He called her “little golden hair” or “darling little Nell.”
The next year, when Eleanor was eight, her mother, the beautiful Anna, died. Afterward her brother Elliott suddenly caught diphtheria and he, too, died. Eleanor and her baby brother, Hall, were taken to live with their grandmother in Manhattan.
A few months later another tragedy struck. Elliott Roosevelt, Eleanor’s father, also died. Within eighteen months Eleanor had lost her mother, a brother, and her dear father.
Few things in life came easily for Eleanor, but the first few years after her father’s death proved exceptionally hard. Grandmother Hall’s dark and gloomy townhouse had no place for children to play. The family ate meals in silence. Every morning Eleanor
and Hall were expected to take cold baths for their health. Eleanor had to work at better posture by walking with her arms behind her back, clamped over a walking stick.
Instead of making new friends, Eleanor often sat alone in her room and read. For many months after her father’s death she pretended that he was still alive. She made him the hero of stories she wrote for school. Sometimes, alone and unhappy, she just cried.
Just before Eleanor turned fifteen, Grandmother Hall decided to send her to boarding school in England. The school she chose was Allenswood, a private academy for girls located on the outskirts of London.
It was at Allenswood that Eleanor, still thinking of herself as an “ugly duckling,” first dared to believe that one day she might be able to become a swan.
以上是今天刚看完的，上面部分儿子有withdrawn 这个单词理解错误，应该是“孤僻，不爱说话”的意思，而不是“取钱”，其他没有生词，句子理解上也没有问题，下半部分明天也许能读完吧，到时候再来编辑下半部分，把解释或不懂的编辑进去，希望大家一起brainstorm.

At Allenswood she worked to toughen herself physically. Every day she did exercises in the morning and took a cold shower. Although she did not like competitive team sports, as a matter of self-discipline she tried out for field hockey. Not only did she make the team but, because she played so hard, also won the respect of her teammates.
Eleanor was growing up, and the joy of young womanhood had begun to transform her personality.
In 1902, nearly eighteen years old, she left Allenswood, not returning for her fourth year there. Grandmother Hall insisted that, instead, she must be introduced to society as a debutante—to go to dances and parties and begin to take her place in the social world with other wealthy young women.
Eleanor, as always, did as she was told. She went to all of the parties and dances. But she also began working with poor children at the Rivington Street Settlement House on New York’s Lower East Side. She taught the girls gymnastic exercises. She took children to museums and to musical performances. She tried to get the parents interested in politics in order to get better schools and cleaner, safer streets.
Meanwhile Eleanor’s life reached a turning point. She fell in love! The young man was her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Eleanor and Franklin had known each other since childhood. Shortly after her return from Allenswood, they had met by chance on a train. They talked and almost at once
realized how much they liked each other.
For a time they met secretly. Then they attended parties together. Franklin—tall, strong, handsome—saw her as a person he could trust. He knew that she would not try to dominate him.
On March 17, 1905, Eleanor and Franklin were married. In May 1906 the couple’s first child was born. During the next nine years Eleanor gave birth to five more babies, one of whom died in infancy. Still timid, shy, afraid of making mistakes, she found herself so busy that there was little time to think of her own drawbacks.
Meanwhile Franklin’s career in politics advanced rapidly. In 1910 he was elected to the New York State Senate. In 1913 President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy—a powerful position in the national government, which required the Roosevelts to move to Washington, D.C.
In 1917 the United States entered World War I as an active combatant. Like many socially prominent women, Eleanor threw herself into the war effort. Sometimes she worked fi fteen and sixteen hours a day. She made sandwiches for soldiers passing
through the nation’s capital. She knitted sweaters. She used Franklin’s infl uence to get the Red Cross to build a recreation room for soldiers who had been shell-shocked in combat. . . .
prominent (PROM uh nunt) adj. well-known
In the summer of 1921 disaster struck the Roosevelt family. While on vacation Franklin suddenly fell ill with infantile paralysis—polio—the horrible disease that each year used to kill or cripple thousands of children, and many adults as well. When Franklin became a victim of polio, nobody knew what caused the disease or how to cure it.
Franklin lived, but the lower part of his body remained paralyzed. For the rest of his life he never again had the use of his legs. He had to be lifted and carried from place to place. He had to wear heavy steel braces from his waist to the heels of his shoes.
His mother, as well as many of his advisers, urged him to give up politics, to live the life of a country gentleman on the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park, New York. This time, Eleanor, calm and strong, stood up for her ideas. She argued that he should not be treated like a sick person, tucked away in the country, inactive, just waiting for death to come.
Franklin agreed. Slowly he recovered his health. His energy returned. In 1928 he was
elected governor of New York. Then, just four years later, he was elected president of the United States. Meanwhile Eleanor had changed. To keep Franklin in the public eye while he was recovering, she had gotten involved in politics herself. It was, she thought, her “duty.” From childhood she had been taught “to do the thing that has to be done, the way it has to be done, when it has to be done.”
After becoming interested in the problems of working women, she gave time to the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). It was through the WTUL that she met a group of remarkable women—women doing exciting work that made a difference in the world. They taught Eleanor about life in the slums. They awakened her hopes that something could be done to improve the condition of the poor. She dropped out of the “fashionable” society of her wealthy friends and joined the world of reform—social change.
For hours at a time Eleanor and her reformer friends talked with Franklin. They showed him the need for new laws: laws to get children out of the factories and into schools; laws to cut down the long hours that women worked; laws to get fair wages for
all workers.
By the time that Franklin was sworn in as president, the nation was facing its deepest
depression. One out of every four Americans was out of work, out of hope. At mealtimes people stood in lines in front of soup kitchens for something to eat. Mrs.
Roosevelt herself knew of once-prosperous families who found themselves reduced
to eating stale bread from thrift shops or traveling to parts of town where they were
not known to beg for money from house to house.
Eleanor worked in the charity kitchens, ladling out soup. She visited slums. She crisscrossed the country learning about the suffering of coal miners, shipyard workers, migrant farm workers, students, housewives—Americans caught up in the paralysis of the Great Depression. Since Franklin himself remained crippled, she became his eyes and ears, informing him of what the American people were really thinking and feeling. Eleanor also was the president’s conscience, personally urging on him some of the most compassionate, forward-looking laws of his presidency.
She lectured widely, wrote a regularly syndicated3 newspaper column, “My Day,” and spoke frequently on the radio. She fought for equal pay for women in industry. Like no other First Lady up to that time, she became a link between the president and the
American public.
Above all she fought against racial and religious prejudice. When Eleanor learned that the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) would not allow the great black singer Marian Anderson to perform in their auditorium in Washington, D.C., she resigned from the organization. Then she arranged to have Miss Anderson sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Similarly, when she entered a hall where, as often happened in those days, blacks and whites were seated in separate sections, she made it a point to sit with the blacks. Her example marked an important step in making the rights of blacks a matter of national priority.
On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States entered World War II, fi ghting not only against Japan but against the brutal dictators who then controlled Germany and Italy.
Eleanor helped the Red Cross raise money. She gave blood, sold war bonds. But she also did the unexpected. In 1943, for example, she visited barracks and hospitals on islands throughout the South Pacifi c. When she visited a hospital, she stopped at every bed. To each soldier she said something special, something that a mother might say. Often, after she left, even battle-hardened men had tears in their eyes. Admiral Nimitz, who originally thought such visits would be a nuisance, became one of her strongest admirers. Nobody else, he said, had done so much to help raise the spirits of
the men.
By spring 1945 the end of the war in Europe seemed near. Then, on April 12, a phone call brought Eleanor the news that Franklin Roosevelt, who had gone to Warm Springs, Georgia, for a rest, was dead.
With Franklin dead, Eleanor Roosevelt might have dropped out of the public eye, might have been remembered in the history books only as a footnote to the president’s program of social reforms.也许她能被大家记得的是，在历史书本上能看到她作为总统的夫人，出现在历史舞台上。 Instead she found new strengths within herself, new ways to live a useful, interesting life—and to help others. Now, moreover, her successes were her own, not the result of being the president’s wife.
In December 1945 President Harry S. Truman invited her to be one of the American delegates going to London to begin the work of the United Nations. Eleanor hesitated, but the president insisted. He said that the nation needed her; it was her duty. After that Eleanor agreed.
In the beginning some of her fellow delegates from the United States considered her unqualifi ed for the position, but after seeing her in action, they changed their minds.
Mrs. Roosevelt helped draft the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The Soviets wanted the declaration to list the duties people owed to their countries. Eleanor insisted that the United Nations should stand for individual freedom—the rights of people to free speech, freedom of religion, and such human needs as health care and education. In December 1948, with the Soviet Union and its allies refusing to vote, the Declaration of Human Rights won approval of the UN General Assembly by a vote of forty-eight to zero.
Even after retiring from her post at the UN, Mrs. Roosevelt continued to travel. In places around the world she dined with presidents and kings. But she also visited tenement slums in Bombay, India; factories in Yugoslavia; farms in Lebanon and Israel.
Everywhere she met people who were eager to greet her. Although as a child she had been brought up to be formal and distant, she had grown to feel at ease with people. They wanted to touch her, to hug her, to kiss her.
Eleanor’s doctor had been telling her to slow down, but that was hard for her. She continued to write her newspaper column, “My Day,” and to appear on television.
She still began working at seven-thirty in the morning and often continued until well past midnight. Not only did she write and speak, she taught special needs children
and raised money for health care of the poor.
As author Clare Boothe Luce put it, “Mrs. Roosevelt has done more good deeds on a bigger scale for a longer time than any woman who ever appeared on our public scene. No woman has ever so comforted the distressed or so distressed the comfortable.”
Gradually, however, she was forced to withdraw from some of her activities, to spend more time at home.
On November 7, 1962, at the age of seventy-eight, Eleanor died in her sleep. She was buried in the rose garden at Hyde Park, alongside her husband. Adlai Stevenson, the American ambassador to the United Nations, remembered her as “the First Lady of
the World,” as the person—male or female—most effective in working for the cause of human rights. As Stevenson declared, “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” 她愿意点然蜡烛来驱赶黑暗。
And perhaps, in sum, that is what the struggle for human rights is all about.

弱弱地问下：GLENCOE  COURSE 这个是什么教材？{:soso_e106:}

像69楼的课文，我们一般化3天时间，因为有BEFORE READING AND AFTER READING

那里会有一些语法、理解、背景知识等方面的引导和问题，所以这样的文章需要化3天时间。

69楼的文章，比前一篇黑人棒球的要简单多了，黑人棒球的课文，主要是我化的时间比较多，看了几遍。

Ester: 麻烦你看看68楼里蓝字部分，我儿子的理解，有没有太离谱的。

真的很感谢你，老是麻烦你，呵！

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-27 23:58 编辑

这是这篇“美国第一夫人”的课文，AFTER READING 后的几个问题，还有BEFORE READING 也有不少问题呢，这里就不转了：

1. Do you think that Eleanor Roosevelt’s experience at boarding school brought out the best in her? Why or why not?
2. Summary In your Learner’s Notebook, write a paragraph about Eleanor’s unhappy childhood. Explain at least three reasons why her childhood was unhappy.
3. Recall What caused Franklin Roosevelt to become paralyzed?

Critical Thinking
4. Infer How do you think the author feels about Eleanor Roosevelt? How can you tell?
5. Evaluate Was Eleanor Roosevelt a good role model for future First Ladies? Why or why not?
6. Analyze Eleanor Roosevelt went through many hard times. What did you notice about how she faced the challenges in her life?

Talk About Your Reading
In a group, talk about whether it was harder for Eleanor Roosevelt to overcome her lack of confidence in order to speak in public and help her husband or for Franklin Roosevelt to get elected president in spite of his physical disability. Use information from the story and your own life experience to think of the challenges each of them faced.

Key Literary Element: Chronological Order
8. Did Eleanor go to boarding school before or after her father died?
9. Put the following events in chronological order:
• The United States entered World War II.
• The Japanese forces launched a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
• Eleanor Roosevelt visited hospitals in the South Pacific.

10. Did Eleanor become the American delegate to the United Nations before or after Franklin D. Roosevelt died?

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-28 00:06 编辑

Vocabulary Check

self-discipline        prominent           migrant          slum

Answer true or false to each statement.
11. Eleanor Roosevelt continued to be a prominent woman even after the president died.
12. A rich person would probably have lived in a slum during Roosevelt’s time.
13. Eleanor Roosevelt loved field hockey so much that it did not require any self-discipline for her to practice hard.
14. Migrant workers had a difficult time during thedepression.

我就喜欢这样的客观题，可惜在GLENCOE里比例很少，主要以理解单词为主，对课文理解含盖的客观题，几乎没有。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-7-6 00:26 编辑

P257 Primary Lessons by Judith Ortiz Cofer

My mother walked me to my first day at school at La Escuela Segundo Ruiz Belvis, named after the Puerto Rican patriot born in our town. I remember yellow cement with green trim. All the classrooms had been painted these colors to identify them as government property. This was true all over the Island.
Everything was color-coded, including the children, who wore uniforms from first through twelfth grade. We were a midget army in white and brown, led by the hand to our battleground. From practically every house in our barrio emerged a crisply ironed uniform inhabited by the wild creatures we had become over a summer of running wild in the sun. 在我们这里，这时每家每户都有一个告别了暑假疯玩的孩子，在穿上学制服的孩子。

At my grandmother’s house where we were staying until my father returned to Brooklyn Yard in New York and sent for us, it had been complete chaos, with several children to get ready for school. My mother had pulled my hair harder than usual while braiding it, and I had dissolved into a pool of total self-pity. I wanted to stay home with her and Mamà, to continue listening to stories in the late afternoon, to drink café con leche with them, and to play rough games with my many cousins. I wanted to continue living the dream of summer afternoons in Puerto Rico, and if I could not have that, then I wanted to go back to Paterson, New Jersey, back to where I imagined our apartment waited, peaceful and cool for the three of us to return to our former lives. Our gypsy lifestyle had convinced me, at age six, that one part of life stops and waits for you while you live another for a while 我们gypsy 的风格就是这样，在6岁时，当你生活在一个地方时，会有另一个地方在等着你。—and if you don’t like the present, you can always return to the past. Buttoning me into my stiff blouse while I tried to squirm away from her, my mother tried to explain to me that I was a big girl now and should try to understand that, like all the other children my age, I had to go to school.

“What about him?” I yelled pointing at my brother who was lounging on the tile floor of our bedroom in his pajamas, playing quietly with a toy car.
“He’s too young to go to school, you know that. Now stay still.” My mother pinned me between her thighs to button my skirt, as she had learned to do from Mamà, from whose grip it was impossible to escape.
“It’s not fair, it’s not fair. I can’t go to school here. I don’t speak Spanish.” It was my final argument, and it failed miserably because I was shouting my defiance in the language I claimed not to speak. 我对抗妈妈，不愿意说西班牙语的抗议失败了。Only I knew what I meant by saying in Spanish that I did not speak Spanish. I had spent my early childhood in the U.S. where I lived in a bubble created by my Puerto Rican parents in a home where two cultures and languages became one. I learned to listen to the English from the television with one ear while I heard my mother and father speaking in Spanish with the other. I thought I was an ordinary American kid —like the children on the shows I watched—and that everyone’s parents spoke a secret second language at home. When we came to Puerto Rico right before I started first grade, I switched easily to Spanish. It was the language of fun, of summertime games. But school—that was a different matter.

I made one last desperate attempt to make my mother see reason: “Father will be very angry. You know that he wants us to speak good English.” My mother, of course, ignored me as she dressed my little brother in his playclothes. I could not believe her indifference to my father’s wishes. She was usually so careful about our safety and the many other areas that he was forever reminding her about in his letters. But I was right, and she knew it.
Our father spoke to us in English as much as possible, and he corrected my pronunciation constantly “not “jes” but “y-es..”Y-es, sir. How could she send me to school to learn Spanish when we would be returning to Paterson in just a few months? 所以，她怎么会把我们送去学西班牙语，而我们几个月后就要返回美国？

But, of course, what I feared was not language, but loss of freedom. At school there would be no playing, no stories, only lessons. It would not matter if I did not understand a word, and I would not be allowed to make up my own definitions. I would have to learn silence. I would have to keep my wild imagination in check. Feeling locked into my stiffly starched uniform, I only sensed all this. I guess most children can intuit3 their loss of childhood’s freedom on that first day of school. It is separation anxiety too, but mother is just the guardian of the “playground” of our early childhood.
The sight of my cousins in similar straits comforted me. We were marched down the hill of our barrio where Mamà’s robin-egg-blue house stood at the top. I must have glanced back at it with yearning. Mamà’s house —a place built for children —where anything that could be broken had already been broken by my grandmother’s early batch of offspring 那个地方的所有一切已经被祖母的子孙们破坏了。(they ranged in age from my mother’s oldest sisters to my uncle who was six months older than me). Her house had long since been made child-proof. 她的房子很久没有孩子了。It had been a perfect summer place. And now it was September—the cruelest month for a child.

La Mrs., as all the teachers were called, waited for her class of first-graders at the door of the yellow and green classroom. She too wore a uniform: it was a blue skirt and a white blouse. This teacher wore black high heels with her “standard issue.” I remember this detail because when we were all seated in rows she called on one little girl and pointed to the back of the room where there were shelves. She told the girl to bring her a shoebox from the bottom shelf. Then, when the box had been placed in her hands, she did something unusual. She had the little girl kneel at her feet and take the pointy high heels off her feet and replace them with a pair of satin slippers from the shoebox. She told the group that every one of us would have a chance to do this if we behaved in her class. Though confused about the prize, I soon felt caught up in the competition to bring La Mrs. her slippers in the morning. Children fought over the privilege. 我觉得很快每天早上孩子们会为争夺这个抢老师鞋子盒而竞争。

Our first lesson was English. In Puerto Rico, every child has to take twelve years of English to graduate from school. It is the law. In my parents’ schooldays, all subjects were taught in English. The U.S. Department of Education had specified that as U.S. territory, the Island had to be “Americanized,” and to accomplish this task, it was necessary for the Spanish language to be replaced in one generation through the teaching of English in all schools. 要让一代人把西班牙语换成英语，就需要进学校学习英语。My father began his school day by saluting the flag of the United States and singing “America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” by rote, without understanding a word of what he was saying. The logic behind this system was that, though the children did not understand the English words, they would remember the rhythms. Even the games the teacher’s manuals required them to play became absurd adaptations. “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” became “Here We Go Round the Mango Tree.” I have heard about the confusion caused by the use of a primer in which the sounds of animals were featured. The children were forced to accept that a rooster says cockadoodledoo, when they knew perfectly well from hearing their own roosters each morning that in Puerto Rico a rooster says cocorocó. Even the vocabulary of their pets was changed; there are still family stories circulating about the bewilderment of a first-grader coming home to try to teach his dog to speak in English. 一年级的孩子放学回家教狗说英语，这样一件奇怪的事情，在家族中流传着。The policy of assimilation by immersion failed on the Island. 岛上的同化计划彻底失败。（The policy of assimilation is the method of teaching English by havingall school work done in English in the hope that students will start usingEnglish as their first language.） Teachers adhered to it on paper, substituting their own materials for the texts, and no one took their English home. In due time, the program was minimized to the one class in English per day that I encountered when I took my seat in La Mrs's first-grade class.

Catching us all by surprise, she stood very straight and tall in front of us and began to sing in English: “Pollito—Chicken, Gallina—Hen, Làpiz —Pencil, Y Pluma—Pen.”
“Repeat after me, children: Pollito—Chicken,” she commanded in her heavily accented English that only I understood, being the only child in the room who had ever been exposed to the language. But I too remained silent. No use making waves, or showing off. Patiently La Mrs. sang her song and gestured for us to join in. At some point it must have dawned on the class that this silly routine was likely to go on all day if we did not “repeat after her.” 很显然，如果我们不跟着她重复读的话，这样愚蠢的事情可能会持续一整天。It was not her fault that she had to follow the rule in her teacher’s manual stating that she must teach English in English, and that she must not translate, but must repeat her lesson in English until the children “begin to respond” more or less “unconsciously.” This was one of the vestiges of the regimen followed by her predecessors in the last generation. To this day I can recite “Pollito —Chicken” mindlessly, never once pausing to visualize chicks, hens, pencils, or pens.

I soon found myself crowned “teacher’s pet” without much effort on my part. I was a privileged child in her eyes simply because I lived in “Nueva York,” and because my father was in the Navy. His name was an old one in our pueblo, associated with once-upon-a-time landed people and long-gone money. Status is judged by unique standards in a culture where, by definition, everyone is a second-class citizen. Remembrance of past glory is as good as titles and money. Old families living in decrepit old houses rank over factory workers living in modern comfort in cement boxes—all the same. The professions raise a person out of the dreaded “sameness” into a niche of status, 好的职业能使人区别于普通人而出色。so that teachers, nurses, and everyone who went to school for a job were given the honorifics of El Míster or La Mrs. by the common folks, people who were likely to be making more money in American factories than the poorly paid educators and government workers.


My first impression of the hierarchy began with my teacher’s shoe-changing ceremony and the exaggerated respect she received from our parents. La Mrs. was always right, and adults scrambled to meet her requirements. She wanted all our schoolbooks covered in the brown paper now used for paperbags (used at that time by the grocer to wrap meats and other foods). That first week of school the grocer was swamped with requests for paper which he gave away to the women. That week and the next, he wrapped produce in newspapers. All school projects became family projects. It was considered disrespectful at Mamà’s house to do homework in privacy. Between the hours when we came home from school and dinner time, the table was shared by all of us working together with the women hovering in the background. The teachers communicated directly with the mothers, and it was a matriarchy of far-reaching power and influence.

There was a black boy in my first-grade classroom who was also the teacher’s pet but for a different reason than I: I did not have to do anything to win her favor; he would do anything to win a smile. He was as black as the cauldron that Mamà used for cooking stew and his hair was curled into tight little balls on his head—pasitas, like little raisins glued to his skull, my mother had said. There had been some talk at Mamà’s house about this boy; Lorenzo was his name. I later gathered that he was the grandson of my father’s nanny. Lorenzo lived with Teresa, his grandmother, having been left in her care when his mother took off for “Los Nueva Yores” shortly after his birth. And they were poor. Everyone could see that his pants were too big for him—hand-me-downs— and his shoe soles were as thin as paper. Lorenzo seemed unmindful of the giggles he caused when he jumped up to erase the board for La Mrs. and his baggy pants rode down to his thin hips as he strained up to get every stray mark. He seemed to relish playing the little clown when she asked him to come to the front of the room and sing his phonetic version of “o-bootifool, forpashios-keeis” leading the class in our incomprehensible tribute to the American flag. He was a bright, loving child, with a talent for song and mimicry that everyone commented on. He should have been chosen to host the PTA show that year instead of me.

At recess one day, I came back to the empty classroom to get something, my cup? My nickel for a drink from the kioskman? I don’t remember. But I remember the conversation my teacher was having with another teacher. I remember because it concerned me, and because I memorized it so that I could ask my mother to explain what it meant.
“He is a funny negrito, and, like a parrot, he can repeat anything you teach him. But his mamà must not have the money to buy him a suit.”
“I kept Rafaelito’s First Communion suit; I bet Lorenzo could fit in it. It’s white with a bow-tie,” the other teacher said.
“But, Marisa,” laughed my teacher, “in that suit, Lorenzo would look like a fly drowned in a glass of milk.” Both women laughed. They had not seen me crouched at the back of the room, digging into my schoolbag. My name came up then.
“What about the Ortiz girl? They have money.”
“I’ll talk to her mother today. The superintendent, El Americano from San Juan, is coming down for the show. How about if we have her say her lines in both Spanish and English.”

The conversation ends there for me. My mother took me to Mayagüez and bought me a frilly pink dress and two crinoline petticoats to wear underneath so that I looked like a pink and white parachute with toothpick legs sticking out. I learned my lines, “Padres, maestros, Mr. Leonard, bienvenidos/Parents, teachers, Mr. Leonard, welcome . . .” My first public appearance. I took no pleasure in it. The words were formal and empty. I had simply memorized them. My dress pinched me at the neck and arms, and made me itch all over.

I had asked my mother what it meant to be a “mosca en un vaso de leche,” a fly in a glass of milk. She had laughed at the image, explaining that it meant being “different,” but it wasn’t something I needed to worry about.

你女儿多大啊？能添加在你头像的下方吗？

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-7-9 23:07 编辑

In a moment, twenty-odd years later than it should have happened, 这一刻，20多年后才发生。
这句话你理解有偏差哦。IN AMOMENT不是这一刻，这个IN，和IN TWO HOURS的IN意思是一样的，所以意思是“过一会”。这句话用了虚拟语态，后半句意思是说“这一时刻迟来了20几年”

其实楼主不要太纠结于百分之百的理解率，有时候不理解很可能是对背景知识不了解，等你儿子有机会去美国看了几场球赛，自然理解这篇文章要容易得多

爸妈网里的高人真多的多了，都是非常专业的老师呀

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-7-8 10:01 编辑

我没有说要百分百理解啊，你看我找出来的句子，占课文的比例是很小很小的，我要的是大致理解的程度，而且我也不求逐字逐句对对应翻译，大概意思没错就可以了。

你别说一句就走人啊，化那么多功夫去争论，不如实实在在，看点英语，我这帖里，很多句子呢，这么多课文，你也不想看了吧，别去争了，看英文，理解理解。

“It’s not fair, it’s not fair. I can’t go to school here. I don’t speak Spanish.” It was my final argument, and it failed miserably because I was shouting my defiance in the language I claimed not to speak. 我对抗妈妈，不愿意说西班牙语的抗议失败了。

这段话理解得不完整，意思应该是我的抗议很不幸被驳回了，因为我抗议说我不会说西语不能去那边上学，可我刚才的抗议确是用我声称不会的西语说的。

the language I claimed not to speak里包含一个是定语从句，法语里也叫形容词从句。

建议楼主还是找一本语法书学习一下，类似的理解错误太多了，我就不一一找了。

唉，啥时候我能看这样的长篇英文不头疼呢？555555555555

这本教材里的英文真好，问一下哪买的，过个五六年我打算也让我娃学这个，现在当务之急是把英语培养成他的母语，跟骏爸学习

http://www.ebama.net/thread-46914-1-1.html

如果要这样严格意义上的语法，对我儿子来说，绝对是要让人吐血的，他的理解，完全不按语法章法，有时候一大句，被他理解就是几个字的意思，但又是很地道的，所以，我现在，对于这样的教材阅读，只能泛泛。

我不是让你泛读的时候拘泥语法，泛读的时候看的速度越快越好，但是光泛读是不够的，也要精读。当有了一定语感之后再学点语法就如虎添翼了。

这帖子已经这么长了，真不错。楼主坚持记下去，不要半途而废喔。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-7-10 15:42 编辑

P280 The Goodness of Matt Kaizer by Avi 红字部分，是我儿子的理解。

People are always saying, “Nothing’s worse than when a kid goes bad.” Well, let me tell you, going good isn’t all that great either. 那些对我们来说是好玩的事情（比如说一些恶作剧），其实并不是好事。Tell you what I mean.
Back in sixth grade there was a bunch of us who liked nothing better than doing bad stuff. I don’t know why. We just liked doing it. And the baddest of the bad was Matt Kaizer. 1
1. Character Create a Character Chart for Matt like the one you made for Paul. As you read, fill in clues to Matt’s character. Then write a note for each clue that explains what you learned about Matt from that clue.

Matt was a tall, thin kid with long, light blond hair that reached his shoulders. He was twelve years old—like I was. His eyes were pale blue and his skin was a vanilla cream that never—no matter the season—seemed to darken, except with dirt. What with the way he looked—so pale and all—plus the fact that he was into wearing extra large blank white T-shirts that reached his knees, we called him “Spirit.”
Now, there are two important things you need to know about Matt Kaizer. The first was that as far as he was concerned there was nothing good about him at all. 第一件事就是他从来不做好事。Nothing.
The second thing was that his father was a minister.
Our gang—I’m Marley, and then there was Chuck, Todd, and Nick—loved the fact that Matt was so bad and his father a minister. You know, we were always daring him to do bad things. “Hey, minister’s kid!” we’d taunt. “Dare you to . . .” and we’d challenge him to do something, you know, really gross 很恶心. Thing is, we could always count on Matt—who wanted to show he wasn’t good—to take a dare.
taunt (tawnt) v. to try to anger someone by teasing him or her

For instance: Say there was some dead animal out on the road. We’d all run to Matt and say, “Dare you to pick it up.”
Matt would look at it—up close and personal—or more than likely poke it with a stick, then pick it up and fling it at one of us.
Disgusting stories? Someone would tell one and then say, “Dare you to tell it to Mary Beth Bataky”—the class slug—and Matt would tell it to her—better than anyone else, too. 你敢把这恶心的事告诉班里最胆小的Mary Beth Bataky么？
TV and movies? The more blood and gore there was, the more Matt ate it up 越是血腥，他越是爱看—if you know what I mean. MTV, cop shows, all that bad stuff, nothing was too gross for him.
And it didn’t take just dares to get Matt going. No, Matt would do stuff on his own. If anyone blew a toot 放屁—even in class—he would bellow, “Who cut the cheese?” 屁的味道跟cheese很像，放屁就跟切cheese，切下去时，味道（也就是屁的味道）就出来了。He could belch whenever he wanted to, and did, a lot. Spitballs, booger flicking, wedgie yanking, 他可以随意在班里打嗝，他还可以在班里用吸管吹球、弹鼻屎、或者把别人的短裤突然拉起来（拉到头上）。。。都是恶作剧的事情。it was all wicked fun for Matt. No way was he going to be good! Not in front of us. 2
2. Character These paragraphs give you several clues about Matt’s character. For example, they tell you how Matt acted around other people, and how Matt wanted to act. In your Character Chart, write at least two clues you found to Matt’s character in these paragraphs. Then write notes about what you learned from these clues.
Analyzing the Photo In what ways does the boy in this photo fi t the description of Matt Kaizer?
7月10日看到以上部分。

Now, his father, the minister, “Rev. Kaizer” we called him, wasn’t bad. In fact just the opposite. The guy was easygoing, always dressed decently, and as far as I knew, never raised his voice or acted any way than what he was, a nice man, a good man.
Sure, he talked a little funny, like he was reading from a book, but that was all.
Did Matt and his father get along? In a way. For example, once I was with Matt after he did something bad—I think he blew his nose on someone’s lunch. Rev. Kaizer had
learned about it. Instead of getting mad he just gazed at Matt, shook his head, and said, “Matt, I do believe there’s goodness in everyone. That goes for you too. Someday you’ll find your own goodness. And when you do you’ll be free.”
“I’m not good,” Matt insisted.
“Well, I think you are,” his father said, patiently.
Matt grinned. “Long as my friends dare me to do bad things, I’ll do ’em.”
“Never refuse a dare?” his father asked, sadly.
“Never,” Matt said with pride.
Rev. Kaizer sighed, pressed his hands together, and looked toward heaven.
So there we were, a bunch of us who knew we were bad and that it was doing bad things that held us together. And the baddest of the bad, like I said, was Matt—the Spirit—Kaizer. But then . . . oh, man, I’ll tell you what happened.
One day after school we were hanging out in the playground. The five of us were just sitting around telling disgusting stories, when suddenly Chuck said, “Hey, hear about Mary Beth Bataky?”
“What about her?” Matt asked.
“Her old man’s dying.”
Right away Matt was interested. “Really?”
“It’s true, man,” Chuck insisted. “He’s just about had it.”
“How come?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” said Chuck. “He’s sick. So sick they sent him home from the hospital. That’s why Mary Beth is out. She’s waiting for him to die.”
“Cool,” said Matt. 3
3. Character Think about how Matt reacts when he learns that the father of one of the kids in his class is dying. Write down how he reacts in the clues column of your Character Chart. Is Matt just being cool? Or is he being cruel? Write down what this clue tells you in your chart.

Now, Mary Beth was one small straw of a sad slug. She had this bitsy face with pale eyes and two gray lines for lips all framed in a pair of frizzy braids. Her arms were thin and always crossed over her chest, which was usually bundled in a brown sweater. The only bits of color on her were her fingernails, which, though chewed, were spotted with bright red nail polish—chipped.
So when we heard what was going on with Mary Beth and her father, we guys eyed one another, almost knowing what was going to happen next. But, I admit, it was me who said, “Hey, Spirit, I dare you to go and see him.”
Matt pushed the blond hair out of his face and looked at us with those pale blue, cool-as-ice eyes of his.
“Or maybe,” Todd said, “you’re too chicken, being as you’re a minister’s kid and all.”
That did it. Course it did. No way Matt could resist a dare. He got up, casual like. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Who’s coming with me?” 4
4．Character Think about why people take dares. Is it for the adventure? Are they proving something to themselves or to others? In your chart, write that Matt took the dare to see Mary Beth’s father. Then write down what this tells you about Matt.

To my disgust the other guys backed off. But I accepted. Well, actually, I really didn’t think he’d do it.
But then, soon as we started off, I began to feel a little nervous. “Matt,” I warned. “I think Mary Beth is very religious.”
“Don’t worry. I know about all that stuff.”
“Yeah, but what would your father say?”
“I don’t care,” he bragged. “Anyway, I’m not going to do anything except look. It’ll be neat. Like a horror movie. Maybe I can even touch the guy. A dying body is supposed to be colder than ice.”
That was Matt. Always taking up the dare and going you one worse.
The more he talked the sorrier I was we had dared him to go. Made me really uncomfortable. Which I think he noticed, because he said, “What’s the matter, Marley? You scared or something?” 5
5. Character How does the narrator, Marley, feel now that he has to go with Matt to see Mary Beth’s father? Does this tell you anything about the character of the narrator? Why do you think he agrees to go?

“Just seems . . .”
“I know,” he taunted, “you’re too good!” He belched loudly to make his point that he wasn’t. “See you later, dude.” He started off.
I ran after him. “Do you know where she lives?”
“Follow me.”
“They might not let you see him,” I warned.
He pulled out some coins. “I’m going to buy some fl owers and bring them to him. That’s what my mother did when my aunt was sick.” He stuffed his mouth full of bubble gum and began blowing and popping.
Mary Beth’s house was a wooden three-decker with a front porch. Next to the front door were three bell buttons with plastic name labels. The Batakys lived on the first floor.
A three-decker house is a house with three floors, or levels.

By the time Matt and I got there he had two wilted carnations in his hand. One was dyed blue, the other green. The fl ower store guy had sold them for ten cents each.
“You know,” I said in a whisper, as we stood before the door, “her father might already be dead.”
“Cool,” Matt replied, blowing another bubble, while cleaning out an ear with a pinky and inspecting the earwax carefully before smearing it on his shirt. “Did you know your fingernails still grow when you’re dead? Same for your hair. I mean, how many really dead people can you get to see?” he said and rang the Bataky’s bell.
From far off inside there was a buzzing sound.
I was trying to get the nerve to leave when the door opened a crack. Mary Beth—pale eyes rimmed with red—peeked out. There were tears on her cheeks and her lips were crusty. Her small hands—with their spots of red fi ngernail polish—were trembling.
“Oh, hi,” she said, her voice small and tense.
I felt tight with embarrassment.
Matt spoke out loudly. “Hi, Mary Beth. We heard your old man was dying.”
“Yes, he is,” Mary Beth murmured. With one hand on the doorknob it was pretty clear she wanted to retreat as fast as possible. “He’s delirious.”
retreat (rih TREET) v. to move backward, away from a situation
A delirious person is confused, has problems speaking, and sees things that aren’t there.

“Delirious?” Matt said. “What’s that?”
“Sort of . . . crazy.”
“Oh . . . wow, sweet!” he said, giving me a nudge of appreciation. Then he held up the blue and green carnations, popped his gum, and said, “I wanted to bring him these.” 6
6. Character When Matt learns that Mary Beth’s father is delirious, he says “Oh. . . wow, sweet!” Do you feel this is the right thing to say to Mary Beth? In your Character Chart, write down what Matt says and what this tells you about him.

Mary Beth stared at the fl owers, but didn’t move to take them. All she said was, “My mother’s at St. Mary’s, praying.”
Now I really wanted to get out of there. But Matt said, “How about if I gave these to your father?” He held up the flowers again. “Personally.”
“My mother said he may die any moment,” Mary Beth informed us.
“I know,” Matt said. “So I’d really like to see him before he does.”
Mary Beth gazed at him. “He’s so sick,” she said, “he’s not up to visiting.”
“Yeah,” Matt pressed, “but, you see, the whole class elected me to come and bring these flowers.”
His lie worked. ¡°Oh,¡± Mary Beth murmured, and she pulled the door open. “Well, I suppose . . .”7
7. Character Matt makes up a lie about why he came to see Mary Beth’s father. Why doesn’t he just tell her the truth? In your chart, write down this clue. Then write down what this tells you about Matt.

We stepped into a small entrance way. A low-watt bulb dangled over our heads from a wire. Shoes, boots, and broken umbrellas lay in a plastic milk crate.
Mary Beth shut the outside door then pushed open an inner one that led to her apartment. It was gloomy and stank of medicine.
gloomy (GLOO mee) adj. dull, dark, and depressing

Matt bopped me on the arm. ¡°Who cut the cheese!¡± he said with a grin. I looked around at him. He popped another bubble.
“Down this way,” Mary Beth whispered.
We walked down a long hallway. Two pictures were on the walls. They were painted on black velvet. One was a scene of a mountain with snow on it and the sun shining on a stag with antlers. The second picture was of a little girl praying by her bed. Fuzzy gold light streamed in on her from a window.
At the end of the hall was a closed door. Mary Beth halted. “He’s in here,” she whispered. “He’s really sick,” she warned again. “And he doesn’t notice anyone. You really sure you want to see him?”
“You bet,” Matt said with enthusiasm. 8
8. Synonyms and Antonyms What does the word enthusiasm mean in this sentence? Name a word that means about the same as enthusiasm. How would the tone of Matt’s voice change if he said “You bet” with the opposite of enthusiasm?

“I mean, he won’t say hello or anything,” Mary Beth said in her low voice. “He just lies there with his eyes open. I don’t even know if he sees anything.”
“Does he have running sores?” Matt asked.
I almost gagged.
“Running what?” Mary Beth asked.
“You know, wounds.”
“It’s his liver,” Mary Beth explained sadly, while turning the door handle and opening the door. “The doctor said it was all his bad life and drinking.”
Dark as the hall had been, her father’s room was darker. The air was heavy and really stank. A large bed took up most of the space. On one side of the bed was a small chest of drawers. On top of the chest was a lit candle and a glass of water into which a pair of false teeth had been dropped. On the other side of the bed was a wooden chair. Another burning candle was on that.
On the bed—beneath a brown blanket—lay Mr. Bataky. He was stretched out on his back perfectly straight, like a log. His head and narrow chest were propped up on a pile of four pillows with pictures of fl owers on them. At the base of the bed his toes poked up from under the blanket. He was clothed in pajamas dotted with different colored hearts. His hands—looking like a bunch of knuckles—were linked over his chest. His poorly shaven face—yellow in color—was thin. With his cheeks sunken, his nose seemed enormous. His thin hair was uncombed. His breathing was drawn out, almost whistling, and collapsed into throat gargles—as if he were choking.
Worst of all, his eyes were open but he was just staring up, like he was waiting for something to happen in heaven.
Mary Beth stepped to one side of the bed. Matt stood at the foot, with me peering over his shoulder. We stared at the dying man. He really looked bad. Awful.
“I don’t think he’ll live long,” Mary Beth murmured, her sad voice breaking, her tears dripping.
Matt lifted the blue and green carnations. “Mr. Bataky,” he shouted, “I brought you some fl owers to cheer you up.” 9
9. Character Why does Matt speak to Mr. Bataky? Is it just to keep up the lie that he told to Mary Beth? Does Matt’s comment tell you anything about how he feels at this point? If so, write down this clue and what it means in your Character Chart.

“His hearing isn’t good,” Mary Beth said apologetically.
Matt looked about for a place to put the fl owers, saw the glass with the teeth near Mr. Bataky’s head, and moved to put them into the water. In the flickering candlelight, Matt’s pale skin, his long blond hair, seemed to glow.
Now, just as Matt came up to the head of the bed, Mr. Bataky’s eyes shifted. They seemed to fasten on Matt. The old man gave a start, made a convulsive twitch as his eyes positively bulged. Matt, caught in the look, froze.
“It’s . . . it’s . . . an angel . . .” Mr. Bataky said in a low, rasping  voice. “An angel . . . from heaven has come to save me.”
When someone is convulsive, the person cannot control his or her muscle movements.
A rasping voice sounds like someone has almost lost his or her voice.
Matt lifted his hand—the one that held the carnations—and tried to place them in the glass of water. Before he could, Mr. Bataky made an unexpected jerk with one of his knobby hands and took hold of Matt’s arm. Matt was so surprised he dropped the flowers.
“Father!” Mary Beth cried.
“Thank . . . you . . . for coming, Angel,” Mr. Bataky rasped.
“No . . . really,” Matt stammered, “I’m not—”
“Yes, you’re an angel,” Mr. Bataky whispered. His eyes—full of tears—were hot with joy.
Matt turned red. “No, I’m not . . .”
“Please,” Mr. Bataky cried out with amazing energy. “I don’t want to die bad.” Tears gushed down his hollow cheeks. “You got to help me. Talk to me. Bless me.”
Matt, speechless for once, gawked at the man.
With considerable effort he managed to pry Mr. Bataky’s fingers from his arm. Soon as he did he bolted from the room.
“Don’t abandon me!” Mr. Bataky begged, somehow managing to lift himself up and extend his arms toward the doorway. “Don’t!”
Frightened, I hurried out after Matt.
My buddy was waiting outside, breathing hard. His normally pale face was paler than ever. As we walked away he didn’t say anything.
10. Character Why is Matt quiet as he walks away from the Batakys’ house? Write this clue in your character chart, then try to figure out what it tells you about Matt.

Now, according to Matt—he told us all this later—what happened was that night Rev. Kaizer called him into his study.
“Matt, please sit down.”
Matt, thinking he was going to get a lecture about visiting Mary Beth’s house, sat.
His father said, “Matt, I think it’s quite wonderful what you’ve done, going to the home of your classmate’s dying father to comfort him.”
“What do you mean?” Matt asked.
Rev. Kaizer smiled sweetly. “A woman by the name of Mrs. Bataky called me. She said her husband was very ill. Dying. She said you—I gather you go to school with her daughter—came to visit him today. Apparently her husband thought you were an . . . angel. It’s the fi rst real sign of life her poor husband has shown in three days. And now, Matt, he’s quite desperate to see the angel—you—again.”
“It’s not true,” Matt rapped out.
“Now, Matt,” his father said, “I found the woman’s story diffi cult to believe, too.
‘Madam,’ I said to her, ‘are you quite certain you’re talking about my son? And are you truly saying your husband really thought he was . . . an angel?’
“And she said, ‘Rev. Kaizer—you being a minister I can say it—my husband led a bad, sinful life. But there’s something about your son that’s making him want to talk about it. Sort of like a confession. Know what I’m saying? I mean, it would do him a lot of good. What I’m asking is, could you get your son to come again? I’m really scared my husband will get worse if he doesn’t.’
“Matt,” said Rev. Kaizer, “I’m proud of you. I think it would be a fi ne thing if you visited him again.”
“I’m not an angel,” Matt replied in a sulky voice.
In a confession, a person tells the things he or she has done wrong and asks for forgiveness.
A sulky voice sounds moody and unhappy.
Analyzing the Art Which two characters in the story might this picture show? How do you know?
“I never said you were an angel,” his father said. “But as I’ve told you many times, there is goodness inside you as there is in everyone. And now you are in the fortunate position of being able to help this sinful man.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Son, here is a sick man who needs to unburden himself of the unhappy things he’s done. I know your reputation. Are you fearful of hearing what Mr. Bataky has to say for himself?”
reputation (rep yuh TAY shun) n. character as judged by other people
“I don’t want to.”
Rev. Kaizer sat back in his chair, folded his hands over his stomach, smiled gently, and said, “I dare you to go back and listen to Mr. Bataky. I dare you to do goodness.”
Alarmed, Matt looked up. “But . . .”
“Or are you, being a minister’s son, afraid to?”
Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to avoid his father’s steady gaze.
Rev. Kaizer offered up a faint smile. “Matt, I thought you never refused a dare.”
Matt squirmed. Then he said, “I’ll go.” 11
11. Character Matt doesn’t want to go back to see Mr. Bataky. But when his father dares him to go, he agrees to return. What does this tell you about Matt? In your Character Chart, write this clue and what it means.

Carnations and Clematis in a Crystal Vase, 1882. Edouard Manet. Oil on canvas, 56 x 35.5 cm. Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
Anyway, that’s the way Matt explained it all. And as he said to me sadly, “What choice did I have? He dared me.”
We all saw then that Matt was in a bad place.
So the next day when Matt went to visit Mr. Bataky, the bunch of us—me, Chuck, Todd, and Nick—tagged along. We all wanted to see what Matt would do. We fi gured it had to be gross.
Mary Beth opened the door. I think she was surprised to see all of us. But she looked at Matt with hope. “Thank you for coming,” she said in her tissue paper voice. “He’s waiting for you.”
Matt gave us an imploring look. There was nothing we could do. He disappeared inside. We waited outside.
Half an hour later, when he emerged, there was a ton of worry in his eyes. We waited him out, hoping he’d say something ghastly. Didn’t say a word.
If you give an imploring look, you are begging for something.
Two blocks from Mary Beth’s house I couldn’t hold back. “Okay, Matt,” I said. “What’s happening?”
Matt stopped walking. “He really thinks I’m a good angel.” 12
12. Character Matt is worried because Mr. Bataky thinks he is a “good angel.” Why do you think this worries Matt? Doesn’t it sound like a joke that Matt would usually enjoy? Write this clue and what it tells you about Matt in your Character Chart.

“How come?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know.” There was puzzlement in Matt’s voice. “He thinks I’m there to give him a second chance at living.”
“I don’t get it,” Todd said.
Matt said, “He thinks, you know, if he tells me all his bad stuff, he’ll get better.”
We walked on in silence. Then I said—easy like, “He tell you anything, you know . . . really bad?”
Matt nodded.
“Oooo, that’s so cool,” Nick crowed, fi guring Matt would—as he always did—pass it on. “Like what?”
Instead of answering, Matt remained silent. Finally, he said, “Not good.”
“Come on!” we cried. “Tell us!”
“He dared me to forgive him. To give him a second chance.”
“Forgive him for what?” I asked.
“All the stuff he’s done.”
“Like what?”
“He said he was talking to me . . . in confidence.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Angels can’t tell secrets.” 13
13. Character At the beginning of the story, Matt likes to say and do gross things. But after Mr. Bataky thinks that Matt is an angel, Matt won’t tell the boys any of the bad things Mr. Bataky has done. Why not? Write this clue and what you think it means in your Character Chart.

“You going to believe that?” Todd asked after a bit of silence.
Matt stopped walking again. “But . . . what,” he stammered. “What . . . if it’s true?”
“What if what’s true?” I asked.
“What if I’m really good inside?”
“No way,” we all assured him.
“But he thinks so,” Matt said with real trouble in his voice. “And my father is always saying that too.”
“Do you think so?” Chuck asked.
Matt got a fl ushed look in his eyes. Then he said, “If it is true, it’ll be the grossest thing ever.”
“Hey, maybe it’s just a phase,” I suggested, hopefully. “You know, something you’ll grow out of.”
Everyone goes through different phases, or stages, in life.
Matt gave a shake to his head that suggested he was really seriously confused. 14
14. Character At the beginning of the story, Matt believed he was bad. Now what does he believe? Write this clue and what it means in your Character Chart.

Anyway, every afternoon that week, Matt went to see Mr. Bataky. Each time we went with him. For support. We felt we owed him that, though really, we were hoping we’d get to hear some of the bad stuff. But I think we were getting more and more upset, too. See, Matt was changing. Each time he came out of the sick man’s room, he looked more and more haggard And silent.
A thin, tired, and worried person looks haggard.
“What did he say this time?” someone would fi nally ask.
“Really bad,” he’d say.
“Worse than before?”
“Much worse.”
We’d go on for a bit, not saying anything. Then the pleading would erupt. “Come on! Tell us! What’d he say?”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“I told you: He thinks I’m an angel,” Matt said and visibly shuddered. “Angels can’t tell secrets.”
As the week progressed, Matt began to look different from before. He wasn’t so grubby. His clothes weren’t torn. Things went so fast that by Friday morning, when he came to school, he was actually wearing a tie! Even his hair was cut short and combed. It was awful.
“What’s the matter with Matt?” we kept asking one another.
“I think he’s beginning to think he really is an angel,” was the only explanation I could give.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, when Matt came out of Mary Beth’s house, he sat on the front steps, utterly beat. By that time he was dressed all in white: white shirt, pale tie, white pants, and even white sneakers. Not one smudge on him. I’m telling you, it was eerie. Nothing missing but wings.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“The doctor told Mr. Bataky he’s better.”
“You cured him!” cried Nick. “Cool! That mean you don’t have to visit him again?”
“Right.” But Matt just sat there looking as sad as Mary Beth ever did.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I’ve been sitting and listening to that guy talk and talk about all the things he’s done. I mean, I used to think I was bad. But, you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m not bad. No way. Not compared to him. I even tried to tell him of some of the things I’ve done.”
“What did he say?”
“He laughed. Said I was only a young angel. Which was the reason I didn’t have wings.”
Matt stared down at the ground
for a long time. We waited patiently. Finally he looked up. There were tears trickling down his pale face.
“I have to face it,” he said, turning to look at us, his pals, with real grief in his eyes. “The more I heard that stuff Mr. Bataky did, the more I knew that deep down, inside, I’m just a good kid. I mean, what am I going to do? Don’t you see, I’m just like my father said. I’m good.”
Grief is deep sadness. answer the Unit Challenge later.
You can’t believe how miserable he looked. All we could do was sit there and pity him. I mean, just to look at him we knew there weren’t going to be any more wicked grins, belches, leers, sly winks, wedgies, or flying boogers.
When you give a leer, you give someone a nasty look as if you know something bad.
Life went on, but with Matt going angel on us, our gang couldn’t hold together. We were finished. Busted.
So I’m here to tell you, when a guy turns good, hey, it’s rough.
BIG QUESTION
What brings out the goodness in Matt Kaizer? What makes Mr. Bataky get better? Write your answers on the “Goodness of Matt Kaizer” part of the Comparing Literature Workshop Foldable. Your answer will help you answer the Unit Challenge later.

蓝字部分是课文注解（取自于教材），黑字部分是课文。

这篇课文是我接下来要看的。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-7-13 22:40 编辑

上面这篇课文跟儿子化了3天时间看完了，相对来说，英文的理解部分不是太难。

以我理解文章的最后一句“Life went on, but with Matt going angel on us, our gang couldn’t hold together. We were finished. Busted.
So I’m here to tell you, when a guy turns good, hey, it’s rough.”综合整篇课文，我想当然地以为作者想表达的是：让一个不好的人，变成一个好的人，是挺不容易的。

我儿子的理解是：Matt 变好了，我们这个gang 也解散了，这真是件难过的事情。

呵！我想还是儿子的理解更直接，而我想得多了，我们成人，总想把一些东西上升一下，结果却不是那意思了。