week 8

Spring songSpring is coming, spring is coming,Birdies, build your nest;Weave together straw and feather,Doing each your best.Spring is coming, spring is coming,Flowers are coming too:Pansies, lilies, daffodillies,Now are coming thoughtSpring is coming, spring is coming,All around is fair,Shimmer and quiver on the river,Joy is everywhere.By William Blake春之颂春天来了，春天来了，小鸟儿，把你的巢筑好；每一只都尽心又尽力，用稻草和羽毛编好巢。

春天来了，春天来了，千万朵花儿正绽放：紫罗兰、百合花、水仙花，一朵一朵笑弯了腰。

春天来了，春天来了，春光明媚处处美。

河面上微波在荡漾，山河处处喜洋洋。

——威廉姆?布雷克Two views of timesImagine that you spent your whole life at a single house.Each day at the same hour you entered an artificially-lit room,undressed and took up the same position in front of a motion picture camera.It photographed one frame of you per day,every day of your life. On your seventy-second birthday,the reel of film was shown.Y ou saw yourself growing and aging over seventy-two years in less than half an hour(27.4minites at sixteen frames per second). Images of this sort ,though terrifying, are helpful in suggesting unfamiliar but useful perspectives of time. They may ,for example ,symbolize the telescoped ,almost momentary charater of the past as seen through the eyes of an anxious or disa-ffected individual. Or they may suggest the remarkable brevity of our lifes in the cosmic scale of time. If the estimated age of the cosmos were shorted to seventy-two years, a human life would take about ten seconds.But look at time the other way. Each day is a minor eternity of over 86000 seconds. During each second, the number of distinct molecular functions going on with the human body is comparable to the mumber of seconds in the estimated age of the cosmos, A few seconds are long enough for a revolutionary idea, a startling communication, a baby's conception, a wounding insult, a sudden death. Depending on how we think of them, our lives can be infinitely long or infinitely short.设想你的整个一生都在同一间房子里度过的。

每天的同一时间你进入一个人工照明的房间，脱掉衣服，在摄影机前摆出同样的姿势。

在你一生的每一天，摄影机都给你拍下一个镜头。

在你72岁生日的那一天来放映这部影片。

在不到半个小时的时间（每秒16个镜头，总共27.4分钟）里你将看完72年来你的成长和衰老过程。

我们的生命是极其短暂的，如果宇宙的估计年龄被缩短到72年，那么人的生命大概只有10秒钟。

但我们可以从另外一个角度看待时间。

每一天都有86，000秒的小小永恒。

在每一秒里，人们身体内不同分子相互作用的次数可以比成宇宙估计年龄的秒数。

几秒钟的时间，足以产生一次革命性的念头，足以进行一场惊人的交流，足以促成一个婴儿的孕育，足以造成一个伤人的侮辱，足以使一个人猝然死去。

我们的生命可以是无限长，也可以是无限短，关键在于我们如何看待这一切。

I. What is a Paragraph? (Page 18-19 Book One)A paragraph is a group of sentences that develop one central idea. It may be a part of a paper or it may stand like a mini essay. A paragraph should be complete in itself and provide adequate information for the reader.An effective paragraph must be unified, coherent, specific, and adequately and completely developed. These features run through the entire paragraph. A good way to learn to achieve the purpose is to start with the paragraph structure. A standard paragraph has two very important components: a topic sentence + and supporting sentences.II. The T opic SentenceThe topic sentence is an emphatically placed, explicit statement of the central idea in a paragraph. Or a topic sentence is a statement of the controlling idea that the rest of the paragraph clarifies, exemplifies, or supports.I t’s very important and helpful for beginning writer to write a topic sentence because it governs the paragraph development; all the other sentences in the paragraph must pertain to it and relate, either directly or indirectly to the central idea expressed in the topic sentence. A Topic sentence should be expressed in specific language. It should be focused and precise even though it is the most general statement of the paragraph. The writer can use it to guide the development of the rest of the paragraph; the reader can use it as a clue to what lies ahead.1. Purposes of TSThe topic sentence (TS) serves the following purposes:a. It tells the reader what the paragraph is about, or it tells the reader what toexpect in the paragraph;b. It is usually the most important statement in the paragraph;c. It contains a controlling idea that commits the paragraph to a specific aspect ofthe whole work.2. Two parts of a TSA TS usually consists of to parts: subject (主题) & controlling idea [中心思想（导向）].The subject: the topic to be discussed.Controlling idea: an attitude/one’s opinion toward that subject. Namely, in each of TS, there is a key word/phrase, which makes a comment on the subject, as shown as follows. Sometimes it state what you are going to explain about the subject instead of stating attitude directly. (The subject is underlined; the controlling idea is in italics in the following examples.)The position of TSA TS may appear anywhere in a paragraph. It can be placed at the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the paragraph, or at both the beginning and the end of the paragraph. And sometimes, it can even be implied without being written / stated at all, especially in descriptive and narrative writings.Usually for the beginning writers, it’best to place a TS at the beginning of a paragraph because first is often considered to be the best place for a beginning. Such a paragraph pattern is much easier for both a writer and a reader. By putting the TS at the beginning of a paragraph, the writer can move easily glancing at it and be reminded of the subject/topic of the paragraph.。