Unit Five Language
How I Discovered Words
In-class Reading
Content
Review useful words and expressions
About the writer
Text reading
Contrast
Review
Discussion
Assignment
How I Discovered Words?
• Written by ?
• I have often thought it would be a
blessing if each human being were
stricken blind and deaf for a few
days at some time during his early
adult life.
• Darkness would make him more
appreciative of sight; silence would
teach him the joys of sound.
(June 27, 1880
--- June 1, 1968)
How I Discovered Words?
Helen Keller
Background Information
Helen became a remarkable writer and scholar,
she wrote “The Story of My Life”.
How I Discovered
Words
Story Telling
• Let’s read the story:
• How I Discovered Words.
March
3rd,1887
At the close of the
day, in bed
The next day
In Ann’ room
In the well-
house One day (several
days later)
Text reading
How I Discovered Words?
Let’s read the first paragraph.
Paragraph 1
The most important day I
remember in all my life is the one on
which my teacher, Anne Mansfield
Sullivan, came to me. I am filled
with wonder when I consider the
immeasurable contrast between the
two lives which it connects. It was
the third of March, 1887, three
months before I was seven years
old.
March 3rd, 1887
“I am filled with wonder when I consider the
immeasurable contrast between the two lives
which it connects.”
• Life before • Life afterward
? ?
Immeasurable contrast
My life before
• “dumb, expectant” (line5)
• Anger, bitterness, languor, passionate
struggle (line 12-13)
“Light! been me light!”
• “Have you everGiveat sea in a dense
fog, when it seemed as if a tangible
white darkness shut you in, and the
was the wordless cry of
great ship, tense and anxious, groped
her way toward the shore with plummet
and sounding-line, and you waited with
my soul. something
beating heart for(line.20) to happen?
” (lines15-18)
• “still, dark world” (line 48)
My life afterward
• “the light of love shone on me in that
very hour” (lines.21)
“It living word awakened my soul,
• “That
would have been
gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! ”
difficult to find a happier
(lines.62)
• “every object which I touched
child than I was” (line.74)
seemed to quiver with life” (line.65-66)
• “the world blossom for me” (line.73)
dumb,
Waiting at
expectant
the porch
Learning
interested
finger play
Learning several
pleasant,
words
proud
The change of emotions
impatient
Confounding words,
Breaking the doll
keenly delighted
Realized the meaning
excited, eager to learn
of “water” repentant
Feeling the fragments joyful and hopeful
Lying in the crib
of the and sad
doll
“There were barriers still,
it is true, but barriers that
could in time be swept
away ” (line.63)
.
Review
• Writing style:
• Narration
• Time sequence
• Setting, plot, conflict, climax, ending
Review
• Text appreciation:
• Contrast / Comparison
• Hidden sequence: emotional change
Discussion
How I Discovered Words
How I Learnt Words
How I Got Words
How I Was Taught Words
Assignment
• Read Three Days to See.
• Appreciate and memorize beautiful and
inspiring sentences and paragraphs.