Clearing in the Sky

Jesse Stuart

Clearing in the SkyJesse Stuart

R einforcement

T ext Analysis

Clearing in the Sky

B ackground

W arming up

Unit 15

Questions/Activities

Check-on Preview

Objectives

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Clearing in the sky

Unit 15

Warming up

Warming up Questions/Activities

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Make a list of all the words and expressions useful for

describing a typical farmer’s work and life.

• Component parts

• Farm tools

• Animals used for food or farming

• Farm work

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• Match the words with their correct meaning in the text.

• 答案见备注栏

1. rugged

2. brag

3. sting

4. pasture

5. fondle

a. to talk too proudly about sth.

b. to feel or make sb. feel a sharp pain in a

part of their body

c. to touch gently and in a loving way

d. wild and not even; not easy to travel over

e. a large area of land where animals feed on

the grass.

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Warming up

Objectives

To understand the structure and the general idea of the story.

To think about how to interpret the story. To know something about the author. To solve your own questions about the story.

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Warming up

Background

Author

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Clearing in the Sky

Unit 15

Background Author

Jesse Stuart (1907-1984)• Born in the Kentucky hills where he first

worked as a farmer

• A prolific American writer, known for short stories, poetry, and novels

• Named Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1954

• Centers his writing around Kentucky land and people he knows well

• Established Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve Commission to preserve W. Hollow from destruction

• Born in the Kentucky hills where he first worked as a farmer

• A prolific American writer, known for short stories, poetry, and novels

• Named Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1954

• Centers his writing around Kentucky land and people he knows well

• Established Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve Commission to preserve W. Hollow from destruction

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His Life

Background Author

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• Poetry:

Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow,1934

(a collection of 703 sonnets)

Kentucky is My Land, 1952

• Novels:

The Thread that Runs so True,1950

Daughter of the Legend,1965

• Collection of short stories:

Men of the Mou. 1941.

Tales from the Plum Grove Hills, 1946

Clearing in the Sky & Other Stories, 1950

My Land Has a Voice, 1966

His Works

DetailedAnalysis

Structure

Theme

Clearing in the Sky

Unit 15

Text Analysis

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Text Analysis Theme

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Think about these questions:

Why is the father so fond of his land? How do you understand the father’s feelings? What American values does this short story convey? How do you view these values?

Text Analysis Theme

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American values:Self-reliance, rugged individualism, respect for hard

manual labor Food for thought: Why are these values strong in American

culture? How about in present industrialized America?

Father-son relationship Human beings and land/nature Unyielding vigor in old age

Text Analysis Theme

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A background note:Respect for hard work and a tradition of sentimental

glorification of the rural way of life are particularly strong in the American culture, partly due to the Calvinist view that work is the only way to attain personal salvation, partly due to the early settlement and frontier experience.

Thomas Jefferson developed this tradition into a political theory that farming gives people strength, courage, industry, independence, honesty, and fierce love of freedom, the foundation of democracy.

In the present-day US, many people are getting nostalgic about their good old days, while many people consider these values old-fashioned and unrealistic.

Text Analysis Theme

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Think about these questions:What values does farming carry in China, a country with

over 5,000 years of farming history?How do you like this story? Do you find it touching or

over-sentimental? What does this say about you? Have you ever given any thought to farming? What about

your parents and grandparents? How do you look at different generations’ attitudes toward farming and rural life?

Text Analysis Structure

1

Paras. 1-4

On a hot summer day, a 70-year-old farmer was taking his son somewhere on his land.

2

Paras. 5-26

The places father and son went brought fond memories of their life in the past.

3

Paras. 27-43

The old farmer explained to his son why he made the clearing and opened so many paths up to the clearing.

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Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Main Idea

Sentence Paraphrase

Words & Expressions

Exercise

Part I Part II Part III

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Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part I: Main Idea

What did you expect to read after seeing the title “clearing in the sky”? How are your reading expectations fulfilled?

What can you know about the father and the son from the opening paragraphs?

How would you describe the father’s character according to these few paragraphs?

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

I wiped the streams of sweat from my face to keep them from stinging my eyes. (para. 2)

Paraphrasing: I wiped the sweat that was flowing down from my face so that my eyes wouldn’t hurt.

Part I: Sentence Paraphrase

a continuous flow of things or people

e.g. a stream of phone calls/ visitors

to cause sharp but usu. temporary pain

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Words Phrases Grammar

Part I: Words & Expressions

wipestreamstingprotestpasturemeadow

keep…frommake up one’s mindin the shadebelow zero

measurements

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part I: Exercise 1• Fill in the blanks with words from this part.

1. Do all bees and wasps ______? 2. She knew the teacher’s remarks were right, but she was still

____ by them. 3. When there is heavy pollution, the smog could even ______

people’s eyes. 4. Hearing such words at such a time is like the _____ of salt in a

wound. 5. Audiences _________ into the stadium to watch the Euro Cup.6. Tears __________ down her cheeks. 7. Farmers in Inner Mongolia often keep a ________ for sheep to

graze on, but tourists often mistake it for a _______.

• 答案见备注栏

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part I: Exercise 2

• Fill in the blanks with correct numbers.1. One yard is _______ feet and one foot is ______ inches. One foot is roughly _____ cm. 2. A mile equals ________ kilometers. 3. One acre equals ________ square yards and ________ hectare, roughly _________ Chinese mu. 4. One hundred degrees Fahrenheit equals _________ degrees Centigrade and -20F equals _________ C.

• 答案见备注栏

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part II: Main Idea What can we know about the father’s life from this

part? What memories does the walk to the mountain top

bring to the son? How do you like the descriptions of nature in this

part? Why do you think the father didn’t tell the son what

he wanted to show him? And about the path? Does this walk to the mountain top have any

symbolic meaning?

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

The pines on top of the mountain above us looked as if the fingers of their long boughs were fondling a white cloud. (para. 19)

Paraphrasing: This is a metaphorical sentence; the pines are personified as people with long fingers fondling a white cloud. Similar metaphorical use of language in this part include the “saddle” between two hills, the “canopy” of trees, etc.

Part II: Sentence Paraphrase

fondle: to touch or stroke lovingly

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Words Phrases Sentence Pattern

Grammar

Part II: Words & Expressions

a wisp oflean on

bragwoodedfellruggedcanopyrustlefondle

the time he found a coffee tree

metaphorical use of language

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part II: Exercise 1

• Fill in the blanks with verbs.1. I remembered how he ____ the leaves from the woods and ____ them over this field and then ______ them under and let them ___. 2. He _____ a cover crop and _____ it under. 3. He _____ down a white oak and ____ it over the stream to serve as a foot log. 4. The steep slope _____ abruptly towards the sky. 5. Several paths ______ the main path and ______ around the slope, _________ the mountain gradually.

• 答案见备注栏

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part II: Exercise 2

• Fill in the blanks with unit words.1. a ______ of alfalfa 2. a _______ of flowers/keys3. a _______ of bread4. a _______ of grass5. a _______ of sand/rice6. a _______ of soap7. a _______ of wind

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Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

• Translate the sentences.

1. 不要老是依赖别人的帮助。 (lean)2. 他总是吹嘘自己能挣很多钱。 (brag)

• 答案见备注栏

Part II: Exercise 3

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part III: Main Idea

Is his father aware of his health condition? Why does he choose to ignore the doctor’s advice?

What is so special about “the clearing in the sky” to Jess’s father? What are the reasons he gave for making the clearing? How do you explain his special pride in the clearing?

Why has he built so many paths leading up to the clearing?

What does the clearing stand for to him?

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part III: Sentence Paraphrase

But I have cheated death many times! Now I’ve reached the years the Good Book allows to a man. Three-score years and ten. (para. 36)

The Bible

Score means twenty. Three-score and ten is three times twenty plus ten, that is, seventy.

Paraphrasing: Although I have been very close to dying many times, I have managed to escape death. I have reached my seventy, which is the age a man could live to according to the Bible.

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

The doctors told me to sit still and take life easy. (para. 42)

Paraphrasing: The doctors told me not to do anything, not to work too hard or do too much, just relax.

relax, live in comfort, not to worry

Part III: Sentence Paraphrase

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Words Phrases Sentence Pattern

Grammar

Part III: Words & Expressions

cheatallowthin (v.)matt (v.)wind (v.)

pick uptake the trouble to dotake life easy

emphatic structure:It was on this slope that my father once made me a little wooden plow.

relative clause introduced by where/whenThree times the length .

Text Analysis Detailed Analysis

Part III: Exercise• Translate the following sentences into English.

1. 我的祖父时常回忆过去那些夜不闭户的好日子。 (relative clause)

2. 他们决定搬到那个有很多好学校的地区去。 (relative clause)

3. 众多客户向法院起诉保险公司骗走了他们应得的赔偿。 (cheat)

4. 特技演员的工作很危险，但他好几次都死里逃生。 (cheat)

5. 联合国调查团获准进入叙利亚战区。 (allow)

6. 政府的教育改革使所有儿童都能接受九年制义务教育。 (allow)

• 答案见备注栏

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Clearing in the Sky

Unit 15

Reinforcement

DiscussionDiscussion

Role-PlayRole-Play

Reinforcement Role-Play

• Choose one topic

1. Imagine yourself to be Jesse. Describe your father’s

farm to your son with unforgettable memories of your

happy childhood.

2. Imagine yourself to be Jesse’s mother. Describe your husband to your grandson after he passes away.

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Reinforcement Discussion

• Work in groups of four:

1. Can you map out the mountain where Jess and his father lived?

2. What simple values does Jesse’s father have? How

would you compare him with a typical Chinese farmer?

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