2. 外语
  3. The following two excerpts are about the necessity to urge students to read the classics. From the excerpts, you can find that t

The following two excerpts are about the necessity to urge students to read the classics. From the excerpts, you can find that t

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问题    The following two excerpts are about the necessity to urge students to read the classics. From the excerpts, you can find that the push for students to read the classics is justified to some degree, but some people think that reading is irrespective of the content.
   Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 WORDS, in which you should:
   1.   summarize the different responses to students’ reading the classics and their reasons, and then
   2.   express your opinion towards students’ reading the classics, especially whether reading the classics has more good points.
   Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.
   Write your article on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
   Excerpt 1
                          Why Should Young Students Read the Classics?
   Have you stood with Homer on the walls of ancient Troy, watching Achilles’ pride bring a vast army to the edge of disaster? Have you walked the main streets of Victorian London with Oliver Twist? Before you graduate, will you and Mark Twain navigate the mighty Mississippi?
   Today, too few teenagers embark on the literary quests for wisdom and adventure that timeless classics offer. Many American schools no longer teach these books. In the 1960s, the cry of "relevance" led some to trade Hamlet for the adolescent angst of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Later, obsessions with multiculturalism, racism and sexism made politically correct books like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
   Now we’re taking another giant leap away from greatness toward mediocrity. The New York Times recently profiled an instructional approach called Reading Workshop—"part of a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools. " Reading Workshop can be implemented in various ways. Generally, however, it involves allowing students to choose the books they read—with few restrictions and minimal teacher guidance—instead of studying a serious work of literature as a class.
   The movement has been around at least a decade. But it’s gaining steam in schools from New York City to Seattle, according to The New York Times.
   Reading Workshop’s goal is to make students lifelong readers. But it’s hardly self-evident that reading about pop stars is a better use of kids’—or anyone’s—time than playing video games or basketball.
   Excerpt 2
                    Should Young Students Be Forced to Read the Classics?
   When you read, talk about, and immerse yourself in children’s and young adult literature as much as I do, you’re bound to run into an array of thoughts on what makes "good" literature. Some people out there (librarians, teachers, bloggers, and parents alike) believe that young and impressionable readers should only read the "classics" and literary texts. I’m talking about pushers of everything from King Lear and Gone with the Wind, to Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice.
   Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that these books are bad or even that they shouldn’t be encouraged. For the most part, I agree with the role of these texts in the classroom. But when it comes to free reading, to the one time when kids can finally choose for themselves, I think that readers should simply be encouraged to read.
   So what when Suzie wants to read a book about prep school girls, or if Thomas wants to read the latest skating graphic novel? Who cares if Heather enjoys the popular weekly magazine, or if Jordan inhales detective mysteries? If they’re excited about reading, why should it matter that the literary value is not up to some elitist standard?
   After all, shouldn’t we encourage children to read what excites them? Shouldn’t we foster a love for reading? We should be pushing young students to try new genres, to explore a variety of authors and to use their imaginations to build worlds in their minds. We should not stunt their comfort in reading through literary texts that might not be relatable to them yet.
选项
答案 The Classics: A Way in and a Way out In a society where books become somehow formulaic both in their language and plots, an urgent call for reading the classics peals in our ears. Those reading the classics say that the classics foster wisdom and reveal timeless truths. Others, on the other hand, advocate free reading, which encourages students to choose whatever excites them to read. In my opinion, young and inexperienced readers should be guided to read the classics for the following reasons. Firstly, reading the classics is a voyage of discovery of both oneself and the world. Most classics picture entrepreneurial activities telling of wonders seen, dangers risked, coasts charted, hopes justified or dashed, souls saved or lost, and treasures found or missed. These are nothing but syncopation of our own fantasies and realities. Youngsters—like human beings everywhere—face vital issues of their own age: What is true friendship? What should be done when ethics and self-interest conflict? How can we act in the face of fear and disaster? In struggling to answer these delicate questions, they have the classics to draw on. Huckleberry Finn walks out of Twain’s novel to teach us the touching meaning of unbiased friendship. Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter enchants us with the "scarlet" passion and soul-searing power of love. Moreover, good literature offers the young a way to transcend the suffocation imposed by an avalanche of current events which seem so trivial and distracting. Sadly, we are living in an era where the ballast of news tampers our high sensitivity and storms our simple hearts. Thanks to the classics, we can be bathed in the moonlight of the subjective imagination rather than get drowned forever in the dazzling daylight of actuality and social iconography. So pick up one classic now and indulge yourself into it until the world around you disappears. Lose yourself in a labyrinthine book whose rich yet detailed imagination offers us a life greater than our narrow souls can ever possess. Spin ourselves a fairytale web so that we can escape the world’s clamor for only one hour or two. Let’s all enjoy reading the classics!
解析    本题讨论年轻学生是否应该阅读经典作品。选段1赞同学生阅读经典，因为阅读经典可以使学生避免平庸。同时，它批驳了美国学校的读书项目Reading workshop，这个项目旨在鼓励学生自由阅读，即学生有权利选择自己喜欢的阅读读物。选段2对此问题持反面观点，即学生们的阅读兴趣是最重要的，而阅读的内容是无所谓的。本题的写作重点是总结双方关于年轻学生是否应该阅读经典书目的不同观点，然后阐述自己对此问题的看法，尤其要说明规定经典书目的做法是不是有道理。
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