课前准备 Warm-up

Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. Before you read the text, think about the following questions:

1) What do you know about the history of Christmas?

2) How much do you know about the Christmas traditions?

本章概览 An Overview

The text is a narration written by Paul Engle, who is a poet and founder of the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

“An Iowa Christmas” is not only about Christmas, it’s also about love, home, and tradition, which people throughout the world share and cherish.

The structure of this text is clever. The often-repeated topic sentence not only gives us a clue of the author’s focus but also best conveys his mood. The language is vivid. The author succeeds in bringing his family's celebration right in front of us by showing us how things look, feel, smell, taste and most notably sound.

学习目标Objectives

Through textual analysis and learning, the students should

1) Get the theme of the text

2) Comprehend the social significance of the text

3) Acquire relevant rhetorical devices used in the text

知识结构 Knowledge Structure

The text can be roughly divided into seven parts, which can be subdivided into several sections.

Part I (para. 1)

Recalling the Christmas celebration in his childhood memory

Part II (paras. 2-6)

The journey to the farm

Part III (paras. 7-8)

The barn in the farm

Part IV (paras. 19-23)

The handmade Christmas

Part V (paras. 24-25)

Returning home