Warm-up (课前准备)：

1) Think hard on a philosophical question: during a rough time, whether you will choose to live or to die.

2) List the reasons for your choice.

An Overview (本章概览)：

The text is a play of William Shakespeare, a great British playwright. It is chosen from one of his most famous tragedies, Hamlet. In this play, the leading role, Hamlet, suffered a lot from the loss of loved ones, betrayal and desperation. The final decision he made not only represented himself, but also reflected the truth and contradictions in the society back then.

The theme of this play is clear, it expresses the writer’s wish of making society a place of justice and goodness. It also reveals the writer’s craving for humanism.

Objectives (学习目标)：

Through textual analysis and learning, the students should

1) Get the plot of the story

2) Grasp the theme and the historical significance of the text

3) Acquire new words

4) Recite the text

Knowledge Structure (知识结构):

In this Chapter, we will analyze part of the text of Hamlet. Summarize the characteristic of Hamlet and dig into the inherent meaning of this play.

The text can be roughly divided into three parts.

I. Question raising: to lay out the choice, to live or to die (line 1-5)

II. The body: to make a further analysis of the question in different aspects (line 5- line 27)

III. Conclusion: to make a point that people should do more instead of just think, one should seize the opportunity and make a good use of it (line 28 - 33)