A month after Hurricane Katrina, I returned home in New Orleans. There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty.

Before the trip, I'd had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate.“You are from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was.“No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.

As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage (按揭贷款) on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We'd begun to accept that we'd have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He'd read some pieces I'd written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.

It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to rent his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet's offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.

Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It's almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.

Activity A Reading for understanding

Ⅰ. Text-centered chunks

reduced to ruins 沦为废墟

waist-high 齐腰高的

no charge 免费

go for a haircut 去理发

in reduced circumstances 境况不济

no conditions attached 没有附加条件

one-year paid leave 一年的带薪假

give sb half a chance 给某人一点点机会

Ⅱ. Text-centered sentences

一、倒装句

There lay my house, reduced to waist-high ruins, smelly and dirty. 我的房子在那里，变成了齐腰高的废墟，又臭又脏。

【点石成金】当副词there放到句首时，后面所接的句子需要进行完全倒装，也就是“谓语+主语”的句序表达，起强调作用。

【运用迁移】这就是我的卧室，向南，宽敞又明亮。

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二、省略句

It's almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance. 但凡是能够帮助别人时，人们都会尽力去做，能感悟到这一点，即使是失去自己的物质财富，也是值得的。

【点石成金】given half a chance表示“被给一点点机会”, 用于when引导的省略句中，省略了和主句相同的主语和be动词。

【运用迁移】如果这样装修的话，房子会非常漂亮。

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Activity B Reading for writing

今年夏天，河南发生特大洪灾后，全国各地在第一时间加入抢险救援的行列中。 假定你是李华，家在河南，请你给志愿者王先生写一封感谢信，表达你的感激之情。 内容包括：

1. 洪灾后的生活变化；

2. 感谢他的帮忙。

注意：

1. 词数80左右；

2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；

3. 至少使用一个倒装句或省略句；

4. 注意段落内的逻辑关系。

Dear Mr Wang,

All the best of luck to you!

Yours,

Li Hua

写作导引

本次的写作任务是写一篇感谢信，要求学生描述河南灾后的生活和感谢社会各界爱心人士的帮忙，并且需要使用倒装句和省略句。 这些写作要求和上面文章的主题语境是紧密相关的。 我们可以通过分析并整合阅读材料的内容和语言，拓展素材，从而梳理写作思路。

一、语篇解码

（一）内容分析

What is the text mainly about?

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（二）宏观结构

Fill in the blanks according to the text.

二、素材积累

（一）介绍灾后生活变化的核心表达

1. be trapped in 被困入

2. come to an end ……结束了

3. get injured 受伤

4. It seems as if the world was at an end. 仿佛到了世界末日。

5. Everywhere they looked nearly everything was destroyed. 他们看到的每一个地方，几乎一切都被毁了。

（二）感谢的核心表达

1. Learning that you're leaving, I'm eagerly writing to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for your help. 得知你要离开了，我急切地写信对你的帮助表示衷心的感谢。

2. I am writing to express my gratitude for your attention. 我写这封信是为了感谢您的关心。

3. Under your professional guidance, I have made such unbelievable progress in English. 在您专业的指导下，我的英语取得了巨大的进步。

4. No words are strong enough to convey how grateful I am. 任何言语都不足以表达我的感激之情。

三、写作支架

Dear________,

I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude for your help. （感谢帮忙）

Now I want to tell you something about the life here. Undoubtedly, the life has changed a lot.（描述生活变化） For one thing, it is of great pleasure to find that... For another, what impresses us is that...

Thanks again for all the things you have done. (再次表达感谢)

Yours,

Li Hua

四、语篇过手

在构思感谢信的语篇框架时，应注意第一段要表明写作的目的，第二段要描写河南灾后的生活变化，最后表达你的感谢。 总词数控制在80左右。

同时，学习运用前文阅读中出现的倒装句或省略句等高级句型，并关注段内的关系，如举例论证生活的变化，需要注意使用恰当的连词。