Unit 4 Exploring Poetry-Extended reading 教案-2025-2026学年高中英语译林版选择性必修第一册

Language Competence: Master literary and cultural vocabulary such as “romantic poetry”, “exaggeration” and “imagery”, and improve the ability to understand and analyze English literary texts about poetry.

Cultural Awareness: Understand the romantic style of Li Bai’s poems and the cultural connotation of the Tang Dynasty, enhance cultural confidence and cross-cultural communication awareness.

Thinking Quality: Cultivate logical thinking by analyzing the causal relationship between Li Bai’s life experience, social background and poetic style, and develop critical thinking through poem appreciation.

Learning Ability: Master reading strategies such as skimming and scanning, and form the habit of independent exploration and cooperative learning in literary reading.

Key Points: Grasp the main content of the extended reading text, understand the formation reasons of Li Bai’s romantic poetic style and its characteristics, and accumulate relevant literary vocabulary and sentence patterns.

Difficult Points: Deeply understand the implied meaning of Li Bai’s poems in the text, accurately analyze the application of literary devices such as exaggeration and imagery, and apply reading strategies to interpret literary texts independently.

Step 1: Warming-up and Lead-in

The teacher greets the students and starts the warming-up activity with a question: “Do you know any famous Chinese poets? And what do you know about their poetic styles?” After inviting 2-3 students to share their answers, the teacher shows a picture of Li Bai and plays an English audio clip introducing Li Bai’s brief life. Then the teacher asks: “Have you read Li Bai’s poems in Chinese? Today, we will learn about Li Bai and his romantic poetry through an English article in the extended reading part.”

Design Intention: The warming-up activity starts with familiar topics, which can arouse students’ existing knowledge reserve and reduce their psychological pressure in learning literary texts. Showing Li Bai’s picture and playing the audio clip can quickly attract students’ attention, connect Chinese cultural knowledge with English learning, lay a foundation for the study of the text, and also imperceptibly cultivate students’ cultural awareness by linking familiar poets with English expression.

Step 2: Pre-reading

1. Vocabulary Preview: The teacher presents key vocabulary in the text on the screen, including “romantic poetry”, “striking”, “characterize”, “contribute to”, “Confucianism”, “Taoism”, “nourish”, “be rooted in”, “glorious”, “boom”, “stability”, “tolerant”, “unconstrained” and “exaggeration”. For each word, the teacher explains its meaning, pronunciation and common collocations with simple English, and gives example sentences combined with the text context. For example, when explaining “contribute to”, the teacher says: “If something contributes to a situation, it helps to cause it. In the text, Li Bai’s love of reading and travelling contributes to his romantic style.” Then the teacher asks students to read the words aloud twice and do a quick matching exercise (matching words with their meanings) in pairs to check their mastery.

2. Background Briefing: The teacher briefly introduces the historical background of the Tang Dynasty in English: “Li Bai lived in the most glorious period of the Tang Dynasty, which was a time of economic boom and social stability. This open and tolerant atmosphere had a great influence on Li Bai’s personality and his poetry.” At the same time, the teacher supplements that Li Bai is known as “Poet Immortal” in China, and his poems are famous for their romantic style, laying a foundation for students to understand the text content.

Design Intention: Vocabulary is the basis of understanding literary texts. Previewing key vocabulary can help students avoid obstacles in reading and improve reading efficiency. Explaining vocabulary in combination with the text context helps students better grasp the usage of words and lay a foundation for subsequent text analysis. Briefing the historical background of the Tang Dynasty can help students understand the connection between social environment and literary creation, deepen their understanding of the text’s theme, and further enhance their cultural awareness.

Step 3: While-reading

This step is divided into three parts: skimming, scanning and intensive reading, to help students gradually deepen their understanding of the text from the overall to the local.

1. Skimming: The teacher asks students to read the text quickly within a certain time and answer two questions: (1) What is the main topic of the text? (2) What are the main factors that shape Li Bai’s romantic poetic style? After students finish reading, the teacher invites several students to share their answers, and then summarizes: “The main topic of the text is Li Bai and his romantic poetry. The factors shaping his romantic style include his love of reading and travelling, and the social and historical context of the Tang Dynasty.”

Design Intention: Skimming is a basic reading strategy. Through skimming, students can quickly grasp the main idea of the text and the key information, cultivate their ability to obtain overall information, and lay a foundation for subsequent intensive reading. At the same time, it can also help students establish a framework of the text and improve their reading speed.

2. Scanning: The teacher asks students to read the text again, scan for specific information, and fill in the following table. The table is displayed on the screen, including three columns: “Factors Shaping Li Bai’s Romantic Style”, “Specific Details” and “Effects on His Poetry”. Students are required to complete the table in groups of 4, and each group is responsible for finding information about one factor. After the groups finish, the teacher invites representatives of each group to present their answers, and corrects and supplements them.

For example, for the factor “love of reading”, the specific details are: “He started studying the classics at five, read ancient philosophers of different schools at ten, including Confucianism and Taoism, and read various books from legends to historical stories.” The effect is: “He familiarized himself with classical Chinese culture and acquired the wisdom of previous generations.” For the factor “love of travelling”, the specific details are: “He left home to travel around in his early twenties, and his footsteps covered almost the whole country, visiting famous mountains and great rivers and encountering different customs.” The effect is: “It nourished his love of nature and inspired him to write numerous romantic poems.” For the factor “social and historical context”, the specific details are: “He grew up in the most glorious period of the Tang Dynasty, a time of economic boom and social stability with an open and tolerant atmosphere.” The effect is: “It allowed Li Bai to develop a free and unconstrained personality, which had a huge impact on his poetic production.”

Design Intention: Scanning can help students accurately find specific information in the text, improve their ability to locate information quickly. Completing the table in groups can cultivate students’ cooperative learning ability, and through mutual discussion and complementarity, students can better grasp the key details of the text. At the same time, the table can help students sort out the logical relationship between the factors and their effects, laying a foundation for cultivating their logical thinking ability.

3. Intensive Reading: The teacher guides students to read the text paragraph by paragraph, focusing on analyzing key sentences, literary devices and the author’s expression intentions.

Paragraph 1: The teacher asks students to read the poem “A Night Stay at a Mountain Temple” in the text, and then asks: “What striking expressions do you find in this poem? What do these expressions show?” Students are invited to share their views, and the teacher summarizes: “The expression ‘I can reach out for the stars in the sky’ and ‘For fear of scaring dwellers on high’ use exaggeration, which shows Li Bai’s rich imagination and the romantic style of his poetry.” Then the teacher