Teaching Design for Unit 3 Amazing people

Reading: The curse of the mummy (comprehension)

By Li Chen on Dec 26, 2006

Aims and requirements

Read an article about a famous explorer and an article about a Chinese astronaut

Listen to a list of requirements

Talk about famous people and unknown places, and introduce a person

Write a biographical article

Interview a professional

Summary of the passage

The passage is about a famous explorer who, with the assistance of Lord Carnarvon, led a team to Egypt and made some unexpected discoveries in tombs. It still remains a mystery how one of his discoveries led to illness and death for many of his team members.

Procedures

Step 1: Leading-in

1) Do you still remember something from our discussion on Egypt in Unit 1 and Unit 2?

We talked about Toby traveling in Egypt and people’s curiosity about how the pyramids were built. Though we don’t know exactly how people at that time built them, we are quite sure of one thing, that is, all the pyramids were built for kings and queens. They expected to be buried there after their death. In spite of the harsh conditions, the Egyptians created this wonder of the world with their hands. It’s said the pyramids are as magnificent as a palace inside.

2) Have you ever read or thought about what is inside the pyramids?

3) Are there any people buried in them?

4) What do people nowadays call those buried in tombs?

5) What are mummies and how are they made?

6) Apart from mummies, are there any treasures inside the tombs of the pyramids?

7) Have the tombs ever been robbed of treasures by people?

8) What happened to these people after they entered the tombs?

9) Were they rich overnight?

10)What may explain the disasters that happened to those people?

Step 2: Fast reading for general ideas

1. Pay attention to the Reading strategy first before skimming the passage.

1) The article you are going to read is about a famous explorer who worked in Egypt. Read the article and make connections between the title and the explorer. Use your imagination and express your opinions freely with each other.

What might be the connections between ‘The curse of the mummy’ and the famous explorer?

Why does the writer choose ‘The curse of the mummy’ as its title here? Do you think the title can grab your attention and arouse your interest?

From your point of view, what might be dealt with in the following article? Can something like the explorer’s hobbies, his experiences of adventures, his achievements be covered in the article?

2) You’ve done a good job, expressing your opinions about the relationship between the title and the explorer and predicting the main contents of the article. That’s great. But to be more specific, can you anticipate what might be covered in the first paragraph of the article?

3)Please read the first paragraph and discuss how the first paragraph agrees or disagrees with your predictions.

What’s the first paragraph about? Is it the beginning of a story?

What does the writer tell us about the explorer in the first paragraph?

What words do you think are useful for you to predict the ideas included in the passage?

Now you may find the first paragraph serves as a general introduction of Howard Carter, and please pay attention to the key words in the first paragraph on the blackboard:

famous, brave, adventurous, amazing

4) With the help of the key words, you may predict the content of the paragraphs that follow.

What are the following paragraphs likely to do?

Will they give specific examples to support the

general description of Howard Carter?

Exchange your ideas with your partners and then check your prediction by reading the following paragraph.

5) Now let’s focus on Reading strategy to review the skills of how to predict information in an article.

2. Skim the passage and complete the three questions in Part A.

Step 3: Detailed reading for important information

1. Now please reread the passage and identify which statements are true and which are false. Then complete Part C1 on P44 individually.

2. Part C2 on P44. Match the summaries of the paragraphs in the article

3. While reading please identify the relationships between these characters and try to retell the passage according to the following diagram.

Characters Who was he? What did he do? How did he die?

George Gould a friend of Carnarvon visited the tomb a high fever

Lord Carnarvon a British man interested in Egypt offered Carter money to explore the mysterious;

be present at the opened tomb a fever

Howard Carter a famous explorer especially for the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1891 set sail for Alexandria, Egypt

by the 1920s searched for the tombs of the Egyptian kings

in 1922 found the tomb of King Tutankhamun seemed nothing to do with the tomb

Richard Bethell Carter’s secretary entered the tomb heart trouble

Step 4: Post-reading activities

1. interview

A---the spokesman of Howard Carter

B---a journalist

B will ask A the following questions:

1) What kind of person do you think Howard Carter is? Why?

2) To be a qualified explorer, what kind of personality do you think he/she should have?

3) Do you think the personality of Howard Carter has had a positive effect on his discoveries?

4) As for students, what sorts of personalities does a student have to possess?

5) Compared with the amazing persons such as Mother Teresa, Bill Gates, Beethoven, Zhang Heng, do you think Howard Carter is as great as them?

6) Do you think the mummy’s curse really exists? Why?

Step 5: Homework

1. Parts D and E on P44 and P45.

2. Write a summary about Howard Carter in a few sentences.