Five Famous Symbols of
American Culture
Unit 3
Stage 1,Warming-up Activities
Stage 2,Reading-Centred Activities
Stage 3,Vocabulary Exercises
Stage 4,Translating and Writing
Warming-up Activities
Questions for thought and
discussion
Background information
Enriching your vocabulary
Comparing the following words
Questions for thought
and discussion
Listen to a short passage
carefully and then answer the
following questions on page
92 with your own experiences.
Background information
the Statue of Liberty
Barbie dolls
Mattel Toy Company
American Gothic
Buffalo nickel
James Earle Fraser
New York City's Central Park
Uncle Sam
The idea of creating the Statue of Liberty began in France at a
dinner party hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre Laboulaye,a
scholar,Laboulaye and Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi,a
sculptor,began to discuss the idea of presenting the United
States with a monument to memorialize independence and
human liberty.
Bartholdi sailed from France to New York on June 8,1871,to
propose the building of the statue to honor the friendship
between France and the United States,As the ship pulled into
New York Harbor,Bartholdi spotted the perfect location,
Liberty Island.
During his trip to the United States,he met with US President
Ulysses S,Grant; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,an American
poet; Horace Greeley,a New York editor and politician; and
others,Bartholdi traveled across the United States carrying a
sketch of the statue and a small model,Everyone was receptive,
but financial backing was difficult to find,
It was the late 1950s when Ruth Handler noticed
her daughter playing with paper dolls and
imagining them in grown-up roles,Since most
dolls at the time were baby dolls,Ruth
envisioned one that would inspire little girls to
think about what they wanted to be when they
grew up,Ruth created a teenage fashion model
doll named Barbie (after her daughter),and the
rest is history.
Barbie has been an integral part of the lives of
millions of young girls,Her timeless appeal has
resulted in a dedicated legion of fans that love to
collect her.
Mattel is the worldwide leader in the
design,manufacture,and marketing of
toy products,The company's core brands
include Barbie,Hot Wheels,Matchbox,
Fisher-Price,and American Girl,With
headquarters in El Segundo,California,
Mattel has offices and facilities in 36
countries and sells its products in more
than 150 nations throughout the world.
Grant Wood came to Eldon in the late 1920's with fellow
artist and Eldon native,John Sharp,He was inspired by the
contrast of the modest little one-and-one-half- story frame
house with its (as he described it),pretentious” Gothic style
windows,There is one in each gable end,He sketched the
house on the back of an envelope and used it as the backdrop
in his world-renowned 1930's painting American Gothic,His
sister,Nan,and his dentist,Dr,B,H,McKeeby,posed as the
sour-faced couple,Wood intended the couple to represent a
typical small town resident and his daughter,but most
interpret them as man and wife,Since completion,Grant
Wood's 1930 painting American Gothic has become a
critically acclaimed work that continues to enjoy enormous
popularity,It also has become an American icon and is the
model for a countless number of commercial art parodies,
such as posters,cards,and souvenirs,The painting hangs in
the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1911 sculptor James Earl Fraser began designing the
“Buffalo” nickel,Fraser said the portrait on the,head's”
side was a composite of three American Indians—Iron Tail,
Big Tree and Two Moons,Fraser had the opportunity to
study and photograph them when they stopped off in New
York on their way to Washington to visit President
Theodore Roosevelt,By borrowing features from each
individual,Fraser was able to sketch the,ideal” portrait for
the nickel.
President William Howard Taft approved the art work,and
the first,Buffalo” nickels were produced in February of
1913,Two Moons died in 1917,and Iron Tail and Big Tree
in the 1920s,In the 1960s,a second Big Tree appeared at
coin shows and claimed to be the Native American on the
nickel,Although he claimed to have celebrated his 100th
birthday in 1962,later records indicated he was actually
only 87.
Fraser was born in Minnesota in 1876,but grew up on a ranch in
South Dakota,His first art instructor was a town whittler,Later,
Fraser studied art in Chicago and Paris and established a studio
in Westport,Connecticut,He was only 17 when he completed the
first modeling of,The End of the Trail”,The statue portrays a
weary native American riding an equally forlorn horse,At an
exhibition in Paris in 1898,“The End of the Trail” won a $1,000
cash prize,Despite the pressure of other projects,Fraser worked
on,The End of the Trail” off and on throughout his career,
Today a large version of the statue is in the Cowboy Hall of Fame
and Western History Center in Oklahoma City,which also has
Fraser's sketches for the,tail's” side of the Buffalo nickel.
When the Buffalo nickel finally made its debut in 1913,a coin
collector's magazine hailed it as a true work of art,powerfully
modelled,Many critics agreed,and in 1951 the American
Academy of Arts and Letters presented Fraser with a gold medal
honoring a lifetime of distinguished achievement,On October 11,
1953,James Earle Fraser died.
Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the
United States,Advocates of creating the park — primarily
wealthy merchants and landowners — admired the public
grounds of London and Paris and urged that New York
needed a comparable facility to establish its international
reputation,A public park,they argued,would offer their
own families an attractive setting for carriage rides and
provide working-class New Yorkers with a healthy
alternative to the saloon,After three years of debate over
the park site and cost,in 1853 the state legislature
authorized the City of New York to use the power of
eminent domain to acquire more than 700 acres of land in
the center of Manhattan.
New York City's Central Park Zoo is part of the Central
Park establishment,
Historians aren't completely certain how the character,Uncle Sam”
was created,or who (if anyone) he was named after.
The prevailing theory is that Uncle Sam was named after Samuel
Wilson,Wilson was born in Arlington,Mass.,on September 13,1766,
His childhood home was in Mason,New Hampshire,In 1789,he and his
brother Ebenezer walked to Troy,New York.
During the War of 1812,Wilson was in the business of slaughtering and
packing meat,He provided large shipments of meat to the US Army,in
barrels that were stamped with the initials,US”,Supposedly,someone
who saw the,US” stamp suggested — perhaps as a joke — that the
initials stood for,Uncle Sam” Wilson,The suggestion that the meat
shipments came from,Uncle Sam” led to the idea that Uncle Sam
symbolized the federal government.
Samuel Wilson died in 1854,His grave is in the Oakwood Cemetery in
Troy.
The single most famous portrait of Uncle Sam is the,I WANT YOU”
Army recruiting poster from World War I,The poster was painted by
James Montgomery Flagg in 1916-1917,
Enriching your vocabulary
Read the sentences carefully and
guess the meaning of the italicized
term in each sentence according to
the context and your own
experiences.
They planned to put up a statue for the
President,
They give their children a great deal of
liberty.
He granted the boy liberty to go out,
Excuse my liberties,
雕像 freedom
the right or permission to do or use sth,
无礼，冒昧行为
The object of his novel writing is to
amuse and enlighten the general readers,
In the square in front of the hotel stands
a monument to all the people killed in the
war,
The students tried to form an alliance
between themselves and the workers,
I don't approve of smoking in public
places,
启发，开导 纪念碑 联盟 赞成
We had to wait months for the government
to approve our plans to extend our house,
His kindness increased the child's affection
for him,
Some boys like to assemble model
airplanes,
When the fire alarm rang we assembled
outside the emergency exit,
批准，同意 爱 组装 聚集
The runner carried the Olympic torch
into the cheering stadium,
He took the torch and disappeared into
the dark,
We sailed into a beautiful and silent bay,
The threat of attack has been greatly
exaggerated,
火炬 手电筒 海湾 夸张
A baby sucks milk from his mother's
breast,
The knife entered his breast,
Two different versions of "Gone with the
Wind" are now being made in Hollywood,
The official version of the event is that the
police were attacked and were just trying
to defend themselves,
乳房 胸膛 版本；型号 叙述，说法
Charlie Chaplin is an actor of universal
liking,
This machine has a universal use in the
home,
The law of gravity is universal,
His fame as a poet did not come until
after his death,
一致的，普遍的通用的，广泛的，万能的宇宙的，全世界的名声
What interpretation would you put on
these facts?
Interpretation is often as important as the
text itself,
The burial service is performed with
solemn and mournful music,
He looked grave as he told them about the
accident,
解释
（表演、演奏的）艺术处理庄严 严肃
He visits his mother's grave every Sunday
and lays fresh flowers on it,
We stretched the rope tight,
You're stretching my patience to the limit,
On the horizon,a huge cloud of dense
smoke from the burning oil well stretched
across the sky,
坟墓 拉使尽全力，到（超过）,.,的极限扩展，延伸，延续
These candies are a nickel each,
The pilot stopped a tragedy when he
succeeded in preventing the plane from
crashing,
Shakespeare wrote histories and tragedies,
Following the settlement of the strike,the
train service is now back to normal,
糖果 悲剧，惨案，不幸的事件悲剧 解决；协议
Heavy fighting took place last night at the
frontier,
Many scientists enjoy the excitement of
working at the frontiers of knowledge,
The prisoners were herded onto the train,
Horns are very useful weapons for some
animals,
边境，边界 前沿，新领域赶 角
A car passed him at top speed,sounding
its horn,
We must try our best to liberate our
people from poverty,
They might try to take legal action
against you if you break the contract,
We've contracted with the company for
the food at the event,
喇叭 贫穷 合同 签订合同
How did him evolve this very personal
and original style?
Can't you recruit more members to the
music society?
The new recruits were trained for six
months and then sent to the war front,
They put a few posters on the wall,
（使）演变，（使）演化，（使）发展吸收 新兵，新成员 海报
Comparing the following
words
a) inspire encourage prompt
b) portrait image statue bust
sculpture
c) buffalo cattle ox cow
d) reputation fame popularity
e) inspect examine
f) beard moustache
Homework
Learn the new words and
expressions of the text by heart,
Go over the text and try to get the
main idea of the text.
Prepare to tell a story about the
symbols of American or Chinese
culture.
Reading-Centred
Activities
1,Global Reading Task
Appreciating Figurative Language
Look at Passage A and answer my
questions to get the main idea of the
text.
Tell more stories in groups about the
symbols of American or Chinese
culture.
Reading-Centred
Activities
2,Detailed Reading Task
Language points
Simulated writing (exercises 8
and 9 )
American Culture
Unit 3
Stage 1,Warming-up Activities
Stage 2,Reading-Centred Activities
Stage 3,Vocabulary Exercises
Stage 4,Translating and Writing
Warming-up Activities
Questions for thought and
discussion
Background information
Enriching your vocabulary
Comparing the following words
Questions for thought
and discussion
Listen to a short passage
carefully and then answer the
following questions on page
92 with your own experiences.
Background information
the Statue of Liberty
Barbie dolls
Mattel Toy Company
American Gothic
Buffalo nickel
James Earle Fraser
New York City's Central Park
Uncle Sam
The idea of creating the Statue of Liberty began in France at a
dinner party hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre Laboulaye,a
scholar,Laboulaye and Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi,a
sculptor,began to discuss the idea of presenting the United
States with a monument to memorialize independence and
human liberty.
Bartholdi sailed from France to New York on June 8,1871,to
propose the building of the statue to honor the friendship
between France and the United States,As the ship pulled into
New York Harbor,Bartholdi spotted the perfect location,
Liberty Island.
During his trip to the United States,he met with US President
Ulysses S,Grant; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,an American
poet; Horace Greeley,a New York editor and politician; and
others,Bartholdi traveled across the United States carrying a
sketch of the statue and a small model,Everyone was receptive,
but financial backing was difficult to find,
It was the late 1950s when Ruth Handler noticed
her daughter playing with paper dolls and
imagining them in grown-up roles,Since most
dolls at the time were baby dolls,Ruth
envisioned one that would inspire little girls to
think about what they wanted to be when they
grew up,Ruth created a teenage fashion model
doll named Barbie (after her daughter),and the
rest is history.
Barbie has been an integral part of the lives of
millions of young girls,Her timeless appeal has
resulted in a dedicated legion of fans that love to
collect her.
Mattel is the worldwide leader in the
design,manufacture,and marketing of
toy products,The company's core brands
include Barbie,Hot Wheels,Matchbox,
Fisher-Price,and American Girl,With
headquarters in El Segundo,California,
Mattel has offices and facilities in 36
countries and sells its products in more
than 150 nations throughout the world.
Grant Wood came to Eldon in the late 1920's with fellow
artist and Eldon native,John Sharp,He was inspired by the
contrast of the modest little one-and-one-half- story frame
house with its (as he described it),pretentious” Gothic style
windows,There is one in each gable end,He sketched the
house on the back of an envelope and used it as the backdrop
in his world-renowned 1930's painting American Gothic,His
sister,Nan,and his dentist,Dr,B,H,McKeeby,posed as the
sour-faced couple,Wood intended the couple to represent a
typical small town resident and his daughter,but most
interpret them as man and wife,Since completion,Grant
Wood's 1930 painting American Gothic has become a
critically acclaimed work that continues to enjoy enormous
popularity,It also has become an American icon and is the
model for a countless number of commercial art parodies,
such as posters,cards,and souvenirs,The painting hangs in
the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1911 sculptor James Earl Fraser began designing the
“Buffalo” nickel,Fraser said the portrait on the,head's”
side was a composite of three American Indians—Iron Tail,
Big Tree and Two Moons,Fraser had the opportunity to
study and photograph them when they stopped off in New
York on their way to Washington to visit President
Theodore Roosevelt,By borrowing features from each
individual,Fraser was able to sketch the,ideal” portrait for
the nickel.
President William Howard Taft approved the art work,and
the first,Buffalo” nickels were produced in February of
1913,Two Moons died in 1917,and Iron Tail and Big Tree
in the 1920s,In the 1960s,a second Big Tree appeared at
coin shows and claimed to be the Native American on the
nickel,Although he claimed to have celebrated his 100th
birthday in 1962,later records indicated he was actually
only 87.
Fraser was born in Minnesota in 1876,but grew up on a ranch in
South Dakota,His first art instructor was a town whittler,Later,
Fraser studied art in Chicago and Paris and established a studio
in Westport,Connecticut,He was only 17 when he completed the
first modeling of,The End of the Trail”,The statue portrays a
weary native American riding an equally forlorn horse,At an
exhibition in Paris in 1898,“The End of the Trail” won a $1,000
cash prize,Despite the pressure of other projects,Fraser worked
on,The End of the Trail” off and on throughout his career,
Today a large version of the statue is in the Cowboy Hall of Fame
and Western History Center in Oklahoma City,which also has
Fraser's sketches for the,tail's” side of the Buffalo nickel.
When the Buffalo nickel finally made its debut in 1913,a coin
collector's magazine hailed it as a true work of art,powerfully
modelled,Many critics agreed,and in 1951 the American
Academy of Arts and Letters presented Fraser with a gold medal
honoring a lifetime of distinguished achievement,On October 11,
1953,James Earle Fraser died.
Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the
United States,Advocates of creating the park — primarily
wealthy merchants and landowners — admired the public
grounds of London and Paris and urged that New York
needed a comparable facility to establish its international
reputation,A public park,they argued,would offer their
own families an attractive setting for carriage rides and
provide working-class New Yorkers with a healthy
alternative to the saloon,After three years of debate over
the park site and cost,in 1853 the state legislature
authorized the City of New York to use the power of
eminent domain to acquire more than 700 acres of land in
the center of Manhattan.
New York City's Central Park Zoo is part of the Central
Park establishment,
Historians aren't completely certain how the character,Uncle Sam”
was created,or who (if anyone) he was named after.
The prevailing theory is that Uncle Sam was named after Samuel
Wilson,Wilson was born in Arlington,Mass.,on September 13,1766,
His childhood home was in Mason,New Hampshire,In 1789,he and his
brother Ebenezer walked to Troy,New York.
During the War of 1812,Wilson was in the business of slaughtering and
packing meat,He provided large shipments of meat to the US Army,in
barrels that were stamped with the initials,US”,Supposedly,someone
who saw the,US” stamp suggested — perhaps as a joke — that the
initials stood for,Uncle Sam” Wilson,The suggestion that the meat
shipments came from,Uncle Sam” led to the idea that Uncle Sam
symbolized the federal government.
Samuel Wilson died in 1854,His grave is in the Oakwood Cemetery in
Troy.
The single most famous portrait of Uncle Sam is the,I WANT YOU”
Army recruiting poster from World War I,The poster was painted by
James Montgomery Flagg in 1916-1917,
Enriching your vocabulary
Read the sentences carefully and
guess the meaning of the italicized
term in each sentence according to
the context and your own
experiences.
They planned to put up a statue for the
President,
They give their children a great deal of
liberty.
He granted the boy liberty to go out,
Excuse my liberties,
雕像 freedom
the right or permission to do or use sth,
无礼，冒昧行为
The object of his novel writing is to
amuse and enlighten the general readers,
In the square in front of the hotel stands
a monument to all the people killed in the
war,
The students tried to form an alliance
between themselves and the workers,
I don't approve of smoking in public
places,
启发，开导 纪念碑 联盟 赞成
We had to wait months for the government
to approve our plans to extend our house,
His kindness increased the child's affection
for him,
Some boys like to assemble model
airplanes,
When the fire alarm rang we assembled
outside the emergency exit,
批准，同意 爱 组装 聚集
The runner carried the Olympic torch
into the cheering stadium,
He took the torch and disappeared into
the dark,
We sailed into a beautiful and silent bay,
The threat of attack has been greatly
exaggerated,
火炬 手电筒 海湾 夸张
A baby sucks milk from his mother's
breast,
The knife entered his breast,
Two different versions of "Gone with the
Wind" are now being made in Hollywood,
The official version of the event is that the
police were attacked and were just trying
to defend themselves,
乳房 胸膛 版本；型号 叙述，说法
Charlie Chaplin is an actor of universal
liking,
This machine has a universal use in the
home,
The law of gravity is universal,
His fame as a poet did not come until
after his death,
一致的，普遍的通用的，广泛的，万能的宇宙的，全世界的名声
What interpretation would you put on
these facts?
Interpretation is often as important as the
text itself,
The burial service is performed with
solemn and mournful music,
He looked grave as he told them about the
accident,
解释
（表演、演奏的）艺术处理庄严 严肃
He visits his mother's grave every Sunday
and lays fresh flowers on it,
We stretched the rope tight,
You're stretching my patience to the limit,
On the horizon,a huge cloud of dense
smoke from the burning oil well stretched
across the sky,
坟墓 拉使尽全力，到（超过）,.,的极限扩展，延伸，延续
These candies are a nickel each,
The pilot stopped a tragedy when he
succeeded in preventing the plane from
crashing,
Shakespeare wrote histories and tragedies,
Following the settlement of the strike,the
train service is now back to normal,
糖果 悲剧，惨案，不幸的事件悲剧 解决；协议
Heavy fighting took place last night at the
frontier,
Many scientists enjoy the excitement of
working at the frontiers of knowledge,
The prisoners were herded onto the train,
Horns are very useful weapons for some
animals,
边境，边界 前沿，新领域赶 角
A car passed him at top speed,sounding
its horn,
We must try our best to liberate our
people from poverty,
They might try to take legal action
against you if you break the contract,
We've contracted with the company for
the food at the event,
喇叭 贫穷 合同 签订合同
How did him evolve this very personal
and original style?
Can't you recruit more members to the
music society?
The new recruits were trained for six
months and then sent to the war front,
They put a few posters on the wall,
（使）演变，（使）演化，（使）发展吸收 新兵，新成员 海报
Comparing the following
words
a) inspire encourage prompt
b) portrait image statue bust
sculpture
c) buffalo cattle ox cow
d) reputation fame popularity
e) inspect examine
f) beard moustache
Homework
Learn the new words and
expressions of the text by heart,
Go over the text and try to get the
main idea of the text.
Prepare to tell a story about the
symbols of American or Chinese
culture.
Reading-Centred
Activities
1,Global Reading Task
Appreciating Figurative Language
Look at Passage A and answer my
questions to get the main idea of the
text.
Tell more stories in groups about the
symbols of American or Chinese
culture.
Reading-Centred
Activities
2,Detailed Reading Task
Language points
Simulated writing (exercises 8
and 9 )
