Talking About Stories. Theoretical Preliminaries. The Plan for Rendering the Story, страница 17

Sample exercise 1.  Find the topic sentence in paragraphs 1and 2.

Paragraph 1

The topic sentence: “we have to get home for dinner.”

Paragraph 2

The topic sentence: “Like many other families, my neighbour, her husband and children have hectic schedules and rarely find themselves at dinner time.”

Sample exercise 2. State the topic and the main ideas in paragraphs 3 and 4.

Paragraph 3

The topic : family dinner time.

The main idea: The traditional family is eroding… and one key reason is the demise of family dinner time.

Paragraph 4

The topic: family dinner time.

The main idea: Dinner in the author’s family served as a touchstone, symbolizing their importance to one another in good times and bad.

A.  Read each paragraph and decide on its topic. Then think about the idea that the author wishes to express about the topic.

Write out the main idea sentence of each paragraph. You will get about 20 sentences.

B. Get ready to present a short summary of the whole article basing on the main idea sentences.

Text № 2.

Aim: retell the story with the elements of text analysis

A JAPANESE LEGEND

There is a strange belief among the Japanese people that mirrors have souls. The reason for this belief is that they say that the mirror takes to itself, something of the owner’s spirit, by constantly reflecting the person’s image. They, therefore, treat mirrors with care and reverence, believing that from being used by so many generations, the mirror will reflect the various qualities of character of people who used it. Mirrors have an honourable place in Japanese household, and are never thrown away, but passed down from one generation to another. Here is a short story which illustrates the high esteem in which some Japanese families held their fashionable articles of toilet.

There was a certain house in the town of Kyoto, which people avoided. The reason for their fear was that two of the former owners of the house had drowned themselves in the well that stood in the courtyard. Both of these tenants had apparently been very happy and there seemed no cause for them to commit suicide, yet both had become victims of some wicked spell.

The house had been lying empty for some time, as no one was willing to occupy a place with such a bad reputation, and so it was let very cheaply to Matsumura, a poor priest. He had come to the city to try to get a grantfrom the Regent for the restoration of the temple in his own country village.

Shortly after Marsumura took over the tenancy of the house, a great drought occurred in that area. Water became very scarce and many wells and reservoirs dried up. Matsumura’s well was one of the few that did not go dry and it allowed many people to come and draw water from it.

One day there was an outcry in the courtyard. A young man had been found drowned in the well. Only then did Matsumura recall all the queer stories about this strange house. Once more, the people of the neighbourhood shunned the house and went to draw their water elsewhere, leaving Matsumura alone.

As he sat on the brink of the well, Matsumura kept turning these strange happenings over and over in his mind and there seemed to be no solution for their tragic occurrences. All at once, he started, for something white appeared in the dark water below. It was a very beautiful woman. She smiled sadly at the priest. Matsumura felt his knees melt with fright. He had hardly strength to run from the well. When he had sufficiently recovered from the spell which she seemed to have cast over to him, he called some men to help him to cover the well. They weighed the lid down with great stones and logs, so that no one else might fall a victim to the enchantress beneath.

That night, there came a knock at Matsumura’s door. He opened it and saw the maid of the well standing in the moonlight. In spite of his terror, the priest cried, “Witch, what doyou want? Why have you drawn people to their death? Ishall call on the good spirit to drive you away”.