Can‘t replace humans (P1)
邯郸市第一中学 李松

I. Warming up  
Do you have a favorite poem?
What is it that impresses you most about it?

II. Pre-reading
Read the title and the first two paragraphs and predict what the passage is about.

III. Fast-reading
Read the article and answer the following question.
1. What is the magic of poetry?
The magic of poetry lies in the connection built up through words between the author and the reader.
2. What can a computer do, according to the passage?
Today, computers can create all kinds of texts, including research papers, books, news stories and even poems by using algorithms.
3. Who is Oscar Schwartz?
Oscar Schwartz is an Australian researcher who created a website called “bot or not” with his friend Benjamin Laird.
4. What was the purpose of launching the website “bot or not”?
By launching the website, Schwartz and Laird hoped that people would question the difference between humans and machines – and be able to identify what makes us human.

IV. Close-reading
Fill in the blanks with no more than 3 words.
 
Can you guess which one was written by a computer?

Poem 1 (William Blake)

Little Fly
Thy summer’s play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

Poem 2 (computer)
We can feel
Activist through your life’s morning
Pauses to see, pope I hate the Non all the night to start a great otherwise

I’ll snake swirling
Vastness guess
Totally mental hamsters if I
Know I put on a year a crucial absolutely.

Discuss with your partner and find what the last paragraph means.
So a new challenge arises: What kind of human mind do we want the computer to reflect back at us?
Maybe it is impossible to build a human-like computer because the human is not a scientific fact, and human mind changes over time. Currently, computers can only create something based on what have already been written by humans. Therefore, it is we human beings that should be responsible for what and how computers reflect back to humans.

V. Language study-phrases
 

V. Language study- Sentence analyzing
1. Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind.
解析： where引导定语从句，修饰place。
翻译： 诗歌是人诉说独特的思想的地方。

2. In 2013, Australian researcher Oscar Schwartz and his friend Benjamin Laird created a website called “bot or not”, where readers can read poems and guess whether they were written by a human or a computer.
解析： where引导定语从句，修饰website。whether引导宾语从句。
翻译： 2013年澳大利亚研究人员奥斯卡施瓦茨和他的朋友本杰明莱尔德创造了一个叫“dot or not”的网站。在这个网站上人们可以读诗，并且猜测这些诗歌是人写的还是电脑写的。

VI. Post-reading
To learn more about the topic, visit the following website:
https://www.ted.com/talks/oscar_schwartz_can_a_computer_write_poetry/transcript#t-644162

Food for Thought (P4-5)
太原市外国语学校   王丽媛

I. Warming up  
Do you like hamburgers? Which do you prefer, small ones or big ones? Why?

II. Pre-reading
Do you like fast food? It is believed that fast food is not good for our health. Can you offer some reasons why you think that’s true?
·Fast food is rich in saturated fat (饱和脂肪), sugar, salt and calories.
·Eating too much fast food has been linked to, among other things, colorectal cancer(肠癌), obesity(肥胖) and high cholesterol(高胆固醇).
·For children, the risk of respiratory(呼吸的) problems is especially clear. One study found that children who eat fast food at least three times a week are more likely to develop asthma(哮喘).

Do Americans like big hamburgers or not?
Read the article to check whether you have guessed correctly or not.

III. While-reading
A first look
Read the article and try to find out what it is about.
What is the main idea of this article?
By using the Big Mac as an example, the author tries to discuss whether bigger is always better.

A closer look
Read the article and answer the following questions.
1. When did the Big Mac burger become popular?
It became popular after its launch in 1968.

2. When and why did McDonald's decide to drop its “super size” option?
In 2004, the documentary Super Size Me came out. In the documentary, an American actor lived a month only on food from McDonald’s, and agreed to “super size” his order whenever offered. At the end of the month, he was found to have gained 11 kilograms  and was suffering serious liver damage. Within two months of the film’s release, McDonald's decided to drop its “super size” option.

3. Why has “bigger is better” long been part of the general philosophy in the US, according to the article? What are some other examples?
It is tied to an American sensibility and tied in with machismo.
More examples:
(1) The supermarkets in the US are bigger than those in Europe.
(2) The Americans also prefer bigger cars like SUVs and pick-up trucks.

4. Do Europeans believe that “bigger is better”? Which country has been cited as an example to show the difference? What is the example given?
No, Europeans have a different view on things.
France has been cited as an example to show the difference. In France, food tends to come in smaller sizes but in more courses, and people tend to take their time when eating.

5. Now that Americans have learned that ‘bigger is better’ isn’t always true, will they just give up their love of big things?
No, they will probably not. As Wexler said, the ‘world’s largest thing’ records they held in Guinness World Records were fun.

Words & Expressions
 

Sentence analyzing
1. In 2004, the documentary Super Size Me came out, in which American actor Morgan Spurlock, who’s also the director, lived a month on nothing but food from McDonald’s, and agreed to “super size” his order whenever offered.
解析：此句中包含两个定语从句,连接词which和who，修饰先行词the documentary Super Size Me和American actor Morgan Spurlock。
翻译：2004年，纪录片《麦胖报告》得以出版。片中，同时兼任该片导演的美国演员摩根·斯普尔洛克，在一个月中仅以麦当劳为食，且他同意每次下单都点特大号的食物。

2. That’s because in French culture, food is meant to be something that’s enjoyed, rather than something that should be eaten as fast as possible.
解析：此句中包含有由that引导的定语从句，修饰something。
翻译：这是因为在法国文化中，食物是用来享受的，而不是应该尽快吃掉的。

IV. Post-reading
Discussion
After reading the article, do you think that “bigger is better”? For what reasons? Please share your ideas with your group members on this topic and try to cite examples to support your idea.

Writing task
Write a composition with the title
 Is bigger better? 
Write at least 100 words, and refer to today’s group discussion.