Understandable Chinese Extracurricular Reading Guide (China Edition) - Illustrated New Curriculum Standards

Author: None
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Literature is one of the key content areas in Chinese middle school language exams and also a part of the cultivation of high-quality talents. Therefore, it is necessary to learn some literary knowledge and understand some literary masterpieces. Literature not only enriches knowledge and broadens horizons but also cultivates the imagination and writing skills of middle school students, greatly benefiting their academic performance. In addition to understanding the splendid literature of their own country, middle school students should also master the literary knowledge of other countries in the world, as they are also important components of human knowledge and wisdom and are treasures that the younger generation cannot afford to ignore. To improve the literary literacy and language proficiency of middle school students, we have compiled the book "Illustrated New Curriculum—Chinese Language Extracurricular Reading You Can Understand," divided into two volumes: China Volume and Foreign Volume. This book is the China Volume. It introduces all the extracurricular reading materials prescribed by the New Curriculum for Chinese language (covering both junior and senior high schools). When introducing each (type) of literary work, it is divided into three parts: an introduction to the work (and the author), an outline of the content (essential excerpts), and creative or exploratory reading methods and reflections. The first part includes the author and work introduction, or an introduction to the literary category, which belongs to literary and is an important knowledge point in middle school exams. For example, the author of Journey to the West is Wu Cheng'en, a Ming Dynasty novelist. His courtesy name is Ruzhong, and his sobriquet is Sheyang Mountain Man. He was born in Huai'an Shanyang (Hua'an, Jiangsu) and lived from 1504 to 1582. He experienced five dynasties during his lifetime: Hongzhi, Zhengde, Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli. Journey to the West is an outstanding long narrative fantasy novel in the history of Chinese literature, together with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Dream of the Red Chamber, known as the Four Great Classical Novels of China. The process of writing Journey to the West is similar to that of Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms: it was based on certain historical facts, developed through long-term folk circulation and the creation of quyi, opera, and storytelling, and finally summarized and written by a single author. The second part is the outline of the work's content or selected excerpts from the essence. When introducing masterpieces, it mainly describes the setting, development, and main plot of the book, allowing readers to understand the main content of the book. The content outlines in the book are not empty introductions but concise summaries or selections that basically maintain the writing style of the original work, enabling readers to grasp the original content while gaining a general understanding of the author's writing techniques. When introducing foreign poetry, it selects the most outstanding parts of the work to display to readers. When introducing other types of literary works or reading materials, it selects several works with educational significance or high popularity and literary value for introduction. For example, in the outline of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is written: In the first year of the Zhongping reign of Emperor Ling, Zhang Jiao and his brothers launched the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and the imperial army trembled at the news. To resist the Yellow Turbans, the governor of Youzhou, Liu Yan, posted a recruitment notice. At that time, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all went to see the recruitment notice. The three men met by chance but all shared a desire to serve the country, so they became close at first sight and were persuaded by Zhang Fei to drink wine in the peach garden behind his own village. Later, the three of them swore an oath under the sky and became brothers, joining Liu Yan together. The following stories, such as "Passing Five Passes and Slashing Six Generals," "Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage," "Burning the Red Cliffs," and "Seven Captures of Meng Huo," are vividly depicted. The outline continues until the end of the work, giving children an understanding of the entire story. The third part is the exploratory or creative reading reflections of the work. Every literary work, especially masterpieces, has profound historical significance and enlightenment. When compiling this book, we focused on the enlightenment of reading, allowing readers to draw the greatest spiritual nourishment from the works while understanding them, avoiding reading purely for the sake of reading. Through exploratory and creative reading, readers' reading level is improved, and their understanding of the works is deepened. To help students master more literary knowledge and understand more literary masterpieces in the shortest time possible, we compiled this book with a scientific and pragmatic attitude, believing it will greatly benefit readers in improving their reading and writing skills. To adapt to the memory characteristics of middle school students and enhance readers' interest in learning, the book uses vivid language for narration while complementing it with a large number of illustrations, achieving a combination of text and images, making it lively and vivid. We hope this book will be loved by a wide range of readers and that they will learn stories from different eras through various masterpieces, drawing spiritual nourishment from them while acquiring knowledge and setting lofty aspirations in their studies.