Time Flower Rain, First Series: Black and White Jiangnan in the Strings of Time

Author: Zhang Jian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The Basic Education Chinese Reading Research Development Center, under the direct leadership of the Ministry of Education, has transformed the research findings of the project "The Integrated Research on Middle School Students' Reading Skills and Comprehensive Quality Education" into this series of "Reading Edition Chinese" textbooks. The series aims to better serve Chinese language teaching and testing in middle schools and to better support comprehensive quality education for middle school students. It is a scientific, systematic, rigorous, and authoritative "new type of comprehensive quality education elective supplementary textbook." As supplementary teaching materials for the experimental promotion of Chinese language teaching in middle schools, it is used in sync with the current main textbooks used in various school districts. It is also used as supplementary materials for the compulsory and elective courses of Chinese language teaching. Based on years of research findings from relevant projects of the Ministry of Education, the series was developed over three years under the guidance of multiple experts from the Ministry of Education's subject expert group, with repeated discussions and joint writing by nearly 300 frontline senior and distinguished teachers from all over the country. It was experimentally used by tens of thousands of teachers and students in experimental teaching areas in Beijing, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hubei, Anhui, and other provinces. During the experimental use, it received widespread praise and achieved high teaching effectiveness, and was improved and revised based on positive feedback.
The purpose of writing the "Reading Edition Chinese" series
1. The writing of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series is centered on the requirements of the Ministry of Education's newly formulated "Curriculum Standards" and "Teaching Outline" for the current stage of middle school students' Chinese reading. It aims to serve the "three aspects" of the "Curriculum Standards" for middle school Chinese language teaching and testing—"knowledge and skills," "process and methods," and "attitudes and values"—and focuses on cultivating students' abilities to apply, appreciate, and explore Chinese language.
2. The writing of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series also emphasizes the testing (evaluation) of teaching achievements. According to the testing and evaluation capabilities required by the "New Curriculum Standards" for middle school Chinese language teaching achievements, it provides targeted training, sets up corresponding assessments, and draws on the latest models of junior high school and senior high school exams, absorbing the latest achievements of question-setting experts to align with junior high school and senior high school exams.
3. The writing of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series aims to comprehensively improve the Chinese language comprehensive quality of middle school students. Through the use of "Reading Edition Chinese," students acquire knowledge and skills in five developmental aspects—accumulation and integration, perception and appreciation, thinking and comprehension, application and expansion, and discovery and innovation—to promote balanced and personalized development.
Accumulation and integration
"Reading Edition Chinese" enables students to focus on self-organization during the process of accumulating comprehensive quality in Chinese language. It allows students to leverage their strengths and address weaknesses, gradually forming a personalized approach to Chinese language learning. It employs appropriate methods to solve problems in reading and communication. By integrating comprehensive Chinese language knowledge, skills, learning methods, and elements of emotions, attitudes, and values, it effectively improves students' Chinese literacy.
Perception and appreciation
"Reading Edition Chinese" enables students to savor the language and feel the ideological and artistic charm of excellent works, developing their imagination and aesthetic ability. Through reading and appreciation, students deepen their love for the Chinese language, experience the vastness, depth, and longevity of Chinese culture, cultivate their temperament, and improve their moral cultivation.
Thinking and comprehension
"Reading Edition Chinese" enables students to grasp the rich connotations of the material through reading and reflection, explore the value of life and the spirit of the times, gradually form their own principles of thought and action, develop the habit of independent thinking and inquiry, and enhance the rigor, depth, and criticality of their thinking.
Application and expansion
"Reading Edition Chinese" enhances students' comprehensive ability to correctly, skillfully, and effectively use the Chinese language. It broadens students' horizons in application, helping them initially recognize their potential and tendencies in learning Chinese, allowing them to develop in their favorite fields as needed. It improves students' cross-disciplinary learning ability, expands the scope of Chinese language learning, and enhances their comprehensive application ability through extensive practice.
Discovery and innovation
"Reading Edition Chinese" focuses on cultivating students' ability to observe language, literature, and cultural phenomena in China and abroad, learning to identify problems from facts and processes, fostering a sense of inquiry and sensitivity to discovering issues. It ensures students maintain a strong interest and passion for the unknown world, pursuing innovative thinking and innovative expression.
The composition and function of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series
The "Reading Edition Chinese" series (volume) is divided into seven series, each with ten volumes. They are: "Chinese Morning Reading" (10 volumes); "Innovative Reading" (10 volumes); "Beautiful Prose Like a Song" (10 volumes); "Current Articles in a Rain of Flowers" (10 volumes); "Wisdom in the Starry Sky" (10 volumes); "Gazing at the Great" (10 volumes); "Looking Back at History" (10 volumes).
The "Reading Edition Chinese" series addresses the problems students encounter in reading practice from multiple perspectives and levels, solving the following aspects: ① What to read—goals, ② Why read—purposes, ③ How to read—methods, ④ How well to read—evaluation. The various sub-series complement each other, are closely related, yet have distinct focuses.
"Current Articles in a Rain of Flowers," "Wisdom in the Starry Sky," "Gazing at the Great," and "Looking Back at History" primarily address the question of "what to read." These four series provide middle school students with numerous short, fresh, profound, and vivid reading materials, allowing them to read without pressure, learn to read, fall in love with reading, and benefit lifelong.
"Chinese Morning Reading" and "Beautiful Prose Like a Song" focus on "how to read," emphasizing method guidance. Both series select high-quality reading materials, allowing students to fully absorb the essence of each article, experience the wisdom of the times, easily appreciate life, and accumulate cultural charm. The outstanding features of these two series are their primary goals of guiding and improving students' reading ability and helping them grasp techniques and methods.
"Innovative Reading" focuses on the evaluation of goals, purposes, and methods. This series emphasizes synchronous teaching and exams, aiming to help students break free from tedious and fragmented reading, stimulate reading interest, and subtly implement "loving education, aesthetic cultivation, intellectual training, and writing improvement." It helps students accumulate knowledge, materials, emotions, and thoughts.
The format features of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series
Although the seven series of the "Reading Edition Chinese" series have different focuses, they complement each other and are closely linked. The series takes knowledge accumulation and language sense cultivation as the main thread, selecting excellent campus literature suitable for students to read, and compiling Chinese language knowledge and writing materials. It not only meets the needs of students' cultural literacy and knowledge accumulation but also closely aligns with the new "Curriculum Standards," providing students with the most classic wisdom readers for morning reading classes.
The series has the following format settings and functional features:
1. Two editions are arranged according to the principle of ability progression: the silver edition (basic edition) for the first level and the gold edition (advanced edition) for the second level (specifically designed for students with surplus learning capacity). On the basis of developing good morning reading habits, it further aims to understand culture, improve taste, expand thinking, and comprehensively enhance students' reading and writing abilities.
2. The format structure is set according to teaching progress and learning stages. The series is divided into two modules per volume, with one module for each academic year—Module 1 and Module 2. Each module is approximately arranged for 15 weeks.
3. Different formats are provided every day from Monday to the weekend. Monday [Memorize classic poems]; Tuesday [Recite beautiful and current articles]; Wednesday [Record classic idioms]; Thursday [Read stories of famous people]; Friday [Appreciate junior high school (senior high school) excellent works], [Appreciate works of famous writers]; Weekend (junior high school) [Know the history of thousands of years].
Requirements for using the "Innovative Reading" series (10 volumes)
The newly formulated "Curriculum Standards" strongly emphasize reading ability, especially including extracurricular reading in the curriculum goals, clarifying teaching strategies, evaluation opinions, and total reading volume requirements. To adapt to this trend and reflect new teaching concepts, it is convenient for teachers, parents, and students to choose reading materials, we have organized a group of distinguished and senior teachers to write this series. The reading selections in this series strive to have a distinct sense of the times and rich humanistic connotations, reflecting the latest developments in science and technology, authentically portraying school, family, and social life, expressing the beautiful emotions, cooperation spirit, and friendly relationships between people, and revealing the philosophy of life and life. At the same time, it emphasizes the combination of readability and interest, allowing students to receive moral and literary in a relaxed reading environment.
Requirements for using the "Beautiful Prose Like a Song" series (10 volumes)
This series selects excellent prose masterpieces that have emerged in recent years, including narrative and lyrical essays, as well as miscellaneous essays with a literary flavor. Each article provides three different styles and perspectives for appreciation, aiming to inspire students and help them gain insights.
Requirements for using the "Current Articles in a Rain of Flowers" series (10 volumes)
The "current articles" referred to here are those closely related to the times. Most of the selected articles are new essays and sketches from 2003 onwards, ensuring the timeliness of the articles. The articles are arranged according to the age level of the reading audience, with difficulty ranging from low to high and depth from shallow to deep. A "guidance" text is provided after each article. The format is concise and clear, while the content is profound yet easy to understand.
Requirements for using the "Wisdom in the Starry Sky" series (10 volumes)
This series consists of ten volumes, the result of the painstaking efforts of dozens of frontline distinguished and senior Chinese language teachers over nearly two years. It selects more than 4,000 simple yet thought-provoking fables and philosophical stories, with the teacher's insights added at the end of each wisdom story. It strives to explain profound life philosophies in plain and accessible language, greatly benefiting teenagers in "building a solid foundation for their spirit" and accumulating writing materials.
Requirements for using the "Gazing at the Great" series (10 volumes)
Each volume features influential Chinese and foreign cultural figures such as Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Shakespeare, Hugo, etc. It widely collects in-depth evaluation articles about these masters by themselves and others. These articles are positive in thought and focus on humanistic care, offering positive references for students' personal growth, writing, and reading.
Requirements for using the "Looking Back at History" series (10 volumes)
Each volume selects historical figures from China and abroad, such as Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Xiang Yu, Emperor Wu of Han, Zu Chongzhi, Cao Cao, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Nicolaus Copernicus, and compiles exquisite articles written by them or about them. The selected texts balance literary charm and interest, avoiding dullness and stiffness. The purpose of the "Looking Back at History" series is to increase students' historical knowledge, allowing them to engage in conversations with historical figures in a relaxed and pleasant mood, improve their reading ability, accumulate writing materials, and enhance their writing skills.
Requirements for using the "Reading Edition Chinese" series
The "Innovative Reading" series adopts a 1+1 model from the seventh and eighth grades to the ninth and tenth grades, divided into the "Basic Achievement" and "Knowledge and Ability Upgrade" editions. The ninth and tenth grades use the "Comprehensive Challenge" edition. Students are required to engage in relaxed training through relaxed reading, achieving the goal of practicing while reading, understanding while practicing, and writing after understanding, thereby improving their appreciation and writing skills.
The "Chinese Morning Reading" series adopts a 1+1 model from the seventh and eighth grades to the ninth and tenth grades, divided into the silver and gold editions. The ninth and tenth grades use the diamond edition (comprehensive breakthrough edition). Students are required to practice according to the selected texts, focusing on guiding them in understanding, comprehension, appreciation, creation, expression, and imagination; emphasizing ability training; nurturing reading methods; and connecting extracurricular and in-class learning.
Requirements for using the "Beautiful Prose Like a Song," "Current Articles in a Rain of Flowers," and "Wisdom in the Starry Sky" series
In the junior high school stage, students are required to complete the first to sixth volumes, and students with surplus learning capacity can optionally read the seventh to tenth volumes. In the senior high school stage, students must complete the seventh to tenth volumes after reading the first to sixth volumes.
Reading cannot change the length of life, but it can change its width; reading cannot change the appearance of life, but it can change its atmosphere! "Reading Edition Chinese," let us work together to take reading to the end!