1. How to Tell a Story
March 24 高中进阶版 P4-5

2. Pre-reading How would you tell a story?
What’s the difference between telling humorous stories and comic stories?

3. Mark Twain Culture bites
Samuel Langhorne Clemens ( ), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist.
He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the latter often called “the Great American Novel.”

4. Mark Twain Culture bites
In 1865, his humorous story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published. The short story brought international attention.
His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers.
He was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age,” and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

5. While-reading Answer the following questions.
1. Which country created the telling of humorous stories?
America.
2. Why should the listener be alert when listening to a humorous story?
Because the teller will divert attention from the nub of the story by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretence that he does not know it is a nub.

6. While-reading Answer the following questions.
3. How do people print a comic story?
They italicize the nub of the story, put some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explain it in a parenthesis.
4. What’s Mark Twain’s attitude toward humorous stories and comic stories respectively?
Humorous stories are strictly a work of art—high and delicate art, but comic stories are very depressing and make one want to renounce joking.

7. While-reading Complete the following table. Humorous Story
Comic Story/
Witty Story
Effect depends on:
The length of the story:
Who can tell the story?
How is the story told?
The manner of the telling
The matter of the story
Long
Brief
Only artists
Anybody
The story is told gravely.
The teller tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard.
The teller conceals the funny parts of the story.
The teller slurs the nub of the story.
The teller will repeat the nub of the story.

8. Language study
Complete each sentence with the proper form of the given words.
depend upon
spin out
wander around
glance around
divert from
end with
How much business will be ____________ Hong Kong to other cities after China enters the WTO?
Remember, happiness doesn’t ____________ who you are or what you have.
When the children left home, she used to ____________ the house as if she’d lost something.
Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ____________ a tear.
The government is trying to ____________ the conference into next autumn.
Rudolph ____________ to make sure nobody was watching them.
diverted from
depend upon
wander around
ends with
spin out
glanced around

9. After-reading FURTHER What can you learn from this passage?
Read a short story written by Mark Twain and find out how he tells a story.

10. Further reading The Wounded Soldier
In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained; whereupon the generous soldier, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man’s head off—without, however, his deliverer being aware of it.

11. Further reading The Wounded Soldier
In no-long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
“Where are you going with that body?”
“To the rear, sir—he’s lost his leg!”
“His leg, forsooth?” responded the astonished officer; “you mean his head, you booby.”
Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:
“It is true, sir, just as you have said.” Then after a pause he added, “But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG—”

12. Further reading The Wounded Soldier
Is it a humorous story or comic story?
Tell this story in a humorous way in class.