1. The Mystery of the White Gardenia
Unit 14
The Mystery of the White Gardenia

2. Teaching Objectives 1. Function: Making comparison
2. Grammatical points: adj. & adv. Comparative and superlative
3. Vocabulary: mystery, in the midst of, delight, have a crush on, in the face of, present, in truth, in vain, forget about, contribute to, range from … to …, make … known, daydream, imbue with
4. 1. Learn to understand and talk about the positive attitude to setbacks in life.

3. Content Part 1 Listening and Speaking Part 2 Text learning
Part 3 Extended
Activities

4. Part 1 Conversation one: Listen to the conversation, and complete the tasks.
1. Who applies for the position of the project leader?
A. Peter and Susan.
B. Jeffrey and Joan.
C. Peter and Joan.
2. Why is Joan more suitable for the position?
A. She is hard-working and experienced in managing team work.
B. She’s bright and creative.
C. She’s more conscientious than Jeffery.

5. Part 1 Conversation two: Listen to the conversation, and make your own conversations.
Useful structures and expressions:
-- Compared with the …, …be more…
-- There isn’t much difference between the two cities.
-- He is a great deal more conscientious than …
-- Teacher’s salary is relatively lower compared with …
-- He is more of a…than …
-- He is as much of a …as I expected.

6. Part 1 Make your own dialogues
Make a similar conversation, comparing the similarities and differences between the country life and city life. The pictures are given for reference: VS VS

7. Words given for reference:
city life: exciting and convenient, colorful, have more opportunities, many shops, good schools, good health care, can enjoy all sorts of services and forms of entertainment, transportation system are easy to navigate, overcrowded and noisy, polluted air, poisonous gases…
country life: simple and quiet, fragrant and fresh air, be close contact with nature, few shops , many shops, outdated and conservative, underdeveloped educational facilities and medical services… .

8. Step 1 Pre-reading tasks
Part 2 Text
Step 1 Pre-reading tasks
Warming-up question discussion:
When do you give people flowers as a present? List at least three occasions when people give flowers .
2. Have you ever given your mother some gifts?( flowers, in what situations?) Do you remember your mother’s birthday?

9. Possible keys:
on birthday, meeting someone at the station/airport, seeing someone in hospital, wanting to show love for somebody…

10. 1) What happened to Marsha on her birthdays since she was 12?
Step 2 While-reading
1. first reading
Listen to the text once and read it quickly and try to finish the following comprehension questions:
1) What happened to Marsha on her birthdays since she was 12?
2) What happened when she was 17?
3) How does the writer summarize her mother’s love for
children?

11. Reference answers:
1) On her birthdays from the time she was 12, a
white gardenia was delivered to her.
2) Her boyfriend broke he heart and she was sad
because he left her.
3) The mother wanted her children to feel loved
and lovable, creative and imaginative, lovely,
strong and prefect like the gardenia, to fell the
world is magic and beautiful even in the face
of adversity.

12. 2.second reading
Read the text carefully and summarize the main idea of the story. The following words and expressions are for reference:
birthday, 12, white gardenia, sender, anonymous giver, speculating, a boy, crush, lovelorn, graduation, my father, heart attack, grief to abandonment, lovely, strong and perfect ,magic and a bit of mystery, married, 22, stopped coming.

13. Summary of the text
Every year on my birthday since I was 12, a white gardenia was delivered to me. I really didn't know the sender, my mother contributed to the imagination. As a teen-ager, though, I had more fun speculating the sender as a boy. When I was 17, I was lovelorn. It's my mother who helped me out of it. One month before my graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment. It's also my mother that made me feel love and faced my life. In truth, she wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia---lovely, strong and perfect with an aura of magic and a bit of mystery. My mother died 10 days after I was married. I was 22. That was the year the gardenia stopped coming.

14. Languages points 1.in vain
e.g. A man who finds no satisfaction in himself, seeks for it in vain elsewhere.
2. contribute: v. to give; to write articles
contribute to: to lead to
e.g. He always contributes food and clothing for the poor. ( contribute: give)
I make most of my money by writing books but I do contribute to magazines sometimes. (contribute: write )
The driver's carelessness contributed to the accident. ( contribute: lead to)

15. 3. have crush on: to be crazy about
e.g. In the first term, nearly all the girls in his class had crushes on him.
4. range from… to:
e.g. The children’s ages range from 8 to 15.
5. in (the ) face of
e.g. He showed great bravery in face of danger.
6. in truth
e.g. He went to the library in truth last night, but you weren’t there. once in a while: sometimes

16. 7. give up: to abandon an attempt to do sth.
give sb. up: no longer hope for or expect the arrival or recovery of sb.
give up sth or doing sth: to stop doing or having sth.
e.g. She gave up her job to look after her invalid mother.
Have you given up drinking wine before breakfast?
His weekends were given up to dancing.
David argued with my father for hours, but he had to give up in the end.
The doctors gave my uncle up, but he lived.

17. Useful structures and expressions
Sentences in the text:
1. It is through words that people grasp the thoughts of others and do their own thinking. (Para 2)
2. It is these four types of vocabulary that have a direct impact upon our daily lives. (Para 7)
3. Words that we learn through their use in context are much more likely to stay with us than words we memorise by themselves, as in a list or in a dictionary. (Para 6)

18. Useful structures and expressions
4. Only once in a while do we give up and look the word up in a dictionary. (Para 6)
5. My mother contributed to these imaginations.
6. I had more fun speculating that it mightbe a boy.
7. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment.
8. There was magic in the world and beauty even in the face of adverity.
9. That was the year the gardenias stopping coming.

19. Part 3 Extended Activities
1. Dictation
2. Have the students finish the exercises
from P229 to P230.
3. oral practice: prepare the retelling of the
text.
4.writing: write an article with the title of
“A present to…”