Art for art s sake Unit overview Unit key featuresOrganizing suggestions Passage 1 How we listen Passage 2 The mystery of Girl with a Pearl Earring Passage 1 is an analytical essay reasoning about and explaining three different levels of listening to music Passage 2 is an expository and narrative piece of writing about a famous Dutch painting of Girl with a Peal Earring Use Passage 1 for understanding how an analytical essay is organized and how the writer develops his explanations and presents his reasons Use Passage 2 for learning how narratives are used in an expository writing to describe and discuss the theme of the passage Spend equal time on both passages Give background information of the passages to aid Ss understanding Reading skills a Reading to learn the organizations and development of the passages b Reading aloud and paying attention to the pronunciation of the names of the artists music and paintings c Reading to interpret main ideas of the passages Use both Passage 1 and Passage 2 for skills a b and c T uses the approach of reading aloud to highlight the importance of pronunciation skills Speaking skills Performing debates in Talking point activities Using questions to develop oral discussion Use speaking activities for presenting arguments in Talking point activities organizing and presenting thoughts and views Writing skills and tasks Learning to write a succession of ideas by using sequential discourse markers especially structuring adverbs Encourage Ss to use structuring adverbs in their essay writing which will help to organize their thoughts and signal to the readers their key points of view Cognitive skills Learning to give different views by presenting reasons with evidence or examples Encourage Ss to learn to think in different ways and to identify issues through questioning Reading across cultures The top five paintings in Western art The passage is a descriptive account of five famous Western paintings Help Ss get to know some Western paintings and appreciate both Western and Chinese arts through the activities in this section Unit 3 Unit 3 Art for art s sake 66 Teaching suggestions and answer keys Starting point 1 Work in pairs Read the quotations and discuss the questions Teaching tips Encourage Ss to elaborate on the meanings and make their own comments especially if they know something about the people who gave the quotations Please refer to the following examples 1 Can you explain in your own words what each artist is trying to say I don t paint things I only paint the difference between things Henri Matisse French painter I think this probably means that Henri Matisse 1869 19 54 did not paint things to look realistic He didn t just try to represents things in art in the way that we normally see them Rather he wanted to show how one thing differed from another So he was comparing things through art Matisse used strong expressive colours and his paintings have a decorative effect of colour line and form His sculptures are unconventional too Without music life would be a mistake Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher Obviously this means that music is very important for life Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 19 00 is known for the way he rejected absolute moral values as he argued that people were free to create their own values Of course people are free to create their own world without music but that would be a mistake Poetry is what gets lost in translation Robert Frost American poet This must simply mean that you can t really translate poetry You can translate the words maybe but the qualities of poetry that really make it poetry get lost when the words are translated Robert Frost 1874 19 63 is known for his accessible and readable poetry so you might expect to be able to translate his poems easily But the quotation tells us to think about poetry thoroughly and feel it as more than combinations of words Art is a kind of illness Giacomo Puccini Italian composer Literally it means that art is a bad thing or is unhealthy But I think it means that art is contagious it goes from the artist to audience and from person to person like an illness and you can t resist it because it may take over your life Giacomo Puccini 1858 19 24 composed operas with a strong gift for melody and dramatic effects in exotic plots His operas are very catching like an illness so you remember the melodies easily 2 Which quotation do you agree with most I agree that poetry is what gets lost in translation because it really makes me think about language There are obviously many translations of poetry from one language to another People not only translate poems but the poetic language of prose As students we translate not only when doing translation exercises but also when we try to speak and write in English We may lose something but mainly gain something in another language Art for art s sake Unit 3 67 2 Work in pairs and discuss the questions 1 When did you last go to an art gallery I saw an exhibition of cerami