如果爱伦.坡观看冬奥会……

Susan著 小哭译

“如果爱伦.坡观看了今年的冬奥会，他可能会认为每一件事儿都太危险了，每一个人都会死。所有的参赛者都会受伤并死掉；或者他们都会伤得很重、回家后最终还是死了；或者输的队伍会变得消沉并抑郁而死。不管怎么说吧，每个人都会死”。

哈哈…….那就是今天我的一个同学在课堂讨论“美国最有影响力的作家们”所说的话。在今年的英语语言艺术课（ELA）上，我们一直在读美国最著名和最有影响力的一些作家的作品，这些作家包括亨利.戴维.梭罗、拉尔夫.沃尔多.爱默生、霍桑（我不知道他的名，译者注：纳撒尼尔）、埃德加.爱伦.坡，以及最近才读的赫尔曼.梅尔维尔。在这些作家中，霍桑的故事是我个人最喜欢的，但是我发现坡的生活最有趣儿。

我们不只是阅读这些作者的书，还要研究和分析他们的生活和个性。我们讨论梭罗是如何地有点疯狂、爱默生怎么是唯一神论的牧师、坡的很多浪漫史和个人生活中的不幸，以及梅尔维尔作为一名水手的日子。结果，我们现在对作家们的生活、性格、信仰和写作都有了很多的了解。

对这些作家们做一个简短的概括：梭罗是一个先验论者，他相信人生的意义要在自然和简约中才能找到。他花了两年的时间独自住在森林中并将这段经历写成了一本又长又乏味的书（我们必须得读）。爱默生非常地相信自立以及独立，还有就是要拥有自己的见解而不是随大流。他写了一本叫做《自立》的书，我们也必须得读。霍桑经历了善与恶的较量，结局是善通常会战胜恶、要不然就是罪最终毁掉了一个人的生活。坡是个极其严重的悲观主义者，可能是因为他一生中所在乎的多数女人（也有一个男人）都病死于肺结核。他非常地贫穷，严重地奢赌又酗酒，他的作品在他死后（死于饥饿或债主的谋杀）才出名。我对梅尔维尔了解不多，只知道他写了《白鲸》，还有就是他是一个水手。

在课堂讨论中，威尔基女士问我们上面提到的这些作家中的每一个人，对今年的冬奥会会有怎么样的反应。我们的回答相当地有趣儿。我们夸张地放大这些作家间的不同个性，以此为乐。拿他们这么取乐没什么不好，原因之一是我们并无恶意；原因之二是他们已经去世了。梭罗可能会说些关于许多运动项目都是如何地涉及大自然之类的话，就象：“啊！滑雪！滑雪意味着雪！还有冰！雪是如此地美好……大自然是多么地神奇！啊……想想那些花、树、云朵和星星……”(这个真的不是太夸张)。他也可能会很高兴于奥运会里有那么多的非裔美国人，因为他在世的时候，他反对在那时还合法的蓄奴制。

霍桑可能会喜欢冬奥会所表现出来的所有竞争力，因为他写了很多关于善会战胜恶的文章。就如同他作品中的善总是会赢，他会认为那些善良并努力训练的好人，会赢得奥运会。爱默生可能会欣赏每一个人是如此地自立并且都那么地自信。轮到坡了。我们拿坡取乐最多，因为他是如此地悲观，而我们觉得那样说很诙谐。他肯定会认为每个人都会死。即使他们不是死于受伤，也会抑郁而死。或者也有可能他会认为某个运动员是个秘密杀手，而他会想办法去将其找出来（坡必竟是侦探小说的始祖）。

我们今天课堂上的讨论非常地棒。我喜欢在ELA课上进行讨论，因为我们班是最棒的，威尔基女士也是我遇到的最好的一位英语老师。她总能找到办法让班级充满了乐趣儿而同时又具有挑战性。这只是典型的ELA课堂是什么样子的一个例子。如果你认为有趣儿的话…...那么，等着我写点关于威尔基女士曾如何不动声色地让一个学生，向全班公布了她曾经在五年级时与另一个现在也在我们班的学生约会的。那事儿发生在我将其命名为“什么是尴尬”的课堂讨论中。

【小哭介绍背景】这篇小文我觉得跟Susan之前写的那篇有关“游说讲演”的类似，讲的都是威尔基女士的课堂。我对她的这类文章非常地有兴趣儿，因为在别的渠道很难有机会了解到这些课堂上的细节。

那天她放学回家大谈特谈当天的ELA课堂上的搞笑冬奥会讨论时，我说你能不能把这么精彩的内容写篇作文给我读读啊？她竟然面露不悦之色，说是这些有什么好写的呢。我知道她之前的周末出去冬令营回家后就一直心情不好，那一周一直处于作业落下一堆也不想写的状态中，可每晚又不得不赶作业，心情很烦燥。于是，赶紧“顺毛摸”，先是对她时间紧张表示理解，其次声明写不写都可以，最后说能写的话，写几百字就行了，不用进行深刻的思考也不用发表感慨，只要能达到给我们这种没上过她的ELA课的人了解到课是如何上的就非常好了。

真别说，有的时候态度很重要。那天晚上临睡前，Susan把U盘放在我的电脑边上，告诉我作文写好了。我打开一看，觉得她写得出来的还是比讲出来的更有逻辑性。虽然主要内容我都听她讲过了，可是那么多作家我还是记不住。现在她写出来了，我就可以在网上搜索相关的背景资料，跟着她学习提高了。我不但把这几个大文豪的生平给搜出来学习了好几番，还把这些文豪为什么基本上都住在麻州、上过哈佛、甚至还集中在麻州的一个小镇康科德城这事儿也思考了一下。我想那个时候的美国远不如现在先进发达，人口也不多，所以哈佛大学可能也就是个社区学院的地位吧？而康科德城大概是麻州当时相对发达繁华的小镇吧？这些都是我凭空想像的，不一定正确。有了解背景的，请留言指教。

现在我已经很盼望Susan哪天有时间，写写“什么是尴尬”的课堂讨论了。他们的威尔基老师，实在是太强了。课上得真是精彩！Susan在她的班里，那是眼见着在进步啊。一年以前，不，半年以前，我根本都无法想像Susan的笔下会出现梭罗、爱默生、霍桑，甚至爱伦.坡和梅尔维尔的名字。对照一下她去年暑假的那些作文，她所得到的提升真的不是一点半点。遇到这样的好老师，是Susan一辈子的福气。感谢上帝！

附上英文原文：

If E. A. Poe Saw the Winter Olympics…

“If Edgar Allen Poe saw the Winter Olympics this year, he would probably think that everything is too dangerous and everyone is going to die. All the competitors are going to get hurt and die. Or that they'll get a big injury, go home, and eventually die. Or that the loosing teams will get depressed and die from depression. Some way or another, everyone’s gonna die.”

Haha…that was what one of my classmates said today during our class discussion about America’s most influencial authors. For English Language Arts this year, we have been reading the works of some of America’s most famous and influencial authors: Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hawthorne (I dunno his first name), Edgar Allen Poe, and most recently, Herman Melville. Out of all the authors, Hawthorne’s stories are my personal favorite. But I find Poe’s life the most interesting.

We haven’t just been reading these author’s works. We’ve been studying and analysing their lives and personalities. We talked about how Thoreau was a little coo-coo, about how Emerson was a Unitarian minister, about Poe’s many romances and personal tragedies, and about Melville’s days as a sailor. As a result, we now know a lot about the authors, about their lives, characters, beliefs, and writings.

Breif summary of the authors: Thoreau was a Trancendentalist, and he believed in finding the meaning of life in nature and in simplicity. He spent two years living alone in the woods and wrote a long boring book about it (we had to read it). Emerson believed a lot in self-reliance and independence and having your own ideas instead of going with the flow. He wrote a book called Self-Reliance that we had to read. Hawthorne explored the rivalry between good and evil, with good usually triumphing over evil, or with sin ultimately ruining a person’s life. Poe was very pessimistic, maybe because most of the women (and a man) he cared for in his life died from a disease called tuburcolosis. He was very poor and gambled and drank a lot, and his writings only got famous after he died (either from starvation or from being murdered by people he owed money to). I don’t know much about Melville other than he wrote Moby Dick and that he was a sailor.

During class discussion, Ms. Wilkie asked us about how each of those authors mentioned above would react to the Winter Olympics this year. Our responses were quiet amusing. We exaggerated the different authors’ personalities and made fun of them that way. It was okay to make fun of them because 1) we weren’t being mean and 2) they’re already dead. Thoreau probably would’ve said something about how involved in nature a lot of the sports were, like “Oh! Skiing! Skiing means snow! And ice! Snow is so beautiful…how wonderful nature is! Ahhh…think of the flowers and trees and clouds and stars….” (this is actually not that much of an exaggeration). He also would’ve liked how there were African Americans in the Olympics, because while he was alive, he was against slavery, which was still allowed back then.

Hawthorne would’ve liked the competitiveness of it all, because he wrote a lot about good competing against evil. And just like how good always won in his writings, he woud think the good people, the ones who are nice and trained hard, would win in the Olympics. Emerson would enjoy how everyone is self-reliant and all trusted in themselves. Then we got to Poe. We had the most fun with Poe, because he is just so pessimistic that it’s humorous. He would definitely think everyone would die. Even if they don’t die from an injury, they’ll get depressed and die. Or maybe he would think that one of the athletes is plotting murder, and he would try to solve it (Poe was the the father of detective stories, after all).

We had a great class discussion today. I like it when we discuss things during ELA, because our class is the best, and Ms. Wilkie is the best ELA teacher ever. She can always find ways to make class fun while still being challenging. This is just one example of what a typical class of ELA is like. If you think this was interesting….well, just wait until I write something about how Ms. Wilkie indirectly made a student announce to the whole class that she used to date another student who’s in our class when they were both in fifth grade. Now THAT’S what I call awkward.