Into the World of Fantasy: Amazing Works from English Fantasy Unit
文学的世界里，奇幻文学这一体裁对孩子们来说无疑极具吸引力。《哈利波特》《指环王》《纳尼亚传奇》……在这些耳熟能详的书目里，作者们将无边无际的想象，幻化为一个个独一无二的世界，令遨游其中的孩子深深感受着思维的广阔无垠。
In the world of literature, the genre of fantasy literature is undoubtedly very attractive to children. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia …… In these familiar stories, the authors have transformed their boundless thoughts into a unique world, making the children who roam in it deeply feel the vastness of imagination.
本学期，各年级学生们正是以“奇幻文学”单元开启了新学年的学习之旅。跟随着老师们的步伐，学生们不仅是兴致勃勃的读者，更成为了孜孜不倦的研究者，以及充满灵感的作者。根据不同年级孩子们的学习情况，老师们向大家介绍了来自世界各地的奇幻文学作品，教授了使用的文本分析与写作技巧，最后帮助学生们创造自己的作品。
This semester, students in all grades began the school year with the Fantasy unit. Following the lead of their teachers, the students became not only the excited readers, but also the tireless researchers and the inspired authors. Depending on the grade level, the teachers introduced the students to fantasy literature from around the world, taught them how to do the text analysis and improve writing skills, and create their own stories finally.
在六年级的课堂里，学生们就通过J.K罗琳《哈利波特》、罗尔德·达尔《女巫》等经典文本，走进了奇妙的幻想世界当中。在阅读之外，学生们需要关注角色特点，剖析故事情节如何发展，学着叙述故事主题，同时提取这些关键元素，总结写作技巧，为自己的创作打下基础。九年级的学生们还接触了不少东方作家的作品，比如村上春树的《遇到百分百女孩》与刘慈欣的《乡村教师》，阅读文本时学生们还会使用一些学术阅读技巧，比如直接与间接描写人物等等，同时尝试对小说展开批判性分析。
For example, G6 students stepped into the fantasy world through many classic texts such as J.K Rowling's Harry Potter and Roald Dahl's The Witches. Beyond reading, students were required to focus on the characteristic, analyze how the storyline develops, and narrate the story. Meanwhile, they tried to extract these key elements and ultimately created their own stories by using these writing skills. G9 students read some works from Eastern authors, such as Haruki Murakami's Meet the 100 Percent Girl and Liu Cixin's The Village Teacher. When reading these texts, students also explored varieties of fantasy and worked on building arguments, while at the same time had the opportunity to be creative through the use of fantasy elements in their own fictional compositions.
在吸收知识后，最重要的是表达。在课堂里，我们看到学生们都对这一单元主题表现出了十足的兴趣，而我们的老师们也非常善于发现孩子们的关注点，设计了许多别具趣味的任务，并积极鼓励大家利用所学技巧，尽情展开想象力进行创作。在这样的正向激励下，孩子们也展现出了源源不绝的创作灵感，给我们带来一个又一个惊喜。随着单元学习落下帷幕，不同年级的孩子们都已经完成了自己的作品，一些班级还精心组织了演讲与分享。看着孩子们落落大方地站在讲台上，诉说自己脑海中丰富多彩的幻想世界，台下的听众们津津有味，时不时给出欢笑和欢呼，这一切都让人真切感觉到他们的进步。
The most important thing is to express after learning the knowledge. Our teachers found out that the students showed full interest in the topic of fantasy, and they designed many interesting tasks and encouraged them to use the skills they learned to express their imagination. With positive feedback from their teachers, our children are full of confidence and passion in writing. They can always surprise us with wonderful and creative works.As the unit study came to an end, students from different grades had finished their work and shared their students in class. The students talk about the fantasy world in their minds with confidence, and the audience was very interested and gave laughter and cheers from time to time. These warm classroom scenes make people really feel the progress of our students.
八年级橙组学生课堂展示掠影，孙老师为同学们邀请到其他年级英语老师进行点评，并评选出其中的优秀作品，颁发了Best Grammy与Best Story奖项。
六年级绿组学生课堂展示掠影
最后，我们想与大家分享几篇学生们的精彩作品，其中有一些是他们对于小说文本的分析，有一些是他们创作的故事新编。希望大家能从这些文字里感受到荟同学子的洞察力以及他们不设限的想象力！
In the end, we would like to share with you a few of the students' amazing works, some of which are their analyses of the texts and some of which are stories they recreated. We hope you can enjoy the insight and the unrestricted imagination of our students!
G9 students from blue group have been reading "The Village Teacher" by Liu Cixin as part of our fanatsy unit and considering author's message. "The Village Teacher" is a science fiction story set in rural Sichuan, where the education of some impoversihed students saves the world when aliens visit earth to measure how developed we are as a planet. These give a nice range of writing samples from our students as they engage with the author's message and its importance:
The lesson “education is essential” is important for us as readers to learn because people who are less educated have no goals and dreams, and they never care about the future. When describing how the villagers value money more than their health, Liu says that “Once the tannery was up, lye and nitre flowed into the river and seeped into the well water. The people who drank it broke out in red boils all over their bodies – but no one cared! They were just happy the land sold for a good price”. This quotation shows the villagers never care about their health. They can sacrifice anything to get money even if they don’t know what the consequences are. The villagers never work hard and only want to get money by the easy way. Money is everything for them. They seem to live for money. Their whole life will be limited by money. They worry about it and are happy with it every day. This kind of life is pathetic. Educated people will not do that. Their life is colourful. After working times, they might do some sports or social activities to enrich their lives. Their goals would be something meaningful, like some kind of hobby. —— Yvonne Du G9
The lesson “education is essential” is important for us as readers to learn because when receiving education, people can also learn about moral knowledge. When describing the reaction of the villagers when they learned about the situation of the students at school, Liu Cixin says that “’In the classroom? The wind blows right through the walls. How can the children sleep here in the winter?’ ‘Who cares? They’re not from here’”. This quotation shows that when hearing the children can only sleep in the classroom instead of the dormitory, the teacher is concerned about their health and their feelings. On the other hand, the villagers only cared about the feelings of themselves and they chose to sacrifice student’s sleeping place in order to achieve their purpose. This shows that poorly-educated people are selfish. They don’t pay attention to whether their action had impact for other people or not. The society nowadays doesn’t welcome these kind of people. Caring about others rather than only caring about ourselves is the basic moral rule of humans. Everyone likes polite and not selfish people. The teacher was a highly educated person, so he knew this rule and the villagers cannot receive education because they are poor and superstitious. This illustrates that only well-educated people can learn about morals. —— Ruby Huang G9
The lesson “education is crucial” is important for us as readers to learn because education develops critical thinking, which determines the way a person thinks. When describing how the villagers and the village teacher think differently, the author says, “He had gone door to door persuading each family to put their kids in school, and he had gotten some kids to stop following their parents to work by swearing he’d cover their tuition himself”. This shows how unlike the village teacher, the villagers have instant gratification. The village teacher tried his best to have the children in school, while the villagers are unwilling to spend their money on education, because they think working makes money, and education does not. However, they didn’t consider how many opportunities education offers. Education increases the chances of going to college and a better employment in a big city. —— Diana Zhong G9
THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL
One day the three little wolves saw some footprints, they’re were very confused whose footprints will this be. The third wolves suddenly noticed this is the little red ridding hood footprints he remark”quick run back to your own houses”.The wolves are very scared because the little red ridding hood will hunt them down and kill them and eat them!Soon the the little red ridding hood went to the first house she uses missile to blow the houses but it seems it doesn’t work , so she change the missile to a nuke BOOM! The house was Smoothed out what was left is a plain.The wolf was dead in the nuclear bomb.The second wolf was worried because his big brother was dead. Soon the little red ridding hood came and saw the second wolf the little red ridding hood is chasing him but the wolf is way too fast ,the wolf ran to his little brother house. This house is very safe and it have a lot of thick walls and have security guard so it’s very safe.The little red ridding hood came, she went to the hill and observe the house is near the edge. So the little red ridding hood thought I can blow the rocks up and the house will fall down. He went to do it but on the way he got caught by the security guard the third wolf commended the security guard to kill the little red ridding hood.He need to revenge for his brother.After little red ridding hood was dead the two wolves lived happily after. —— Bill Zhao G8
八年级学生《小红帽》主题故事新编
