必修一

Unit1

Anne’s Best Friend

Do you want a friend whom you could tell everything to, like your deepest feelings and thoughts? Or are you afraid that your friend would laugh at you, or would not understand what you are going through? Anne Frank wanted the first kind, so she made her diary her best friend.

Anne lived in Amsterdam in the Netherlands during World War Ⅱ. Her family was Jewish so nearly twenty-five months before they were discovered. During that time the only true friend was her diary. She said, ”I don’t want to set down a series of facts in a diary as most people do, but I want this diary itself to be my friend, and I shall call my friend Kitty.” Now read how she felt after being in the hiding place since July 1942.

Thursday 15th June, 1944

Dear Kitty,

I wonder if it’s because I haven’t been able to be outdoors for so long that I’ve grown so crazy about everything to do with nature. I can well remember that there was a time when a deep blue sky, the song of the birds, moonlight and flowers could never have kept me spellbound. That’s changed since I was here.

…For example, one evening when it was so warm, I stayed awake on purpose until half past eleven in order to have a good look at the moon by my self. But as the moon gave far too much light, I didn’t dare open a window. Another time five months ago, I happened to be upstairs at dusk when the window was open. I didn’t go downstairs until the window bad to be shut. The dark, rainy evening, the wind, the thundering clouds held me entirely in their power; it was the first time in a year and a half that I’d seen the night face to face…

…Sadly …I am only able to look at nature through dirty curtains hanging before very dusty windows. It’s no pleasure looking through these any longer because nature is one thing that really must be experienced.

Yours,

Anne

 

第二篇：高一英语必修一第五单元课文

Unit 5 ELIAS’ STORY

My name is Elias. I am a poor black worker in South Africa. The time when I first met Nelson Mandela was a very difficult period of my life. I was twelve years old. It was in 1952 and Mandela was the black lawyer to whom I went for advice. He offered guidance to poor black people on their legal problems. He was generous with his time, for which I was grateful.

I needed his help because I had very little education. I began school at six. The school where I studied for only two years was three kilometers away. I had to leave because my family could not continue to pay the school fees and the bus fare. I could not read or write well. After trying hard, I got a job in a gold mine. However, this was a time when one had got to have a passbook to live in Johannesburg. Sadly I did not have it because I was not born there, and I worried about whether I would become out of work.

The day when Nelson Mandela helped me was one of my happiest. He told my how to get the correct papers so I could stay in Johannesburg. I became more hopeful about my future. I never forgot how kind Mandela was. When he organized the ANC Youth League, I joined it as soon as I could. He said:

“The last thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws stopping our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all.”

It was the truth. Black people could not vote or choose their leaders. They could not get the jobs they wanted. The parts of town in which they had to live were decided by white people. The places outside the towns where they were sent to live were the po

orest parts of South Africa. No one could grow food there. In fact as Nelson Mandela said:

“…we were put into a position in which we had either to accept we were less important or fight the government. We chose to attack the laws. We first broke the law in a way which was peaceful; when this was not allowed…only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

As a matter of fact, I do not like violence…but in 1963 I helped him blow up some government buildings. It was very dangerous because if I was caught I could be put in prison. But I was happy to help because I knew it would help us achieve our dream of making black and white people equal.

THE REST OF ELIAS' STORY

You cannot imagine how the name of Robben Island made us afraid. It was a prison from which no one escaped. There I spent the hardest time of my life. But when I got there Nelsom Mandela was also there and he helped me. Mr Mandela began a school for those of us who had little learning. He taught us during the lunch breaks and the evenings when we should have been asleep. We read books under our blankets and used anything we could find to make candles to see the words. I became a good student. I wanted to study for my degree but I was not allowed to do that. Later, Mr Mandela allowed the prison guards to join us. He said they should not be stopped from studying for their degrees. They were not cleverer than me , but they did pass their exams. So I knwe I could get a degree too. That made me feel good about myself.

When I finished the four years in prison, I went to find a job. Since I was better educated, I got a job working in an office. However, the police found out and told my boss that I had bee

n in prinson for blowing up government buildings. So I lost my job. I did not work again for twenty years until M r Mandela and the ANC came to power in 1994. All that time my wife and children had to beg for good and help from relatives or friends. Luckily Mr Mandela remembered me and gave me a job taking tourists around my old prison on Robben Islannd. I felt bad the first time I talked to a group. All the terror and fear of that time came back to me. I remembered the beatings and the cruelty of the guards and my friends who had died. I felt I would not be able to do it, but my family encouraged me. They said that the job and the pay from the new South African government were my reward after working all my life for equal rights for the Blacks. So now at 51 I am proud to show visitors over the prison, for I helped to make our people free in their own land.