本教材的开发和编写遵循了内容语言融合的教育理念(Content and Language Integration，CLI)，围绕主要英语国家的经典散文作品实施教学。以优质的文学语料作为教学内容，鼓励学生对散文作品进行细读，不仅可以帮助学生掌握语言知识和语言技能，还能对学生专业知识结构的构建及综合素质的提升起到积极作用。
本教材以英语文学中的散文名篇为主要内容。全书分为15个单元，每个单元设置主课文一篇，补充阅读课文一篇，课文内容依照同一主题进行编排，涵盖了30篇脍炙人口的散文经典之作。课文选材充分考虑到学生的阅读兴趣、语言难度、篇幅长短等因素，并兼顾思想内涵与文学风格的多样性。教材中各单元的主题涉及青春、友情、爱情、自然、死亡、习惯、时间、教育、文化、艺术等，既符合大学生的认知需求和情感取向，又易于与日常话题结合，能充分激发学生的阅读兴趣，有助于教师组织教学。

Unit 1 Youth
Text A Advice to Youth by Mark Twain
Text B OfYouth and Age by Francis Bacon
Unit 2 Friendship
Text A The Decay of Friendship by Samuel Johnson
Text B Seeing People Off by Max Beerbohm
Unit 3 Love
Text A Why We Fall in Love by M. Scott Peck
Text B Of Love by Francis Bacon
Unit 4 Nature 5o
Text A Autumn Sunset by Henry David Thoreau
Text B Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unit 5 Maturity
Text A Middle Age, Old Age by William Somerset Maugham
Text B How to Grow Old by Bertrand Russell
Unit 6 Book
Text A Book-buying by Augustine Birrell
Text B How Should One Read a Book by Virginia Woolf
Unit 7 Death
Text A On Natural Death by Lewis Thomas
Text B Thoughts in Westminster Abbey by Joseph Addison
Unit 8 Habit
Text A Getting Up on Cold Mornings by Leigh Hunt
Text B On Idleness by Samuel Johnson
Unit 9 Time
Text A Toy Farm by J. B. Priestley
Text B On Being Modern-minded by Bertrand Russell
Unit 10 Education
Text A University Days by James Thurber
Text B Harrow (Excerpt) by Winston S. Churchill
Unit 11 Culture
Text A Impressions of America by Oscar Wilde
Text B The English and the Americans by Edward T. Hall
Unit 12 Art
Text A The Artist and the World by Joyce Cary
Text B Take Your Home into Your Own Hands! by Evelyn Waugh
Unit 13 War
Text A Sunday Before the War by Arthur Clutton-Brock
Text B The Ecstasy of War by Barbara Ehrenreich
Unit 14 Life
Text A July by Alice Meynell
Text B On Going a Journey by William Hazlitt
Unit 15 People
Text A Every Man's Natural Desire to Be Somebody Else by Samuel Crothers
Text B A Little Great Man by Oliver Goldsmith
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