Who doesn't know Sima Qian and Historical Records, teachers and students who have come into contact with Chinese textbooks in middle schools? Traditional Chinese textbooks often have the classic titles of Historical Records, and the reading of classical Chinese in college entrance examination is often based on Historical Records. However, for most teachers and students, to truly understand Sima Qian and study Historical Records comprehensively, I am afraid that the textbook < Historical records > Selected readings, of course, must start with Preface to Taishigong. Because "Preface to Taishigong" is the program of the whole book "Historical Records", it is also the general introduction of this elective textbook, and it is the beginning for us to know Sima Qian and understand Historical Records as a whole. However, Sima Qian did not put the preface at the beginning, but at the end of the seventy biographies. Why? Jin Shengtan, a Qing dynasty man, said, "This article is a biography of himself, starting with Historical Records and ending with Taishigong.". Jin Shengtan's words opened the door for us to interpret Preface to Taishigong. As a preface, the author expounds the background and purpose of creating Historical Records, explains the process of creating Historical Records, introduces the main contents of Historical Records, and makes an evaluation of Historical Records. There are two aspects in the creation background of Historical Records: First, Sima Qian's youth's experience of "reciting ancient prose" and young people's strong travel laid the foundation for his creation; Second, the father's entrustment before his death, the call of the era of political stability and economic prosperity, and the opportunity and responsibility after succeeding Taishi Order. Through the dialogue with Hu Sui, Sima Qian expounded the purpose of creating Historical Records: following the example of Confucius, he wrote Spring and Autumn Annals, "demoted the emperor, retired the princes, asked for doctors", "set an example for the world", and published his own "opinions of one family" in the form of history. The early stage of the creation of Historical Records was explained when the background of the creation was expounded: I accepted my father's dying entrustment and started after succeeding Taishi Order. 6? 9 Historical Records of the Book of the Golden Chamber ",that is, compiling information. The real creation is the humiliation of writing Historical Records after Li Ling's disaster, which is also described affectionately in Sima Qian's "Letter to Ren An" (see required by Soviet Education Edition). The content of Historical Records, that is, the scale and style of Historical Records, is specified in the last two paragraphs of the preface. When explaining the purpose of creating Historical Records, Sima Qian said in a confident tone that he wanted to "show the Ming Dynasty" and "follow the Spring and Autumn Annals" in the way of historical records, and at the same time spoke highly of the book, which was actually a self-evaluation of Historical Records and reminded the world of its role. It can be said that after reading the "preface", you will basically understand the book Historical Records. In fact, Sima Qian wrote "preface" according to the style of "biography" By reading "preface" from the perspective of "biography", we can fully understand and understand Sima Qian. What kind of person is Sima Qian? This is the main content of the biography. If you read the article, you can clearly understand Sima Qian. First of all, Sima Qian was born in a family of historians. Although their ancestors had military and economic officials, most of them were historians. It can be seen that compiling history is Sima Qian's ancestral family, and it is naturally an unshirkable responsibility to create Historical Records. Secondly, Sima Qian farmed in his hometown when he was a teenager. At the age of ten, he began to study ancient Chinese classics. At the age of twenty, he began to roam, search for cultural relics and collect historical materials. This experience laid the foundation for his creation, broadened his horizons and cultivated his view of history. From Langzhong to Taishiling, he gained historical opportunities and responsibilities and prepared for the creation of Historical Records. Sima Qian's greatest achievement in his life was the creation of Historical Records. Sima Qian's spiritual quality has also been fully reflected in his humiliation-tolerant books: bearing the burden of humiliation, writing in anger, and realizing the ideal of a family statement; Dare to explore and innovate, and create a general history style of biographical style; He has a strong sense of responsibility and mission as a historian-praising the good and belittling the evil, which shows his unusual life values. The main purpose of Sima Qian's biographies is to praise those who "help the righteous, do not make themselves lose time, and make contributions to the world." Preface to Taishigong embodies this theme, and Sima Qian is just such an "extraordinary person". The text Preface to Taishigong is long and rich in content. Read this article, what to read? How to read? This is the problem of reading goal orientation and learning methods. The reading goal orientation should be determined according to the teaching materials and the students' reality. Historical Records is written in classical Chinese, and learning and accumulating classical Chinese knowledge should be the basic goal. The preface to Taishigong has been translated, and the focus of classical Chinese knowledge learning is to read important paragraphs, sort out and master commonly used substantive words, especially loanwords, ancient and modern synonyms, flexible words and classical Chinese sentence patterns, and truly understand their meaning and usage. Historical Records is a literary work, and it is an important goal to understand the characteristics of characters and narratives, and to analyze and appreciate the means of expression. Preface to Taishigong is Sima Qian's autobiography with many wonderful descriptions. An important goal of reading is to appreciate the important passages describing people and events, such as the scene entrusted by Sima Tan before his death, the dialogue between Sima Qian and Hu Sui, and the confession and passion of self-narration and humiliation. Historical Records is also a historical work, and understanding cultural knowledge and historical knowledge is also a goal that cannot be ignored. Preface to Taishigong is a preface, which involves the style and tradition of Historical Records, as well as some cultural knowledge, which should be mastered when reading this article. Historical Records is an elective subject. According to the text and the knowledge learned, doing some inquiry should also be the reading goal. When studying Preface to Taishigong, we should discuss the reasons why Sima Qian wrote Historical Records, the tradition of Historical Records, and Sima Qian's personality and style. It is difficult and conditional for students to learn Preface to Taishigong on the basis of compulsory teaching materials. The difficulty is: students learn less classical Chinese in the required part, and their knowledge of classical Chinese is not enough. Although the translation is provided, there are still many obstacles to truly understand the preface to Taishigong. The conditions are as follows: compulsory five has studied "Bao Ren An Shu" and has some knowledge of Sima Qian's "Historical Records". Therefore, the method of reading Preface to Taishigong should be considered around "three essays" (classical Chinese, literature and culture), combining intensive lectures with brief lectures, combining understanding with inquiry, attaching importance to reading aloud, advocating promoting reading through practice, and guiding lectures through practice. First of all, we can design and compile an exercise from the perspective of summarizing the knowledge of classical Chinese words and phrases, including understanding important notional words, commonly used function words and important classical Chinese sentence patterns, until the students read the text against the translation and complete the knowledge of words and phrases. Secondly, on the basis of pre-reading, it is introduced by Bao Ren An Shu (reviewing Sima Qian's moral character and personality in his letter, or reciting the fifth paragraph's determination to endure humiliation and writing history, and introducing the preface), grasping the characteristics of "biography" and "preface", finding out the relevant paragraphs and sentences, and understanding and analyzing them in different ways. Third, read the fifth paragraph of the autobiography intensively. First understand the three meanings of Sima Tan's dying entrustment from the above: writing history is an ancestral career, and completing this mission is "filial piety"; Taking the Duke of Zhou and Confucius as examples, writing history, promoting rites and music, is king; Entrust Sima Qian to remember his wishes and his will. Read this passage again and again, and realize the dignified and touching scene of holding hands and crying when you are entrusted at the end of your life. Then I understand the profound meaning of entrustment: it is not only the performance of filial piety, but also the call of the times to hand over the heavy responsibility of historical facts to Sima Qian. Finally, it reflects Sima Qian's inner feelings of tears and solemn commitment. Fourthly, intensively read and explore the three paragraphs of the dialogue between Sima Qian and Hu Sui. First, read the passage aloud, looking for a sentence expressing Sima Qian's comments on Confucius' Spring and Autumn Annals, and understanding it. After reading aloud, I realized that Sima Qian wanted to be Confucius, the third person's self-confidence and spoke highly of the affection of Chunqiu. Finally, it discusses the true meaning of Sima Qian's high evaluation of Spring and Autumn Annals: suggesting the purpose of creating Historical Records; Self-evaluation of Historical Records; Remind the world of the role of Historical Records. Fifth, design some questions and skim the rest of the paragraphs. There are two ways to explore the text: one is to involve some inquiry questions according to the content of the text, or to guide students to choose their favorite angles or contents for extended research. Inquiring into reference questions (1) The reasons for the creation of Historical Records from Preface to Taishigong (2) The motivation of Sima Qian's humiliation and anger in writing history (3) The relationship between Sima Tan's dying and Sima Qian's life turning (4) Sima Qian was respected as a great historian and writer by later generations for his creation of Historical Records, which became the originator of official history and a large number of articles. However, some experts pointed out: even if the title of historian and writer is crowned "great", it is not really appropriate to praise Sima Qian; The positioning of Historical Records as the authentic originator, with a large number of articles, failed to truly reflect the value and brilliance of Historical Records. How do you know this problem after studying Preface of Taishigong and Letter of Application for Ren An? 5. Talk about the contributions made by three cultural giants-Duke Zhou, Confucius and Sima Qian to the development of the Chinese nation. Another way to explore the text is to read and understand the special research paragraphs of some research experts, and to understand, analyze and synthesize the arguments in them. This can combine the inquiry text with the reading of social science texts. Here is an example: Read the following words and complete the following questions: The maturity of China's ancient biographical literature should begin with Sima Qian's Historical Records. Historical Records is the first great historical work centered on people in ancient China, and it is also the first great literary work centered on people in China. From a historical perspective, Historical Records pioneered the "official history" of dynasties centered on people in ancient China for more than 2, years. From the literary point of view, Historical Records used colorful artistic techniques for the first time to show people a vivid portrait gallery. The reason why Historical Records can achieve such brilliant achievements in history and literature lies in Sima Qian's personal genius and his special life experience, and on the other hand, because quite outstanding literary works have been produced in the pre-Qin period, which played a very important role in the formation of Sima Qian's historical view, literary view and aesthetic view and its specific artistic operation. Many chapters, such as Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu, National Policy, etc., have reached a superb level in their narrative writing methods, descriptive language and clever wording of characters. So the difference is that they are not centered on characters, and they are still written for narrative. There were also works with names similar to biographies in the pre-Qin period, such as The Spring and Autumn Annals of Yan Zi. Unfortunately, its purpose is not to write people, but like a compilation of anecdotes, which is completely uncut. Therefore, the founder of the truly character-centered biographical literature can only be attributed to Sima Qian. The establishment of Historical Records as the first biographical literature is of world significance. In the past, Europeans called Plutarch in ancient Greece "the king of world biographies". She wrote 5 biographies, which is the beginning of European biographical literature. Through comparison, we can find that Sima Qian's Historical Records is nearly two centuries earlier than Plutarch's Biography. From the Western Han Dynasty, when Historical Records appeared, to the feudal society of more than 2, years when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, China produced a vast amount of biographies and biographical literature. In the official history of dynasties, Historical Records is the first one that is called "biographical literature" by later generations, followed by Han Shu, Hou Han Shu, History of the Three Kingdoms and History of the New Five Dynasties. Other "official histories" are rarely mentioned in the history of China literature. Historical Records is a perfect combination of historicity and literariness, which is unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of historiography and literature. An outstanding successor of Sima Qian in Bangushi, he is also a reformer of ancient history tradition. Since Ban Gu, he has consciously separated "history" from "literature". From today's point of view, as the character of "historiography", Hanshu is undoubtedly more perfect, more systematic and more thorough; However, from the literary point of view, Hanshu is undoubtedly a big step backwards. However, Hanshu, after all, inherited the old achievements of Shiji. Therefore, Hanshu, as an official history, is also one of the few outstanding writers in ancient Chinese prose.