课前准备 Warm-up：

Up till now, you must have heard or read some American presidential campaign speeches. Before we proceed to a detailed discussion of the text, think over the following questions:

1) Which presidential campaign speech left you the deepest impression?

2) In what way, did it impress you?

3) What can you infer from the title of the text?

本章概览An Overview：

The text is an American presidential campaign speech delivered by Barack Obama. He made the speech in the hope that all Americans, black and white could transcend distraction and unite their efforts in the building of a more perfect union.

学习目标Objectives：

Through textual analysis and learning, the students should

1) Get the content of the speech

2) Grasp the theme of the speech

3) Acquire relevant words and grammatical structures as shown in the text

4) Get acquainted with the primary features of a presidential campaign speech

知识结构Knowledge Structure：

The text is a presidential campaign speech which can be divided into 3 parts.

I.The task Obama aims to fulfill once elected (paras. 1-6)

1) The objective upon which the constitution was formulated (para. 1-2)

2) The imperfection of the constitution. (para. 3)

3) The goal Obama aims to pursue once elected (paras. 4-6)

II.The reality featuring racial discrimination (paras. 7-19)

1) Obama’s unique identity and his personal experience (para. 7-9)

2) The barrier posed by racial discrimination against his election. (paras. 10-19)

III.The need to unite for the building of a more perfect union (paras. 20-26)

1) The ground for the attachment between Obama and Wright (paras. 20-24)

2) The proper attitude to treat the issue of race (para. 25-26)