Unit 6 The Right to Fail
Background Information
1. About the author and the text
William Zinsser is a former newspaper reporter, prolific magazine writer, editor, teacher and renowned writing coach. His fifteen books include the classic On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (now in its 25th anniversary edition), as well as Writing to Learn, How to Write a Memoir, Speaking of Journalism, Writing About Your Life: A Journey to the Past and Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. During the 1970s Zinsser was master of Branford College at Yale University, where he taught nonfiction writing. Now he is teaching in the Journalism School of Columbia University.
2. Famous dropouts
As William Zinsser suggested in the article, "For the young, dropping out is often a way of dropping in." We can find many celebrities were/are virtually dropouts. The following list intro
duces some famous dropouts to you:
1)    Elementary school dropouts
Charles Dickens: best-selling British author, writer of Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Hard Times, Oliver Twist, etc.
Thomas Edison: self-made multimillionaire, American inventor; electrical power usage pioneer; filmmaker; knighted.
Benjamin Franklin:
American political-diplomat-author-printer-publisher-scientist-inventor; co-author and co-signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence; one of the founders of The United States of America; face is pictured on the U.S. one-hundred dollar bill (formal education of less than two years; home schooling/life experience).
Kaba Gandhi: father of Indian political leader Mohandas, "Mathatma" Gandhi (no formal education; home schooling/life experience).
Claude Monet: French painter; master of Impressionism artist, whose famous painting is Water Lilies
2)    High school dropouts
Julie Andrews: Oscar-winning actress-singer [The Sound of Music); best-selling British author; bestowed the rank of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.
John Jacob Astor: self-made multimillionaire; German-born early American businessman; America's first multimillionaire.
Joseph Brodsky: winner of Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, Russian-born American poet.
Joschka Fischer: German politician; Foreign Minister.
Soichiro Honda: self-made multimillionaire; Japanese businessman; motorcycle industry pioneer; founder of the Honda Motor Company.
Peter Jackson: editor怎么读英语发音Oscar-winner [The Lord of the Rings trilogy); New Zealand film director-writer-producer.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek: Dutch microscope maker; world's first microbiologist; discoverer of bacteria, blood cells, and sperm cells.
John Woo: Chinese-born film director [Mission Impossible 2, Broken Arrow, Windtalkers, etc.)
3)    College dropouts
F. Scott Fitzgerald: American writer; drop out of Princeton, works including The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, etc.
Woody Allen: Hollywood Actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright (Manhattan, Annie Hall, Melinda and Melinda, etc.), expelled from New York University and City College of New York.
Bill Gates: self-made multimillionaire; drop out of Harvard; founder of Microsoft.
Michael Dell: self-made multimillionaire, dropped out of. the University of Texas, founder of Dell computer.
3. Bill Gates' 11 rules to students
1) Life is not fair, get used to it.
2) The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
3）You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
4） If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
5）Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
6） If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about our mistakes, learn fro
m them.
7） Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents'generation, try "delousing" the closet in your own room.
8） Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

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