【芝麻开门】
确定了段落中心思想, 完成了段落的主题句,设计好段落的扩展句之后，需要考虑的是怎样合理、有效地安排句子，组成条理清晰、结构严谨的段落。展开段落的方法有很多，常用的有：时间顺序法、空间顺序法、列举法、举例法、对比法、定义法、因果法、分类法、综合法等。在今
天和明天的课程中我们就来详细地学习。
一、时间法
在叙述一个故事或者一系列事件时，通常按事件发生的先后顺序排列句子。在说明文中叙述一件事应该遵循的程序或步骤时，也常用时间顺序法。看下面的例子：
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
患难见真情。
After lunch, while the other girls were sunbathing, Pat and I returned to the water. Soon cramps spread from my stomach to my legs. Immobilized by pain and fear, I yelled for help. My friend thought I was joking: so she ignored me. However, Sister Theresa came to my rescue when she noticed my plight. She pulled me out of the water and administered resuscitation. When regaining consciousness, I realized how close I had come to death. My experience with near death reminds me every day how close we all are to death in our daily lives.
在这个段落里，作者用了after lunch; while...; soon; when...等时间连接语按时间的先后顺序记叙了一件发生在午饭后的事。
There are four separate stages in making bread. The first stage begins by mixing yeast with warm water. This mixture is then added to half the amount of flour. The resultant batter mixture is then left for an hour. At the next stage the rest of the flour is added to the risen batter mixture, along with salt and oil. The main step in the second stage is a thorough kneading of the dough, after which it is left to rise. The third stage involves shaping the dough into loaves; the shaped loaves are then put into bread tins and left to ‘prove’ (rise). In the final stage the bread is cooked in a hot oven. The whole process of breadmaking finishes when the bread is taken from the oven and left to cool on wire racks.
这个段落采用时间顺序法描述了做面包的的过程。作者用了The first stage begins by..., At the next stage..., The third stage involves... 和In the final stage... 等连贯性词语详细地按照先后顺序介绍了四个步骤。
二、空间法
空间顺序指按物体的空间位置（自左至右，由近到远，由上至下，由下到上，由里到外，由外到里，由中间到两边等顺序）来展开段落。如：
The room was disgusting. By the far window was a trash can piled high with crumpled papers. In the middle of the room was a gaudy, roundsize bed littered with rotting fruit peels. The path between the bed and the doorway, where I was standing, was choked off by heaps of dirty clothes and old newspapers.
这个段落以空间顺序法描写了一个房间。先从描述远处的窗子开始，接着是房间中央，最后到作者所站的地方，由远到近地将房间里的一切描绘了出来。
Great Britain is an island that lies off the northwest coast of Europe. The nearest country is France which is 20 miles away from which Great Britain is separated by the English Channel. The island is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the North Sea to the east. It comprises the mainland of England, Wales and Scotland. Scotland is in the North, while Wales is in the west. Ireland, which is also an island, lies off the west coast of Great Britain. It consists of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Great Britain together with Northern Ireland constitutes the United Kingdom. Thus, the United Kingdom is composed of four parts. The largest of these is England which is divided into 43 administrative counties. The capital city is London which is situated in southeast England.
这个段落主要是采用由外到里的空间顺序法进行描写的。先从外围描述大不列颠的地理位置，接着从内部仔细介绍它的各个组成部分—— 英格兰、苏格兰和威尔士的相对位置，同时描述了爱尔兰岛的相对位置，最后作者又特意指出英国首府伦敦的地理位置。
三、列举法
列举法是通过列举具体的细节来进一步说明主题句所表达的主导思想，展开段落。列举法如果使用得当，能增强文章的说服力，使文章显得条理清楚。用列举法发展段落时，主题句常包含表示数量的词，如：several, many, some, four 等。列举细节时，可以根据各种内容的相对重要性，按一定的逻辑顺序排列。
Strike the iron while it is hot.
趁热打铁。
请看下面的例子：
Social activities benefit us in many ways. To begin with, these activities can widen our knowledge, because we can learn what we cant from our books. Second, these activities can serve as a bridge between theory and practice, because we can learn how to put our book knowledge into practice. Lastly, these activities can enrich our experience, in that we can get to know the society well so that we can adapt to it easily when we graduate.
本段的第一句是段落主题句，in many ways在这里为下面的列举作好了铺垫。作者用了to begin with, second和lastly作为连接语，条理清楚地列举了社会活动有益的三个方面。
四、举例法
举例法是一种常见的展开段落的方法，它是用典型、具体而生动的事例来证明、阐述一个观点，支持主题句，使段落主题句的抽象意思具体化，使文章通俗易懂并具有说服力。但是，在写提供实例的段落时，必须精选例子，要作到恰如其分、准确地说明问题。
请看下面的例子：
Many old buildings in cities are still being found useful. In several cities, old buildings that were no longer being used have been converted to a variety of useful structures. For example, one school building was changed into ninetynine rental units for elderly and low income residents. In Baltimore, Maryland, six schools were converted into 132 units with the help of a fourmilliondollar city bond financing arrangement. “School House 77” in Boston utilizes three recycled elementary schools and an abandoned instrument factory. All these examples show how cities are using unneeded schools, police stations, libraries, and boardedup factories that are structurally sound and even architecturally interesting buildings.
本段的第一句是段落主题句，指出在城市里有许多旧楼还在发挥着作用。这里的“作用”是比较抽象的，不容易写得很充分。但是作者用一些实例（如将旧校舍改建成住房提供给低收入人群等）来加以说明，主题思想就较为容易和直观地表达出来了。
It takes two to make a quarrel.
一个巴掌拍不响。
It is very difficult to evaluate another persons performance objectively. For example, Linda recently wrote irresponsible remarks about her instructor because she was failing the course. Her friend Jack wrote a marvelous description of the same instructor because he was receiving an A in the course. Both Linda and Jack were not fairly evaluating the instructor. They were influenced by the grades they were earning and were biased in their judgment.
这个段落的第一句是主题句，说明人们很难做到客观地评价另一个人的作为。接着用Linda和Jack两个例子来支持这一观点，展开段落。例子使用贴切典型，恰如其分。
美文赏析
When shepherds quarrel, the wolf has a winning game.
鹬蚌相争，渔翁得利。
Time
“Time,” says the proverb “is money.” This means that every moment wellspent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes.
Our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. Our life is a brief span measuring some seventy or eighty years in all. But nearly one third of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some in making journeys; some in merrymaking. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the term over which our life extends, we shall find about twenty or thirty years at our disposal for active work.
Therefore, all time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence for those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away, we shall never be able to compensate for the loss.
这是一篇关于“惜时”的哲理作文，语言流畅，说理透彻，使人一下子就能感到“时间的紧迫感”，具有很强的说服性。文章最大的可取之处在于：句式变换多样，用词准确地道（留意文中的黑体部分啊）。从近几年的实考作文来看，直接取用“time”作题目的可能性很小，但是不排除通过其它形式，如漫画等，来表达类似哲理的可能性，所以文章的词句可供借鉴，以免到了考场腹中空空，“词到考场方恨少”。
