英语美文题材丰富,涉及面广,大多蕴涵人生哲理。引导学生欣赏美文,不仅能提高他们的阅读理解能力,而且能使他们得到美的熏陶,从而提高学生对周围事物的认识。小编分享高中生的英语美文，希望可以帮助大家!

高中生的英语美文：Develop Your Own Helping Rituals

If you want your life to stand for peace and kindness, it's helpful to do kind, peaceful things. One of my favorite ways to do this is by developing my own helping rituals(典礼，仪式). These little acts of kindness are opportunities to be of service and reminders of how good it feels to be kind and helpful.

We live in a rural area of the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of what we see is beauty and nature. One of the exceptions to the beauty is the litter that some peop le throw out of their windows as they are driving on the rural roads. One of the few drawbacks to living out the boondocks is that public services, such as litter collection, are less available than they are closer to the city.

A helping ritual that I practice regularly with my two children is picking up litter in our surrounding area. We've become so accustomed to doing this that my daughters will often say to me in animated voices, "There's some litter, Daddy, stop the car!" And if we have time, we will often pull over and pick it up. It may seem strange, but we actually enjoy it. We pick up litter in parks, on sidewalks, practically anywhere. Once I even saw a complete stranger picking up litter close to where we live. He smiled at me and said, "I saw you doing it, and it seemed like a good idea."

Picking up litter is only one of an endless supply of possible helping rituals. You might like holding a door open for people, visiting lonely elderly people in nursing homes, or shoveling(铲除) snow off someone else's driveway. Think of something that seems effortless yet helpful. It's fun, personally rewarding, and sets a good example. Everyone wins.

高中生的英语美文：What is happiness

What is happiness? Different people have different ideas. Some people are rich; they think they are happy. Other people have many friends, so they feel happy. Still others are happy because their lives are meaningful. Happiness attracts everyone. For children, happiness often suggests eating something good or playing with toys. For a stamp collector, stamps bring more delight than meals. And for a scientist, a discovery or an invention rather than anything else gives him greatest satisfaction.

There was once a beggar who was always happy. The king saw him and wondered why he was so happy because he was so poor. However, the king could have whatever he wanted; yet he himself was not happy at all. Thus we can see one's happiness doesn't depend on whether he is rich or poor. Happiness is a state of mind. As long as one thinks he's content and satisfied, he is happy.

As everything exist only because its opposite, happiness exists only when pain exists. Just as a person who does not know failure never knows success, a person, who has not experienced suffering or sadness never knows what happiness means..

Happiness always promises a hope by which people go on living. When they come to the point of losing hope because they have suffered a great deal, it is often the time when happiness comes that will give them the courage and desire to live.

Cheer up and be happy. Happiness is not far from you. It's just around you. Try to grasp it and enjoy it.

高中生的英语美文：Angel of Hope

Ammie Reddick from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, was only 18 months old when she had the accident that has scarred her for life. While her mother's back was turned for a moment, the inquisitive(好奇的) toddler(初学走路的孩子) reached up to grab the flex(电线) of a hot kettle in the family kitchen and poured boiling water over her tiny infant frame.

Her mother Ruby spun round and, seeing Ammie horribly scalded(烫伤), called an ambulance which rushed her daughter to a nearby hospital. Twenty per cent of Ammie's body had been burned and all of her burns were third-degree. The doctors could tell immediately that Ammie's best chance of survival was a specialised burns unit some miles away at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. There, using tissue taken from unburned areas of Ammie's body, surgeons performed complex skin grafts(植皮手术) to close her wounds and control her injuries, an operation that took about six hours. Over the next 16 years, Ammie underwent 12 more operations to repair her body.

When she started school at Maxwelton Primary at age four, other pupils made cruel comments or simply wouldn't play with her. "I was the only burned child in the street, the class and the school," she recalls. "Some children refused to become friends because of that."

Today, age 17, Ammie can only ever remember being a burned person with scars; pain is a permanent(持久的) part of her body. She still has to have two further skin grafts. Yet she is a confident, outgoing eenager who offers inspiration and hope to other young burns victims.

Ammie's parents Ruby, a funeral director, and Gibby, a policeman, have been a tremendous support. "They told me if people had a problem with my burns, the problem was theirs not mine," says Ammie. "They taught me to cope with other people's reactions and constantly reminded me I was valued and loved." Ammie's positive philosophy means she is now in demand with burns organisations, helping younger patients build their self-esteem(自尊) to live with permanent scars.

She is a member of the Scottish Burned Children's Club, a charity set up last year. Says Donald Todd, chairman of the club and a senior burns nurse at Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children, "Ammie provides so much encouragement for younger ones. She is upbeat(乐观的) and outgoing and a perfect role model for them."

This month, Ammie will be joining the younger children at the Graffham Water Centre in Cambridgeshire for the charity's first summer camp . "I'll show them how to shrug off unkind stares from others," she says. Ammie loves wearing fashionable sleeveless tops], and she plans to show the youngsters at summer camp that they can too. "I do not go to great lengths to hide my burns scars," she says. "I gave up wondering how other people would react years ago."

Donald Todd believes Ammie will be invaluable at the camp: "She is mature beyond her years. Ammie has taken a tragic experience and used it to shape a very strong, helpful personality."