Regional Studies Übung USA, Homework for Week 11

There are no readings for the break, but I've included some links below for your information. Have a safe and happy well-deserved break!

Timeline of Japanese-US relations (I expect you to know the dates in bold, the others are provided for context):

1853: Commodore Perry “opens trade” with Japan; 1854: Treaty of Kanagawa

•       1894-95: Sino-Japanese War

•       1904: Japan defeats Russia in Manchuria

•       1910: Japanese annexation of Korea

•       1914: Japan becomes ally of Britain in WWI

•       1923: British Empire ends alliance with Japan

•       Late 1920s: nationalism and scepticism towards West amid economic depression

•       1931: Japanese invasion of Manchuria

•       1936: Japan becomes allies of Nazi Germany

•       1937: Japanese war with China

•       1940: Japanese occupation of French Indo-China

•       December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor attack

•       December 8, 1941: US officially enters WWII, declares war on Japan

•       1942: Japanese occupation of Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Burma, Malaya

•       1945: US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hirohito’s surrender

•       1947: parliamentary system introduced in new constitution, emperor granted ceremonial status

•       1951: US Treaty of Peace with Japan

•       1956: Japan joins UN

•       1972: Japan closes embassy in Taiwan; Okinawa returned to Japan (US military base remains)

•       2001: import tax conflict between Japan and China

•       2004: Japan sends non-combat soldiers to Iraq

•       2006: Japanese troops leave Iraq

•       2007: first Chinese PM (Wen Jiabao) addresses Japanese parliament

•       2008: Japan and China reach deal on energy field in East China Sea

•       2010: PM Hatoyama resigns amid Okinawa base controversy

•       2011: Fukushima

•       2012: Abe wins, introduces “Abenomics”

•       2013: Government approves relocation of US military base to rural part of Okinawa

•       May 2016, Obama first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima

 

Obama's speech at Hiroshima: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima-japan.html?_r=0
Apple 1984 commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
Lippi-Green (1997) full text "Teaching children how to discriminate: what we learn from the big bad wolf": https://freerangeresearch.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ic-lippi-green-1997-teaching-children-how-to-discriminate.pdf
Lion King scene "Elefant Graveyard": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-vIh3gBPw
Compare with Pixar's 2006 "Cars" and the voice of the rusty, buck-toothed pick-up truck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZCbhK2P2o
John Green crash courses for US history (some of you might be interested in getting your history lessons from the guy who wrote "The Fault In Our Stars"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9WU9TGrec&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s
Full documentary films by PBS (US public broadcasting) "Frontline": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/
Trump's speech on first 100 days in office: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/donald-trump-100-days-plans-video-trans-pacific-partnership-withdraw

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 11 (first meeting of 2017: Jan 10-13)

The rest of our semester will run as follows:

January 2017
Week of Jan 10-13: review of practice exam and second take-home assignment
Week of Jan 17-20: final take-home assignment due (see below for details)
Week of Jan 24-27: second in-class practice exam (actual exam for outgoing Erasmus students)
Week Jan 31-Feb 3: review of in-class practice exam and final take-home assignment

Your last take-home assignment should be a rhetorical analysis of an essay we have had in class and should follow the guidelines from previous assignments (consult previous posts for details) EXCEPT that it should be between 250-350 words in length.

Have a wonderful, well-deserved break!

Full text of "Why I'm opting out of Christmas": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/21/opting-out-christmas-capitalism

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 11 (week of Jan 10-13, first meeting of 2017)

Have a great, safe, and restful winter break. Here is the Harper Lee article to check your answers with: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/12/harper-lee-my-christmas-in-new-york

There is no homework for the break, but I recommend that all of you have a look at the reader over the break to strategize your review in the month of January (ger/inf still remain a bit weak for some of you).

Regional Studies US Übung, Homework for Week 10

Here is the timeline of key dates connected with US espionage introduced in class today (we will expand on this context in next week's class and in January when we look at the Watergate scandal; most important points are in bold):

•       Washington: secret service fund 10% of federal budget

•       1810-1812: Madison employs agents and paramilitary to gain Florida from Spain

•       Polk shoots down attempt from Congress to gain oversight of secret fund

•       1880s: Office of Naval Intelligence and Army Military Intelligence Division

•       1898: agents resort to covert operations; interception of telegraphs between Havana and Spain

•       1908: “regular force of special agents” for special cases for Dept. of Justice

•       1916: FBI serves in counterintelligence role

•       1917: Espionage Act

•       1942: Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (precursor to the CIA)

•       October 1945: OSS disbanded, distributed to State and War departments

•       January 1946: Truman establishes CIG

•       1947: National Security Act (National Security Council and CIA formed)

•       1949: Central Intelligence Agency Act

•       1952: NSA founded

•       1978: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

•       2001: Patriot Act

•       2002: NSA data mining program, Bush authorizes monitoring of phone calls and emails of US citizens

Questions for next week's class: 
Chapter 16: A People's War
1. Which US presidents have won Nobel prizes? Why were they awarded the Prize? (The official Nobel website can be helpful in investigating this: https://www.nobelprize.org/
2. (pgs. 409-416) What were the conditions surrounding the US' entry into WWII? According to Zinn, what was the motivation of the US to enter?
3. Using pgs. 421-425 as well as outside sources, address the historical question concerning whether the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to end the war.
4. How many nuclear weapons does Russia, the US, the UK, and France have today? 
5. What was the Manhattan Project and who was involved in it?
6. What were the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan?
7. (pgs. 427-428) Why was the US involved in the Korean War?

The following links might be of interest to you:
Online encyclopedia of philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/home/about/
Snowden interview with ABC news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flej-73VLW8
"Milestones" pages of the US Office of the Historian (obviously be critical of any country's history pages, but these include some useful images/documents): https://history.state.gov/milestones
Conan O'Brien's "Serious Jibber Jabber" interviews, which include those with historians and biographers of US presidents: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=conan+serious+jibber+jabber

Language Skills II, Homework for Week 10

Have a look at the article on the back of the photocopy I distributed today with the comma/semicolon exercise. Consider how you can transfer the informal register to a formal one (and how you can transfer the expression of personal opinion to persuasive academic prose) and bring these notes with you to class. 

Read through the advacned comma rules and rules on semicolons and colons here:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/02/
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/semicolons.asp

And complete the following exercises:
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/semicolons_and_colons_1.asp
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/semicolons_and_colons_2.asp
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/commas_1.asp

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 10

For homework, please bring in an argumentative essay that you feel is very strong in defending its thesis (printed out or accessible on a screen).

Reread the article (this is the full version) that was used for the practice exam and look up any words or references you don't know. We will discuss this text and the practice exam (you'll receive yours back with my corrections/suggestions) in our first meeting of the new year: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/mcdonalds-democracy-corporate-globalisation-trump-le-pen-farage

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 10

For homework, please:
1. Read pgs. 105-107 and complete the exercise on pg. 107.
2. Read pgs. 108-109 and complete exercises 1-3 on pgs. 110-111.


Review your answers to exercises 1-3 from pgs. 83-85 below:
exercise 1:
1. clarify, exemplify, simplify, identify, generalize
2. differentiate, tolerate, qualify, indicate, stimulate
3. socialize, stabilize, familiarize, dominate, computerize
4. strengthen, sadden, enrich, deafen, heighten
5. enable, widden, ensure, endanger, encourage

exercise 2:
1. misheard, 2. reheat, 3. disappeared, 4. overeat, 5. enlarged, 6. outnumbered

exercise 3:
 dramatically, unaffordable, developers, despair, arguments, unwelcome, rental, universally, applicants, insecurity, inevitably, vital, space, cleaner 

Note from today's class on "orange juice": the stress is on "orange juice" because stress on "juice" would indicate that the color of the juice is orange, but not necessarily that it is made of oranges. (Compare this with the difference between English teacher and English teacher.)

Thank you to student today on "fruit salad" and where the stress would be. It's truly an interesting example because it is right on the boundary of the "material of whole entity" rule that you find outlined on the first bullet point on pg. 163 (the rules above exercise 1 on stress). Following the model of "apple pie", I personally say "fruit salad" (this is also the preference of the Longman Dictionary of English Language). However, considering that the entire salad consists of fruit, the "orange juice" rule can also apply (and I found several instances of this preference for first-word stress in several linguistic papers). So both are acceptable, but keep an ear open for distinctions in different contexts (e.g. "I made a fruit salad for the party" vs. "There are lots of options for vegetarians on the menu: the side salad, the garden salad, the fruit salad." Gray areas like this will not be on the exam, but keep these cool questions/observations coming!

Nice translation of "da wird doch der Hund in der Pfanne verrückt": It's enough to drive someone mad/crazy/up a wall (note that there are a lot of fixed expressions in English that begin with the "it is" construction).

Regional Studies Übung, Homework for Week 9

Chapter 15: Self-Help in Hard Times
1. What was the League of Nations and why didn't the States ever become a member?
2. (pg. 382) Why did the Socialist party fare poorly in the 1920s?
3. (pg. 386) What were the conditions that led to the stock market crash of 1929?
4. What were some of the points outlined in Roosevelt's New Deal?
5. (pg. 402-403) What effects did war have on unions?
6. (pg. 404) What were the effects of the New Deal on African Americans?

For those of you interested in Texas German, see this link: http://tgdp.org/
Speaking of the Espionage Act this week, one of your classmates shared this video of Edward Snowden speaking on Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98eabjjAEz8

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 9

Complete your (second) essay for submission in our next class (if you will not be submitting an essay this time, try to at least brainstorm/come up with an outline of what you would do). The topic of this second essay assignment can be found in my previous posts for the class. Essays must follow these guidelines below, otherwise they will not be accepted:
1. Essays need to be between 300-400 words. Do not exceed 400 words (this is an exercise in editing if you find that you are over this boundary).
2. Essays must be in 12-pt font and double spaced. (This is crucial for my remarks and corrections.)
3. If you are writing an essay in response to an essay/article with a thesis that is either one of your previous essays or was not distributed in class, your submission must include a print-out/photocopy of the essay your are analyzing rhetorically. (Otherwise, I have no context for it.)
4. Essays must be submitted printed out and submitted in our class. I'm afraid I can't make any exceptions given the sheer numbers of students I have this semester. This means no late or online submissions, unless you provide a doctor's note. If you are missing class in week 9 for another reason, your essay must be submitted by another person in class, otherwise I will not accept it for this deadline (you can always turn it in for the next essay assignment).
5. I will stop correcting any essay that has not first gone through an English spell check. Make sure that your word processor is on the English USA/UK setting when you are writing or use online spell check websites like this one: https://www.jspell.com/public-spell-checker.html
There is simply no excuse for not running your essay through a standard spelling and grammar check PRIOR to submission.
6. It goes without saying that plagiarizing this assignment is a waste of everyone's time and will result in not being admitted to the exam.When in doubt, ask me about it.

This site about transitions might help with your writing: https://msu.edu/~jdowell/135/transw.html

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 9

For homework, please:
1. complete exercises 1-3 on pgs. 83-85
2. review pgs. 86-87 and complete ex. 3 on pgs. 88-89
3. read pgs. 161-165 and complete the exercises on pgs. 163 and 164-165.

Bring your answers to exs. 4 and 5 on definite articles (pgs. 74-75) as we will be discussing nuance with definite articles in class.

Thank you to the student question about whether or not the "th" is voiced or voiceless in the word with. In isolation, the "th" in the word with can be voiceless, esp. in North American English and some UK varieties such as Scottish English, but can also be voiced, predominantly by RP speakers in the UK (an interesting discussion can be found here in the comments section, as it appears that there is quite a bit of phonetic variation: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4255 ) The "th" subsequently can also manifest as voiceless or voiced in clauses such as "I went with her to the movies" or "coffee with milk", according to one's variety. Even speakers who would otherwise pronounce the word with a voiceless "th" in isolation might voice it in the context of a clause, as it is anticipating the voiced phones that proceed it. Consider the word without in which the "th" is either voiced or voiceless (as both pronunciations exist in standard varieties of English). 

Review your answers to ex. 5 on pg 35 below:
met, was, have been going, saw, said, were getting, hadn't seen, bumped, was expecting, was, were talking, have you been, thought, was, have changed, wasn't, has been doing, have been
answers to part c (verbs are your choice):
When was that?
Five minutes ago. We was/is sitting on a park bench.
What was/is he doing there?
He seemed to be feeding the pigeons.

Regional Studies USA Übung, Homework for Week 8

Chapter 13: The Socialist Challenge
1. Jack London is featured as one of the authors in the Mahnmal in front of the Altes Rathaus in Bonn (if you haven't visited this yet, check it out!). Why were his books burned by the Nazis?
2. (pgs. 324-325) What is Taylorism and what were its effects?
3. Why was "racism practical for the AFL" according to Zinn on pg. 329?
4. Who were Eugene Debs and W.E.B. Du Bois?
5. How did the movement for women's suffrage gain steam in the early 20th century?

Chapter 14: War is the Health of the State
1. When does the U.S. enter WWI and for what reasons?
2. (pg. 363) How did W.E.B. Du Bois link WWI with Africa in his article "The African Roots of War"?
3. (pgs. 365-368) Out of what context does the Espionage Act emerge? What is its legacy?

Websites and resources preparing US high school students for the Advanced Placement US History Exam (APUSH) can be very useful for you in preparing for our exam in February and in terms of reviewing material throughout the semester.

This website features review videos dedicated to each period (simply hover your cursor over the "new APUSH curriculum" tab at the top of the page): http://www.apushreview.com/new-ap-curriculum/

Multiple choice quizzes can be found on this page: http://www.historyteacher.net/USQuizMainPage.htm
A comprehensive overview of periods can be found here: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history

Other useful sites:
https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/

Exam dates and times for all of my classes

Here are the exam dates for all of my courses. Make sure that you are writing down the dates and locations for the correct course. Bring any questions about these dates with you to class (email me only after we have addressed initial/general questions in class):

Language Skills I
First exam date: Monday, Feb. 6th, 16:00-18:00 (sharp!), Hörsaal 10
Second exam date: Monday, March 20th, 10:00-12:00 (sharp!), Hörsaal 17

Language Skills II (Advanced Grammar) and Writing Skills II
First exam date: Tuesday, Feb. 7th, 18:00-19:30 (sharp!), Hörsaal 10
Second exam date: Wednesday, March 22nd, 12-14 (sharp!), Hörsaal 17

Regional Studies North American Übung
First exam date: Wednesday, Feb. 8th, 10:00-12:00 (sharp!), Hörsaal 17
Second exam date: Tuesday, March 21st, 12:00-14:00 (sharp!), Hörsaal 17

Language Skills II, Homework for Week 8 + 9

**A note to my Wed. 12-14 class: We will not be meeting on Dies Academicus (Dec. 7th). Our next class is the Week 9 class on Dec. 14th. Make sure you have consulted both this blog post and the post entitled "Homework for Week 9" in preparing for the Dec. 14th session.** 

For homework, please:
1. Have a look at the podcasts that major anglophone universities offer, such as Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and the Open University. (If you have iTunes, these can be accessed through "iTunesU".) Alternatively, you can investigate the TED talks on YouTube. Listen to a full podcast in a subject that interests you and to at least 10 minutes of a subject that you otherwise wouldn't normally gravitate towards. Write down language from these lectures that you want to incorporate into your presentation speech.
2. Read the article I distributed in class today and complete the following: 1) the front page features blanks in which you need to decide if a definite, indefinite or no article should go and 2) four multiple-choice vocab questions I'd like you to answer. The second half of the article goes in depth into defining empathy. I'd like you to highlight/underline all of the relevant passages pertaining to this definition and to paraphrase/summarize that content in your own words.
3. Complete the following online exercises, which review a number of the grammatical concepts we've had in the first half of the semester:
http://usefulenglish.ru/grammar/subjunctive-mood-exercise-five
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/gerinf1.htm
http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/advanced/cae-002-multiple-choice-cloze-exercise.php
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/if_clauses/mix3.htm
http://www.michigan-test.com/cloze-exercises/

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 8

For homework:
1. If you received feedback on an essay from me today, carefully read through my comments, especially in light of the high-scoring essay distributed in class today and the corrections we made to specific sentences from student work. How can you improve the essay you wrote in terms of its organization, content (including specific examples and range of detail), language (lexical and sentential level), and analysis? Just because I didn't correct something on your paper, doesn't mean that it is in its ideal form. Also consider how you could have used the techniques of direct quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing in your analysis.
2. Read through and annotate the essay on pgs. 80-81 of the reader, completing the questions accompanying it. Sketch an outline for a rhetorical analysis of the essay (make sure that you are organizing it around the thesis and main claims and assessing how that thesis and those claims are defended) and time yourself for how long it takes you to complete both the reading and the outline (definitely needs to be under 30 minutes).
3. Read through pgs. 82-84 in the reader.
4. Have a look at the sentences that I distributed to you on the handout for editing and bring your suggestions to next class.
5. The following search engines can be useful in terms of researching potential jobs (including internships):
http://www.indeed.de
http://www.indeed.com
http://www.indeed.co.uk 

This website is the hub for linguists worldwide and features search engines for conference calls, internships, and scholarship opportunities: http://www.linguistlist.org/

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 8

**A note to my Wed. 14-16 class: We will not be meeting on Dies Academicus (Dec. 7th). Our next class is the Week 9 class on Dec. 14th. Make sure you have consulted both this blog post and the post entitled "Homework for Week 9" in preparing for the Dec. 14th session.**

Concerning what types of questions will be on the exam, ONLY the types of exercises represented in your reader will be on the exam. Other types of practice we do in class is purely supplementary. 

For homework, please complete:
1. exercise 5 on pg. 35.
2. exercise 4 on pgs. 55-57.
3. read through the article on pgs. 39-41 and bring questions about the use of tense and aspect here.
4. the exercise on pg. 168 and the IPA transcriptions in regular English on pgs. 155-157.
5. read through the rules for definitive articles on pgs. 62-70 and complete exercises 4 and 5 on pgs. 74-75. 

Check your answers to exercise 2 on pg. 82 below (bring questions about other alternatives with you to class next week):
 1. can, 2. can, 3. couldn't, 4. could, 5. What you say might/may (in fact) be true. 6. Would you/Could you please open the window? 7. "would you like" is the more polite variant of "do you want to," which you might say to someone with whom you are on more familiar terms, 8. The sentence in the reader should read "got into the habit" in order to be replaced with a modal, as only past habits can be replaced with modals. Only as a past habit can I say "Grandpa would/used to ..." 9. I used to..., 10. You needn't/don't have to/mustn't

Concerning the placements of adverbs, here's a nice breakdown (notice the exception with the verb "to be"): https://staff.washington.edu/marynell/grammar/AdverbPl.html

For exercise 14 on pg. 48, the following sentences can read as follows:
3. (past perfect context) By 3 o'clock I had been waiting here/there for two hours. My brother is never on time, but this was the longest I had ever had to wait for him. I hoped that nothing (had) happened to him.

(future perfect context) By 3 o'clock I will have been waiting here for two hours. My brother is never on time, but this is the longest I have ever had to wait for him. I hope that nothing has happened to him.

4. The royal couple just arrived for their state visit in Canada's capital city. Large crowds turned out at the airport to welcome them. Earlier this year the royal plane was freshly painted/had been freshly painted for the occasion of this visit. Right now the couple is visiting Niagara Falls.

The last sentence of the context indicates that the arrival of the royal couple and the Niagara Falls visit are two separate events. If the couple is immediately escorted from Ottawa to Niagara Falls the context could read:
The royal couple just arrived for their state visit in Canada's capital city. Large crowds have turned out at the airport to welcome them. Earlier this year the royal plane was freshly painted/had been freshly painted for the occasion of this visit. Right now the couple is visiting Niagara Falls.

The fact that the adverbials "just" and "right now" are used for two separate contexts makes #4 particularly confusing (examples like this won't be on the exam).

Regional Studies USA Übung, Homework for Week 7

Chapter 10: The Other Civil War
1. What was the cause of the economic crisis of 1837 (cited on pg. 212)?
2. Identify the link between the beginning of this chapter and the information on New York's aristocracy on pg. 48 (Chapter 3).
3. What context does Zinn assess with the analysis that "racist hostility became an easy substitute for class frustration" (pg. 227)? To what other historical contexts in US history might we be able to apply this analysis?
4. Marx' Communist Manifesto was first published in 1848. What effects did it have in the US shortly after its publication?

Chapter 12: The Empire and the People
1. Zinn references the Monroe Doctrine on the first page of this chapter. What was the context in which it was written and delivered? How has it informed US foreign policy?
2. What events brought about the US-Spanish War (pgs. 301-309)?
3. (pg. 317) Why did some unions supported the war in the Philippines?

Investigate your own family's or your home region's immigration history to the US. These links might help:
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2110801
http://libertyellisfoundation.org/passenger

You might be interested in these documentary films produced by PBS (U.S. Public Broadcasting Service), many of which cover topics and periods we have addressed in class: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/

Language Skills II, Homework for Week 7

For homework, please:
1. Read about adverbs and adverbials here:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/about-adjectives-and-adverbs/adverbs-and-adverb-phrases-position
http://owl.excelsior.edu/grammar-essentials/parts-of-speech/adverbs/order-of-adverbs/
and complete the following exercises:
https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/213.html
http://www.ihbristol.com/node/1396/take/1
https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/211.html

2. Watch this clip from the Economist and complete the accompanying questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKH8CeXSwlw&list=PL0KWoY2XZKw7qSZttx8oFVlmD4Rx5t3oy&index=19

 

1.       How does the monarchist define the word apolitical?

2.       According to the republican, how does the monarchy instill elitism in British society?

3.       How does the monarchist counter this claim?

4.       What does the republican say has been perpetuated by “one family in the service of the politicians”? What does this informal British expression mean?

3. Watch this clip from the BBC and complete the accompanying questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk-pGA19bAs

1.       What does the word evict mean?

2.       Who are the most likely to receive help?

3.       What does the expression “council-run” mean?

4.       How is the “face of homelessness” changing?

5.       Why are Lucy Surridge and her children in the hostel?

6.       What is London’s poorest borough? This borough has been overwhelmed by what three factors?

7.       How does the situation in England compare with Scotland and Wales?

4. Read through this article: https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/Top-10-Interview-Questions-Prep
and find two sample job adverts from this website that would interest you: http://www.indeed.co.uk