Regional Studies USA, Übung, Homework for Week 3

For homework, please complete the following:

Chapter Three: Persons of a Vile and Mean Condition
1. (pg. 39-41) What role did populism play in Bacon's Rebellion?
2. (pg. 47) How were the philosophies of John Locke critical in the founding of the US?
3. (pg. 57) Is Richard Hofstadter's quote at the bottom of the page still valid about the US today? Support your answer with specific detail.

Chapter Four: Tyranny is Tyranny
4. (pgs. 59-61) What was the realpolitik of the US Revolutionary War?
5. (pgs. 69-70) What factors contributed to the immense popularity of Thomas Paine's Common Sense?

6. What is cultural appropriation?

7. When does an image become propaganda?

8. Have a look at this NY Times documentary and consider the campaign manager's statements concerning building narratives in campaigns: http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004216589/how-to-win-an-election.html. What narratives do we see being promoted in Hillary Clinton's campaigns and in Donald Trump's campaign? With what groups do these different narratives resonate?

A correction and clarification: the Harlem Renaissance in fact spans from the 1920s to the mid-1930s/end of the 1930s, but is considered by many scholars to have been a necessary foundation for the Civil Rights Movements leading up and into the 1960s.

Here is a map of Native American tribes across Canada, the US, and Mexico (all the maps can be accessed in a larger format via PDF files at the bottom of the page; they might take a while to load): http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/24/323665644/the-map-of-native-american-tribes-youve-never-seen-before

Language Skills II, Homework for Week 3

For homework, please:
1.find a podcast that interests you and that you will regularly follow this semester you on iTunes, YouTube, or another news media source.
2. read the following article http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-chart-14 and answer the following questions:
a) What does beleaguered mean?
b) What does it mean to "hedge one's bets"?
c) According to the article, on what grounds is Trump claiming that the media is rigging the election against him?
d) Brainstorm verbs for describing the dynamics you see in the three graphs in the article.
3. do this quick gerund and infinitive exercise: https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/advanced/a_grammar/file05/nef_int_grammar_5_03?cc=us&selLanguage=en
4. analyze your speech in your native language for idioms that you use on a regular basis. Try to figure out what the English equivalents would be.

Questions from class (thank you for the great ones today -- keep them coming!):
1. A "bolt hole" (also "bolt-hole" or "bolthole") is literally a hole from which a small animal (like a rabbit) can bolt when endangered. The expression is chiefly British. A loophole is restricted to legal contexts.
2. "This and that" info: this link (towards the bottom of the entry) confirms what we suspected http://www.nativespeakeronline.com/confusing-words/what-is-the-difference-between-this-and-that
3. "me either/me neither": Here we have the rule explained, but keep in mind that speakers will casually say "me either" meaning "me neither": https://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/meeither.html
This is a cool page, btw: https://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors
4. Concerning the "not my monkey, not my circus" Polish idiom, North American English has the expression "I don't have a dog in this fight" to demonstrate non-involvement and non-commitment.

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 3

For homework, please:
1. Complete exercises 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11 on pgs. 12-16 of the reader.
2. Read pgs. 18-20 of the reader.
3. Start looking for an article that you wish to analyze rhetorically. The article should be approx. 2 pages in length and your analysis should be between 400-500 words. The article must have a clear thesis and include enough content for you to work with. Remember, this is an analysis and not inspiration for your own argumentative essay. This first essay assignment is due the week of November 14th-18th in class. NO ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS (Remember, you must submit at least one essay this semester for your "Studienleistung".)

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 3

For homework, please:

1. Transcribe "Don't step on my blue suede shoes" into IPA and two other favorite song titles of yours.
2. Check your work on "Why Mount Everest is so dangerous" (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/06/economist-explains-6)and see if you can come up with other semantically- and gramatically-sound options for the blanks.
3. Read through the rules on gerund and infinitive on pgs. 93-98 of the reader and complete exercises 1 and 2 on pgs. 99-100.
4. Watch a random YouTube clip of German director Werner Herzog (one of your greatest!) speaking English and identify five features of his English that make it characteristically German.
5. Skim through the rest of the "What's the Best Sense" responses, paying attention to vocabulary (available here: https://www.1843magazine.com/intelligence/the-big-question/whats-the-best-sense)
6. Have a look at (and listen to) this audio phonemic chart: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart

Vocab note: I did some investigation and onomatopoeia is the standard in both varieties.

Regional Studies USA Übung, Homework for Week 2

For homework, please:
Purchase Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (copies are available at the Witsch und Behrendt Unibuchhandlung, Am Hof 5A) and complete the following questions (bring both the text and your answers to these questions with you to class next week):

Answers to these questions may involve doing some research outside of reading the respective chapters in Zinn. Please use reliable sources in answering these questions (i.e. don't simply rely on Wikipedia). Page numbers from Zinn will be cited when relevant for answering questions that derive directly from his text.

Chapter One: Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress
1. What was the economic and political climate in the Germanic lands like when Columbus was planning his voyage to India?
2. How did the Spaniards communicate with the natives of Hispanola?
3. (From pg. 7) In your opinion, is it ever appropriate for schoolchildren to "celebrate" their history? If so, under what circumstances? And do these celebrations look like?
4. "Nations are not communities and never have been." (pg. 10) How do you respond to this statement? How does political rhetoric try to build communities out of nations?
5. (Pg. 14) How did the Puritans justify their settlement of Indian land?
6. Consider former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's statement in a 1996 60 Minutes interview that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of economic sanctions was "worth it". In light of Zinn's argument on pg. 17 and the Geneva Convention, are college students right in labelling Abright a war criminal? Defend your response with specific detail.

Chapter Two: Drawing the Color Line
1. (pg. 25) In what ways were the Virginians different from Columbus and his crew?
2. (pgs. 26-28) What makes slavery in the US unparalleled in human history?
3. (pg. 31) Name five examples of how the white/black dichotomy is enshrined in language and images (you do not need to restrict yourself to English or US contexts).
4. In what ways is the myth that the States are "a nation of immigrants" exclusionary and false? What repercussions does it have today?

The main website to draw cartoons from is: http://www.cagle.com/
Google Image searches for specific cartoons, the political humor pages of about.com (http://politicalhumor.about.com/), and http://www.usnews.com/cartoons are also excellent resources.

Language Skills II, Homework for Week 2

For homework, please:
1. Complete the Bob Dylan gap fill BEFORE you check your work with the original on this page:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-bob-dylan-literature-1476401068
2. Read through two other "what I'm really thinking" articles https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/what-im-really-thinking and pick 5 words from them that you want to include in your active vocab. Bring these words with you to class.
3. Please read up on gerund phrases on this page: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/627/01/
4. And complete the following exercise (look up any of the grammatical terms in bold that you don't understand): https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/exercises/Gerunds_Ex5.aspx
5. Complete this one for review: http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/advanced-level-gerunds-and-infinitives

Writing Skills II, Homework for Week 2

For homework, please:
1. Purchase the reader ("Writing Skills II from the Uni-Bonn Anglistik department") from A&A Copy Shop on the corner of Stockenstr. and Konviktstr., right behind the Institute and across the street from Ichiban Sushi Bar. You might need to mention Frau Nüßler as she is the head of the course module (i.e. the reader is not listed under my name).
2. Bring this reader with you to class next week. I expect you to bring the reader with you to every class this semester. 
3. Read pgs. 2-11 of the reader and complete exercises 1-3 on pg. 12.
4. Read the following articles on Michelle Obama's New Hampshire speech and identify 10 vocabulary words you wish to incoporate into your writing (bring this list with you to class; I'll be asking you specific questions about the advanced vocab found in them):
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/17/michelle-obamas-new-hampshire-speech-was-a-master-class-in-speaking-from-the-gut/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/michelle-obama-talks-to-voters-in-a-way-hillary-clinton-cant/2016/10/11/b8fbda96-8bf7-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html

Language Skills I, Homework for Week 2

Welcome to the course and to the University of Bonn!

For homework, please do the following:
1. Purchase the reader ("Language Skills I from the Uni-Bonn Anglistik department") from A&A Copy Shop on the corner of Stockenstr. and Konviktstr., right behind the Institute and across the street from Ichiban Sushi Bar. You might need to mention Frau Nüßler as she is the head of the course module (i.e. the reader is not listed under my name).
2. Bring this reader with you to class next week. I expect you to bring the reader with you to every class this semester. 
3. Read pgs. 2-11 of the reader.
4. Have a preliminary look at the IPA symbols on pgs. 121-122 (consonants and vowels).

Here is the link to the "Room for Debate" website from the NY Times, which is a nice resource for short advanced-level articles on a variety of current topics: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate