Freshman English: Readings and Lab
Fall Semester
2001
Colleges
of Law, Management and Social Sciences
Monday 新203, Thursday AV 201 8:10-10:00am
Instructor: Karen Steffen Chung
E-mail:
karchung@ccms.ntu.edu.tw
Total class meetings and important dates: 31 class meetings:
September 17 (cancelled due to typhoon), 20, 24, 27;
October 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25, 29;
November 1, 5, 8, 12, 19, 22, 26, 29;
December 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, 31;
January 3, 7, 10.
No class on October 1 (Mid-Autumn Festival), November 15; cancel-add: October 2-8; mid-terms: November 5-9; last day of class: January 11; final exams: January 14-18.
Goals of Course: This course will concentrate on four main areas:
(1) Literary appreciation and
pronunciation correction through poetry memorization. Students are required
to memorize and recite aloud in class one poem per week from a handout to be distributed
in class, also available on the instructor’s Web page (under ‘All Courses’). Each
poem will be analyzed and discussed in depth as to form and content. Students
will receive intensive individual guidance and correction on their pronunciation
when reciting the poems.
Find
more poems
online yourself.
Click here for the About
Poetry: English Prosody Plus Selected Literary Terms
(2) Reading and translation practice
with essays, short stories, etc. Each of the essays will be read in depth
and translated orally into Chinese. The reading will be followed by a class discussion
and a short quiz, usually on vocabulary. Students are actively encouraged to relate
what they read and learn to their own life, experiences, and feelings, and to
listen attentively to what their classmates have to say.
(3) Listening practice with audio
and video tapes. Two hours of class a week will be held in the Audio-Visual
Building, where audio and video
tapes will be used as the basis for listening comprehension exercises. There will
normally be one written listening
assignment a week.
(4) Various oral presentations,
including a book summary first semester and a role play second semester.
This is not a composition course, and we unfortunately have too large a class and not enough time for lots of conversation practice. You must take responsibility yourself for getting practice in these areas. Remember that your education is your responsibility – NTU faculty and staff can help you with only part of it!
E-mail: Every student is expected to apply for and actively use an NTU e-mail account, available free from the Computer Center, if you don’t already have one.
Grade calculation: Attendance (note that anyone who misses
more than three classes or is late to class more than five times without good
reason will not pass this course; if you must miss class or be late let Ms. Chung
know by e-mail or otherwise),
homework, quizzes (usually given after we finish reading and discussing
each text), oral presentations, class participation,
attitude, progress made, final exam. Extra credit will be given to students
who do independent research on a class-related topic and share their findings
with the class.
Lab Fee: NT$500 per semester.
Submit a blank 90-minute cassette tape: Students must supply a blank 90 minute cassette tape on which will be recorded the poems, maybe some of the readings, and the listening exercises. Label the tape and the spine of the tape case insert with your name in English and Chinese, your student number, your department, and course title.
Text:
Ackley, Katherine Anne. 2001. Essays from Contemporary Culture. 4th edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt College
Publishers.. 420pp. Paper. Purchase as a class from Bookman書林 after the first class.
Each student will also be asked
to choose a simplified or original novel to read with a partner and give
an oral book report on.
Handouts will be distributed in class and/or posted on the instructor’s Website.
Readings
(tentative; we may or may not finish all of these;
or we may add some additional ones):
1. "Sex, Lies, and
Conversation", Deborah Tannen, p. 188. Deborah Tannen's homepage is at
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/;
Listening
assignment for week of October 4-11: Note five points from either of the following
on the Net: National Public Radio Interview with Deborah Tannen at http://www.wamu.org/ram/2001/r2010510.ram
or
Internet TV reading by Deborah Tannen from her new book, I
Only Say This Because I Love You, at:
http://www.previewport.com/realMedia/tannenreadingsm.ram.
Listening assignment for week of October
11-18: Work on wheels with Thomas Holtackers.
Listening assignment for week of October
18-25: Whoopi Goldberg: Audiobook (on
side A of tape after poems and three popular songs)
Listening assignment for week of October
25-November 1: Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
(on side A of tape after Whoopi Goldberg passage)
2. “Learning the Hard Way”, Michael Denne, p. 73.
Listening assignment for week of November 1-8: Difficult
Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (on side A of tape, after
Anne Frank passage)
Some resources on Stephen
Hawking (relating to the quote
assigned for reading aloud November 8-15): Professor Hawking's Web site:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html
and an interesting article from the BBC on the man who may become Stephen Hawking's
voice: http://www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html
Listen to Stephen Hawking speak with his voice synthesizer: http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/davidfest/hawking/
Listening assignment for week of November 8-15:
Popular Song "Insensitive" by Jann Arden
(song after "Dust in the Wind").
3.
"The Story of an Hour",
Kate Chopin, p. 82. Some resources on Kate Chopin:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/chopinawake/about.html
http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfwc/wiu/chopin.html
http://www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/chopin_kate/index.html
There is a video in the AV library based on "The Story of an Hour",
called The Joy That Kills.
The call number is: (VC) PN1997 K3z 1988.
Classic Notes biography of Robert Louis Stevenson:
http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/about_robert_stevenson.html
The complete poems of Robert Louis Stevenson
are available at: http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/stevenson.html
Listening assignment for week of
November 15-22: Ask Dr.
Laura (1) (after "Difficult Conversations" on side A).
The
collected poems of William Butler Yeats: http://www.online-literature.com/yeats
Listening
assignment for week of November 22-29: Ask
Dr. Laura (2) (to the end of side A).
Books
and writers: Walter de la Mare: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/delamare.htm
Listening assignment for week of
November 29-December 6: When
Harry Met Sally: Cloze exercise (1)
Listening
assignment for week of December 6-13: When
Harry Met Sally: Cloze exercise (2)
Listening
assignment for week of December 13-20: Behind
the Music: Julian Lennon
The
Life and Times of Henry D. Thoreau:
http://libws66.lib.niu.edu/thoreau/bexhibit.htm
Poetry Exhibits: e.
e. cummings
Christmas
Carols
Listening
assignment for week of December 27-January 3: W*O*L*D
Listening
assignment for week of January 3-10: BBC
Interview with Ray Charles
George Meredith (1828-1909) -- A Brief Biography:
http://65.107.211.206/victorian/authors/meredith/biograph.html
4. "I Became Her Target", Roger Wilkins, p. 160. See http://www.gmu.edu/robinson/rw.html
5. "First and Last, Do No Harm", Charles Krauthammer, p. 322. A bit of background on Charles Krauthammer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/opinions/krauthammer.htm
6. "One Man's Kid", Daniel Meier, p. 8.
7. "Silence", Larry Watson, p. 35.
Outside Work: All students are encouraged to advance their English skills on their own, outside class. Here are some ideas on how to do this. Please visit Extras on this site for some resources to get you started:
Read English newspapers and magazines (many available free online – see homepage or do a search), novels (simplified ones are OK!), materials on the Internet, anything else of interest;
Listen to the radio – programs
like Studio Classroom, and
ICRT, which broadcasts BBC programming every weekday morning
6am-7am, Internet broadcasts from around the world;
Watch English language TV programs, e.g. sitcoms and the news, and movies: movies can be borrowed and viewed in the AV library;
Speak and write English with friends: you may want to set up a language exchange, meet English speakers
through activities in Taipei’s foreign communities, or just practice with
classmates; writing to an e-mail pen pal – try joining a special
interest discussion group (see homepage) and send a note to someone who says things
you think are interesting.
Spring
2002 Poetry for memorization and prose for reading aloud handout
Now available!