An invitation for President Obama

Shortly after Obama announced that he himself would come to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, some of the teachers at Sandvika upper secondary decided to invite Obama to our school. It may be a shot in the dark, but we have too keep dreaming. Here you can read the invitation from our principal and the encouraging answer from the American Embassy in Oslo: Invitation to visit Sandvika High School in Norway Attached to the invitation was an etherpad document where our students have posted suggestions about how the President can spend the prize money. Photo from flickr: A vision for America

Politics in the USA

One of the competence aims in our curriculum plan is that our students in the first year of upper secondary are supposed to learn how to "discuss social conditions and values in various cultures in English-speaking countries". When we study the USA and American values we try to include at least the basics of American politics. This topic is in itself fairly complicated, obviously, but I think the text "Thirteen questions about American politics" (from the website www.tracks1hs.cappelendamm.no) presents the key facts and principles in a very student-friendly way (question 10 is outdated and left out in a later version, but apart from that the text is good). On this page you can listen to the text, do exercises and read a shorter version: Twelve questions about politics. Photo from flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/46274125@N00/172657516

The Stockholm Syndrome

, One of my pupils (Olve) posted this report from Jon Stewart's Daily Show on his blog. The American fear of turning into a "socialist state like Sweden" looks particularly amusing from a Scandinavian point of view, so I just had to share this too:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Race and voting patterns in the US

In this TED talk Nate Silver analyses voting patterns in the 2008 General Election and asks whether race affects votes. His conclusion is quite optimistic:

Taking "The Wire" into the English classroom

If you are an English teacher who, like me, have become addicted to HBO's TV series "The Wire" , you have probably, like me, at some point thought "I wish I could use this in the classroom". Our students are experienced TV viewers and so are we, but how can we take advantage of this in our English lessons? I recently attended an interesting and very useful lecture by Janne Stigen Drangsholt (University of Bergen, Norway) on this particular topic. Drangsholt presented "The Wire" as a television series that can be used successfully to teach students about certain aspects of American society. "The Wire" has by some been called the best television series of all time. It is set in Baltimore and at first glance it may seem like just another traditional cop show where the viewer in each episode is presented with a crime that is solved at the end of the very same episode. However, "The Wire" is completely different because the makers have attempted to create a TV drama that tells us the real story. No crimes (completely) solved, (almost) no villains caught, no happy endings. The main issues addressed in the series are corruption, drugs and more or less organised crime. In season four the focus is on the children/ teenagers of West Baltimore. Drugs and guns are parts of their everyday life, but in season four the viewers are also invited to join them in the classroom. Of course, the series is at its best if you can watch an entire season, but if you, the teacher, know the season well enough to introduce it to your students, it can be fruitful to simply look carefully at one episode. In her lecture, Drangsholt used episode 8 of season four, "The corner boys," as an example of such an episode that works on its own if properly introduced. She also suggested a couple of newspaper articles to use in class with the episode. I have made this detailed lesson plan based on the episode where I make use of the articles suggested by Drangsholt. The clip above is from an earlier episode in the same season. If you have any comments on my lesson plan or if you have experiences with using "The Wire" in the classroom, please let me know.

Gun control in the US

American gun culture and gun control in the US are always hot topics for the English classroom. BBC Learning has a useful case study on gun control and on the NY Times Learning website there is a lesson plan on the topic. I have made this lesson plan on gun control that combines the two online rescources. The suggested article from NY Times (PART II of my lesson plan) may prove difficult for some students, so one can for example use PART I of the lesson plan with the entire class and give PART II to those who need an extra challenge. Photo: Little Posh, Big Gun

The USA: Immigration, ethnicity and Crash

Right now in my English class we are working on immigration, race and ethnicity in the USA, a complex topic that can be dealt with in a number of ways. We have chosen to combine a quick glance at the history of immigration in the USA with a more thorough look at the current situation. These web pages on American immigration give a very good overview of which countries people have emigrated from throughout the history of the USA. The pages contain a timeline with maps that show from which countries immigrants into the USA have originated at what time. In addition, there are two maps that show the current situation; which countries the largest ancestry groups originate from (numbers from 2000) and where the largest groups of illegal immigrants are arriving from (numbers from 2005). The pages also contain text boxes that help explain the maps. For a closer look at the immigrant experience we have read the article "Best of friends, worlds apart", which tells the story of two Cuban friends, one black and one white, whose experience and understanding of race and ethnicity were completely altered as they were forced to adjust to American society. My excellent colleagues Liv Kristin and Kjetil at Sandvika upper secondary school made this lesson plan: RACE AND ETHNICITY IN THE USA (photo: "united")

Having worked with the above mentioned texts and timelines, a suitable and student-friendly way to round off the topic of immigration and ethnicity in the US is to watch Paul Haggis' Crash (2005), which seems to be a film that always succeeds in catching the students' attention. When the film received the Academy Award for best film in 2005, members of the Academy explained that they had voted for the film because they felt it so aptly described an important and difficult aspect of American society. The film takes us to LA and introduces us to the racial prejudices of most of the ethnic groups that make up the legal and illegal population of the city. Intertwining storylines and a large number of characters may present a challenge to students, but they never seem to lose interest, nor miss the message. However, it can be a good idea to have students look at Wikipedia's pages on Crash, which give a plot summary as well as an excellent overview of the many interesting characters. For study questions on Crash and a number of other quality films, see Manitowoc Public Library's Critic's Choice film series. Have a look at the trailer of the film:


P.S. After writing this I discovered that Larry Ferlazzo had published a link to a short article in the Sacramento Bee, "Characteristics of the foreign-born", that sums up the 2007 demographic data on foreign-born people in the nation, states and cities in the USA. These numbers are certainly an interesting next step after studying the maps and texts on American immigration (legal and illegal) and ancestry groups mentioned above.

Obama's inauguration address

Last week we devoted a substantial part of our English lessons to Obama and his inaugural address. My colleagues and I created this google document with study questions. The list of glossary gives the Norwegian translation of some difficult words: Barack Obama's Inaugural Address After the students have worked on the questions, one can for example sum up with a class discussion.
Photo: "Barack Obama: A mosaic of people"