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Teaching Tools

The U.S. Election Project

By Grant Helle

Let’s face it: Gen­er­a­tion Y – affec­tion­ate­ly known as Gen ‘Why’ – is not exact­ly polit­i­cal­ly mind­ed. This was all the more due cause to devel­op a project geared to ignite stu­dents’ pas­sion for pol­i­tics, in this case, solv­ing the rid­dle of the U.S. Elec­tion System.

The ques­tion posed by Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg, the State Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion and Media of Berlin-Bran­den­burg, eXploratorium/Life, and the Ameri­ka-zen­trum Ham­burg was how to gar­ner stu­dents’ inter­est in the U.S. polit­i­cal sys­tem while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly teach­ing con­tem­po­rary U.S. cul­ture and improv­ing their com­mu­nica­tive com­pe­tence in Eng­lish. This idea devel­oped into a two-month project, with spe­cial empha­sis on new media, such as Inter­net learn­ing plat­forms, MOOCs, and intercultural/democratic edu­ca­tion. Read more »

Access America

A Study Trip to Las Vegas?
Yes, a Study Trip!

By Sabrina Völz

The two-semes­ter project, “Eth­nic Stud­ies and Eco-Crit­i­cism Meet Inter­cul­tur­al Exchange: A Study Trip to Las Vegas,” brought togeth­er stu­dents and fac­ul­ty from Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty in Lüneb­urg and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da, Las Vegas (UNLV) as well as Jan­ice Har­ring­ton, the “Moth­er of Gospel Work­shops in Ger­many.” Apart from plan­ning all aspects of the inter­na­tion­al study trip, Leuphana stu­dents learned about financ­ing, spon­sor­ing, and orga­niz­ing a con­cert with Jan­ice Har­ring­ton and Friends ded­i­cat­ed to African Amer­i­can music in Ger­many. The pro­ceeds from the con­cert were used to defray excur­sion costs. Addi­tion­al­ly, par­tic­i­pants pre­pared their own research projects in which they learned about a wide range of top­ics: African Amer­i­can music and cul­ture; inter­dis­ci­pli­nary issues relat­ed to Las Vegas (Hoover Dam, Las Vegas’ sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­cept, nuclear test­ing); cul­ture and lifestyle of the Hopi and Nava­jo nations; and cul­tur­al her­itage sites (Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chel­ley, and Mon­u­ment Valley).

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Creativity Corner

A Night in Berlin with Michael Lederer

By Grant Helle

The U.S. Embassy Lit­er­a­ture Series at the Eng­lish The­atre Berlin in coop­er­a­tion with Pal­mArt­Press pre­sent­ed Michael Led­er­er on Feb­ru­ary 11, 2014. In the fol­low­ing video, Led­er­er reads from his new nov­el Cadaqués and takes part in a dis­cus­sion with mod­er­a­tor Dr. Her­bert Grieshop. The sto­ry is set in a quaint fish­ing vil­lage along the Spanish/French bor­der and depicts the lives of a group of hard-drink­ing writ­ers and artists.

 
Michael Led­er­er is an Amer­i­can writer who lives in Berlin, Dubrovnik, and Cadaqués. His first nov­el, Cadaqués, was pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2014. He has just writ­ten his sec­ond nov­el, Don Quixote Sav­ing Amer­i­ca.

Best Books & Fabulous Films

A Game of Thrones: Heroes Wanted

By Friederike Fischer

GOTWe all know him—the tall, strong, brave man. The hero. The prince. The knight in shin­ing armor whose deci­sions are infal­li­ble, his visions wide-rang­ing, and his char­ac­ter traits impec­ca­ble. He is the good guy who faces the vil­lain. George R. R. Mar­tin intro­duces his read­ers to a new kind of hero: none of the above—at least not in the tra­di­tion­al sense.

A Game of Thrones (the first book of the series A Song of Ice and Fire) is about love and hate, loy­al­ty and trea­son as well as high-born lords and ser­vants. It is about a deeply trou­bled medieval king­dom on the edge of win­ter. It is also about good and evil, but the line between those two fades with every word that enters the reader’s mind and gets lost some­where on the 807 pages. There are more names appear­ing in the book than any­one could pos­si­bly remem­ber; yet none of the char­ac­ters can be clas­si­fied as entire­ly good or evil. No one is infal­li­ble. Not even—or espe­cial­ly not—the char­ac­ters that we would most like­ly call heroes.

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Creativity Corner

Number 13: Unbraiding the Short Story

By Sabrina Völz

Regard­less of the field, con­fer­ences come in all shapes and sizes. Some are for­got­ten quick­ly while oth­ers become engraved in one’s mem­o­ry. The lat­ter expe­ri­ences are some­times few and far between. The bien­ni­al Inter­na­tion­al Short Sto­ry Con­fer­ence in Eng­lish – which brings togeth­er schol­ars, writ­ers, and those in the pub­lish­ing indus­try – might just fit the bill. This year’s con­fer­ence was lucky num­ber 13 and took place in Vien­na from July 16–19.  It was a place to dis­cov­er young, tal­ent­ed voic­es, inter­act with estab­lished authors, and hear schol­ar­ly papers from col­leagues all over the globe. I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­at­ed the anthol­o­gy, Unbrad­ing the short sto­ry, which allowed con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants to famil­iar­ize them­selves with 69 sto­ries by writ­ers-in-res­i­dence (ISBN: 13: 978–1497593992). This helped immensly with the selec­tion of pan­els. Apart from lis­ten­ing to pan­el dis­cus­sions, doing inter­views, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in cre­ative writ­ing work­shops with authors, for me, it was again a place to renew my first love: the short story.

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Teaching Tools

Shooting for the Stars: Creativity and Competition in the English Classroom

By Sabrina Völz

It has been my expe­ri­ence that com­pe­ti­tion, apart from the kind found in tele­vi­sion quiz shows, is often frowned upon in Ger­many. For Amer­i­cans, how­ev­er, com­pe­ti­tion may bring back fond mem­o­ries of grade school spelling bees, high school foot­ball games, and employ­ee-of-the-week awards. From an Amer­i­can per­spec­tive, com­pe­ti­tion helps to moti­vate peo­ple to be cre­ative and do their very best work. Even if you don’t win, doing your best is a great achieve­ment. Yes, for many Amer­i­cans, com­pe­ti­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty – some­times referred to as inge­nu­ity – go hand-in-hand. But what do they have to do with me, you ask? If you are a teacher or uni­ver­si­ty fac­ul­ty mem­ber, they have every­thing to do with you. Read more »