Strategic EAP course (Academic Reading)
6/3-8/7 (every Tuesday and Thursday)
Syllabus and Course Schedule
instructors
Sung Huh
email: suh12@psu.edu
Course description: This course provides you with the reading skills necessary to be a confident
and independent reader, and to help you improve your comprehension of written English in order
to compete successfully in an academic program.
Course Materials: Textbook is not required. The instructor will provide various outside sources
such as newspaper articles, short stories, contemporary essays, academic journal articles,
cartoons, and etc.
Course Requirements and Assessment:
Tradition methods like quizzes, exams, and scoring/grading are not part of the evaluation of this
course. Instead, each student will receive individualized feedback and comments from the
instructor during and after every task, activity, and performance. Thus, homework, small group
work, completion of worksheet, class discussion, presentations and all the participations in class
will be carefully monitored to help you. This course requires regular attendance and full
participation on students’ part. In addition to the instructor’s constant feedback, a self-assessment
method will be frequently built around the course as another activity as to give the ownership of
your learning.
Week
Date
What we’ll do in class
Assignment
1
6/3
T
ice-breakers
Self-introduction
Introduction to Syllabus
questionnaire
Write two sentences about the
notion of “academic reading”
again and compare this with your
original sentences that you have
written in class.(6/5)
6/5
R
introduction to Previewing Skill (scanning
and skimming)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
6/10
T
review with a new text
6/12
R
introduction to annotating
6/17
T
introduction to outlining and summarizing
6/19
R
review with a new text
6/24
T
introduction to Comparing, contrasting,
synthesizing related readings
6/26
R
review with a new text
7/1
T
analyzing structures: literature review
7/3
R
introduction to plagiarism APA style
citation
7/8
T
introduction to criticism mitigation
Be ready to write a book review
in class (7/8)The direction for
book review will be provided
during the class. Just think about
any book that you have read
before.
Write your reflection on “Petty
Crime, Outrageous Punishment:
Why the Three-Strikes Law
Doesn't Work” (1 page) (7/15)
7/10
R
introduction to evaluation an argument
7/15
T
review with a new text
in-class writing (argumentative writing)
Choose an article, or a topic, for
the upcoming presentation.
Discuss any difficulty with the
instructor.
7/17
R
introduction to tone/stance
Read another chapter of David
Sedaris’s book and be prepared
to talk about his tone. (7/22)
7/22
T
review with a new text
9
10
7/24
R
introduction to inference
7/29
T
review with a new text
presentation demo
7/31
R
student presentation
8/5
T
student presentation
8/7
R
overview
1. Let’s talk about the notion of academic literacy
 Goals and objectives:
Students will be more aware that how important it is to establish a tangible understanding of the
concept, academic literacy, particularly academic reading
Teacher will provide students with a learning environment in which students foster a sense of
ownership for their learning
This lesson will remind the fact that all the participants in class benefit from each other by
making a contribution to the class
 Teaching materials: blank posters, markers, tapes, questionnaire sheets, name tags, and
syllabus
Opening
5 minutes
Description
Justifications
comments
Welcome and simple introduction of course and self-introduction
of the teacher
Name
School and Major, or academic interests
What makes you unique from others
Specific reasons for signing up for this course
Teacher’s
modeling
before a task,
whether it is
simple or
complicated,
always
assists
students’
understandin
g of the task.
Ice-breaker
10-15
minutes
Ask students to introduce themselves in pair and later one student
in pairs to represent the other partner to the class based on the
conversation beforehand.
Talking in
small groups
first will ease
students
discomfort
with public
speech.
Activity
1.
Write a phrase “Academic reading” on the board.
2.
Ask each student to come up with two sentences to
define/explain/reflect the notion.
3.
Once each student finishes, students are asked to work with
their shoulder partner to come up with another two sentences
which can embrace the fours sentences.
4.
Next, two pairs, four students, gather to discuss and reach
an agreed upon conception in two sentences.
5.
Each group (four students) writes down their finalized two
sentences in a poster and put it up on the board so that everyone
can see.
6.
As a whole class, discuss an overarching theme from the
contents of the posters.
This activity
will help
students
externalize
the concept
of “academic
literacy” by
orally
articulating
and
negotiating
their thoughts
with others.
35-40
minutes
Presentation
15 minutes
Present the crucial components of academic reading and some
common issues/challenges that students might face in a real
academic discourse community.
Introduce the syllabus and give a brief account of reading skills
that are going to be taught.
Questionnair Have students fill out a questionnaire designed by the instructor.
e
(Appendix A)
10 minutes
The
questionnaire
will serve to
help the
teacher in
choosing
more subjectspecific
reading
materials.
Closing
Homework: write two sentences about the notion of “academic
reading” again and compare this with your original sentences that
you have written in class.
Name :
Age :
Profession :
Major/interests you’d like to pursue:
The progress of your application process:
1. Have you taken TOEFL and/or GRE? What are the scores?
2. Which schools have you applied?
3. Have you been accepted? If so, when is your departure date?
4. What do you think is the most challenging part in studying abroad?
5. What is your future plan after finishing your study?
6. Do you any experience in staying, traveling, or studying in a foreign country? If you have,
please provide some details.
7. Do you have any written work that has influenced on your life? If so, what are they?
8. How would you describe your reading and writing skill?
9. Based on today’s class activity (defining the notion of academic literacy, what aspect of it
seems to be most difficult to acquire?
10. What specific challenges do you face when you listen to a lecture in English in general?
11. What specific challenges do you face when you speak in English? (in class)
12. Why are you taking this course? What is your short-term goal with this course?
13. What do you expect from this course?
14. Any question or comment?
2. Rereading strategies: Previewing and Predicting
 Goals and objective
Students will understand the usefulness and significance of pre-reading strategies that
involve several of the traditional academic study skills foci.
enables students to develop a set of expectations about the scope and aim of the text.
to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
help students think about what they already know about the topic. The ability to access prior
knowledge helps students develop a critical schema (or cognitive map) that they can use to
increase their comprehension.
To lead students through a series of questions that will help them make an accurate
prediction.
These predictions help students think about what they already know about the topic. The
ability to access prior knowledge helps students develop a critical schema (or cognitive map)
that they can use to increase their comprehension.
Orientation
10
description
What is preview?—analogy to movie preview
1. Present a poster of a movie, “Patch Adams”, which
explicitly reveals the famous actor, Robin Williams,
the title of the movie and a famous scene of the
movie. Ask students in pairs to write their prediction
of its genre, its main message, an overarching theme,
and story plot.
1. Students watch a video clip, Patch Adams Official
justification
This will point
out that fact that
how we use the
previewing skill
on daily basis
for everyday
discourse and
how it is
effective and
useful.
Trailer - Robin Williams Movie (1998) 2:05
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqGA1ldvYE
2. Then, based on what they have watched, students
have another chance to revise their prediction about
the movie and share their notes with class.
3. Shares the entire, detailed storyline with class.
4. Guide a class discussion on how each pair reaches
their conclusion/prediction, what the big clues are,
and how bits of information presented work together
to construct their final prediction.
5. Lead the discussion into today’s topic of how
preview reading skill can help them with purposeful
reading.
Presentation Discuss ways to enter a text with preliminary impressions
15
and write down students’ input on the board
Possible talking points
- Titles
- Subtitles
- Visuals
- Headnotes
- Abstract
- Layout of a text
- First and last paragraph
- Author
- photo captions
Questions for students
1. What does the presence of headnotes, an abstract, or
other prefatory material tell you?
2. Is the author known to you already? If so, how does
his/her reputation influence your perception? If the
author is unfamiliar, does an editor supply brief
biographical information of the author, an evaluation
of the author’s work, or concerns?
3. Is a text broken into parts--subtopics, sections, or the
like? Are there long and unbroken blocks of text or
smaller paragraphs? What does this arrangement/
layout suggest? How might the parts of a text guide
you toward understanding the purpose of a text?
4. Does a text seem to be arranged according to certain
conventions of discourse? Think of types of
discourse conventions.
- Textbooks and journal articles
- Blogs
- Newspaper
- etc.
Students often
believe they
have to start at
the beginning
and going word
by word,
stopping to look
up every
unknown
vocabulary
item, until they
reach the last
word for
difficult
materials. This
approach
exclusively
relies on
students’
linguistic
knowledge.
Through
explicit
instruction,
students have
tools and lenses
to use for
purposeful
reading.
Activity
with a short
text, News
article
15
1. Students practice the previewing strategy with a
newspaper article from The New York Times, “The
Power of Pronouns” by BEN ZIMMER.
(Appendix )Ask students to read the title and the first
two and last two paragraph of the reading and to
identity the main idea and purpose of the reading.
2. Pair discussion
3. Class discussion
- Whether it is an ample amount of information?
- If not, what would help understanding the text
without reading it word by word? Which paragraph
is worth noting other than the first and last
paragraph? Why?
Extended
Activity
with a long
text, journal
article
20
1. Since they are familiar with employing the
previewing skill, teacher presents them with a longer
and academic text, two books from liberal art and
science field. This time, students will look at the
abstract, introduction, contents, some graphic.
In the very
beginning of the
course, since
the introduction
to an entire
book can be
intimidating,
teacher needs to
reassure
students by
clarifying the
purpose of this
task.
closing
The New York Times
August 26, 2011
The Power of Pronouns
By
BEN ZIMMER
When President Obama addressed the nation after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May, some
conservative reactions to his rhetoric were all too predictable. On -National Review Online,
Victor Davis Hanson highlighted the 15 times that Obama used “I,” “me” or “my” in the 1,400word speech, and asserted that “these first-person pronouns . . . reflect a now well-known Obama
trait of personalizing the presidency.” A few weeks later, when Obama gave a speech at the
C.I.A.’s headquarters in Langley, Va., the Drudge Report offered the headline, “I ME MINE:
Obama praises C.I.A. for bin Laden raid — while saying ‘I’ 35 times.”
This “well-known Obama trait” has come up again and again in criticisms from the right —
George Will has said that Obama is “inordinately fond of the first-person singular pronoun,”
while Charles Krauthammer has written of the president’s “spectacularly promiscuous use of the
word ‘I.’ ”
Regrettably, none of these pundits have bothered to look into how Obama might compare
with his predecessors. But this kind of comparative word-counting is right up the alley of James
W. Pennebaker, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Toward the end of his
penetrating new book, “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us,”
Pennebaker crunches the numbers on presidential press conferences since Truman and finds that
“Obama has distinguished himself as the lowest I-word user of any of the modern presidents.” If
anything, Obama has shown a disdain for the first-person singular during his administration.
“Why,” Pennebaker wonders, “do very smart people think just the opposite?” He chalks it up
the selective way we process information: “If we think that someone is arrogant, our brains will
be searching for evidence to confirm our beliefs.” If we’re predisposed to look for clues that
Obama is all about “me me me,” then every “me” he utters takes on outsize importance in our
impressionistic view of his speechifying.
But even more counterintuitively, Pennebaker argues that Obama isn’t somehow being
humble or insecure in his low frequency of first-person pronouns; in fact, his language use
reveals him to be quite self--confident. Speakers displaying self--assurance have a lower
frequency of I-words, even though most people would assume the opposite. So the knock on
Obama may indicate that listeners can properly discern his self-confidence (along with what
Pennebaker calls his “emotional distance”) but then attribute this quality to precisely the wrong
details of his speaking.
Little wonder that Pennebaker’s “primary rule of word counting” is “Don’t trust your
instincts.” Mere mortals, as opposed to infallible computers, are woefully bad at keeping track of
the ebb and flow of words, especially the tiny, stealthy ones that most interest Pennebaker. Those
are the “style” or “function” words, which, along with pronouns, include articles, prepositions,
auxiliary verbs and conjunctions — all of the connective tissue of language. We’re reasonably
good at picking up on “content words”: nouns, action verbs, adjectives and adverbs. But
“function words are almost impossible to hear,” Pennebaker warns, “and your stereotypes about
how they work may well be wrong.” (Quizzes at Pennebaker’s Web site allow readers to
demonstrate just how wrong we usually get things.)
The under-the-radar sneakiness of function words actually makes them uniquely suited to
Pennebaker’s wide-ranging research goals, which focus on uncovering traces of our social
identity and individual psyche in everyday language use. It also helps that these little words
make up a vast majority of the most common words in the language, which means that
Pennebaker and his colleagues can collect them in large enough numbers to support statistical
analysis of a whole variety of texts, from Twitter posts to despairing poetry.
Pennebaker admits that word-counting programs are “remarkably stupid,” unable to
recognize irony, sarcasm or even the basic contextual clues that allow us to distinguish which
meaning of a word is intended. Yet these “stupid” programs have led to a series of unexpected
findings ever since Pennebaker first saw the need for one 20 years ago. At the time, he and his
graduate students were working through thousands of diary entries written by people suffering
from depression, analyzing how people deal with traumatic moments. Writing about trauma
seemed to help some people, but why? To answer the question, his team created a program to
read the diary entries automatically and count words related to different psychological states, like
anger, sadness and more positive emotions.
Helped by a grad student sleuth named Sherlock Campbell, Pennebaker looked past the
content--related terms to discover that a change in the use of function words, particularly
pronouns, was the best indicator of improved mental health. Recovery from trauma seemed to
require a kind of “perspective switching” — reflecting on problems from different points of view
— that shifts in pronoun use could facilitate.
“The Secret Life of Pronouns” outlines in lively and accessible detail how that initial
discovery led Pennebaker to appreciate the many ways in which function words reveal our
interior lives. He has found strong correlations according to such factors as gender, age and class.
For instance, women, younger people and people from lower social classes more frequently use
pronouns and auxiliary verbs — words that supposedly signal both lower status and greater
social orientation. Lacking power, he argues, requires a deeper engagement with the thoughts of
one’s fellow humans.
At times, Pennebaker’s post-hoc explanations are disappointingly sketchy. Why do men
tend to use more articles than women? Because “guys talk about objects and things more than
women do . . . the broken carburetor, the wife, and a steak on the grill for dinner.” Though he
admits that’s a “shameless generalization,” it carries a whiff of the unscientific “Men Are From
Mars, Women Are From Venus” school of gender stereotyping.
More convincing are cases where Pennebaker and his fellow researchers catch on-the-fly
changes in the way people connect with others, from lying to loving. In seeking a bond, people
readily accommodate to one another’s manner of speaking through “language style matching,”
getting their function words in sync. When an experience is shared, whether it’s building a
business relationship, supporting a sports team or commiserating after a tragedy like 9/11,
pronouns can mutate, with “I” dropping out in favor of the inclusive “we.” But “we” doesn’t
always indicate solidarity: John Kerry’s advisers made that mistake during the 2004 presidential
race, Pennebaker says, by trying to get their candidate to use “we” more often. Kerry was already
using “we” too much, and to negative effect. “When politicians use them,” Pennebaker writes,
“we-words sound cold, rigid and emotionally distant.”
So would cutting down on we-words have made Kerry more personable to voters? It’s not
that simple. “My language therapy would have been to try to change his relationship with the
audience and the way he was thinking about himself,” Pennebaker writes. He compares words to
a speedometer: “You can’t slow the car by directly affecting the speedometer.” Paying closer
attention to function words, he advises, can help us understand the social relations that those
words reflect. Unfortunately, we might not be able to pay proper attention until we’re all
equipped with automatic word counters. Until that day, we have Pennebaker as an indefatigable
guide to the little words that he boldly calls “keys to the soul.”
Evaluating an argument: Fact and Opinion
 Goals and objectives
To help student to begin looking at information with the questioning eye of a critical reader
To make students enable to recognize the distinction between fact and opinion in real material
which may not as clear as we think
To cultivate students’ understand how these two discursive features, fact and opinion, work
together to construct one’s argument
 Teaching material: worksheet, a reading text, access to online
Orientation
(7-10)
description
1. Watch a TV Advertise, Cymbalta
Commercial( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crkHJnMx
No4), and ask students share their initial reaction to the ad.
2. Ask students to criticize this ad and watch the ad again.
Question students if their reactions have been changed.
Why? Find linguistic devices, or others that might justify the
feelings.
3. Discuss “advertising effects”.
Presentatio
n
(10-15)
1. Present the difference between facts and Opinions by
interacting with students.
Facts : data that can be proved true through objective evidence or
accepted as objectively verifiable
- Historical reports
- Experimental or scientific observation
- Statistical data
- Some cause and effect
Opinions: a belief, judgment, or conclusion that cannot be
objectively proved true
- Interpretation of data
- Predictions
- Judgment
2. Lead a discuss some genres and literacy motivations that
cause a blurry line between the two. Think about linguistic
justification
Students are
urged to
have a
critical eye
for ad. This
helps them
realize how
everyday
discourse
blends fact
with
opinion.
To make
the
information
during the
presentation
stage,
accessible,
teacher
prepares
some
exemplar
mini texts
for each
point, but
before
Pre-reading
and
reviewing
the
previously
learned
reading
skills
(20-25)
Reading
activity
(20-25)
clues and contexts that help separating fact form opinion
Talking points:
- Facts and opinions often go together.
- Once it is a fact, is it always a fact?
- Can statements of opinions be disguised as facts? How?
- Is widespread belief a fact?
- Use of evaluative words?
- Use of modal that indicates level of certainty?
- Level of expertise of writer
- Are the facts presented in an objective manner?
- Do the facts actually provide support for the author’s
opinions?
- Have unfavorable or negative points been left out?
Before, students zero in on a new text, “Petty Crime, Outrageous
Punishment: Why the Three-Strikes Law Doesn't Work” by Carl M.
Cannon(Appendix ), to separate fact from opinion, students practice
the previously learned reading skills, previewing and predicting and
identifying main idea and summarizing.
1. Who is Carl M. Cannon?
2. What does the title of the essay tell you?
3. Skim the essay and find repeated key words. Then, identify
the main idea and predict the writer’s stance.
4. Takes turns to read though the text out loud.
5. Revise the main idea that you have come up with earlier and
write a summary in their notebook.
6. (A couple of students) Share your summaries with the class.
7. (The whole class) Discuss your opinions of the criminal
justice system in the United States, or in Korea.
Have students work together in small groups (3-4 persons) to
thoroughly examine the essay to evaluate the argument. Ask them to
fill out the worksheet (Appendix ) while referring to the prompts
below. To complete the worksheet, students have to provide both a
sentence and a supporting linguistic cue. If there is any grey area,
students leave a comment for later discussion.
Evidence used
1.
Is there a clear distinction between fact and opinion?
2.
Is evidence used to support arguments? How good is the
evidence? Are all the points supported?
3.
Are there any unsupported points? Are they well-known
facts or generally accepted opinions?
4.
How does Carl M. Cannon use other texts and other people's
ideas? If not, what kind of other sources can you think of to make a
better argument?
doing so,
teacher
elicits
students
input first.
Every class,
this is a
significant
step in
which what
students
have
learned in
previous
classes are
practiced in
a recurring
manner.
Becoming a
critical
reader,
students
should not
take the text
in front of
them in the
way it
represents.
They
should get
into a habit
of
evaluating
the
5.
Are Carl M. Cannon’s conclusions reasonable in the light of
the evidence presented?
Extended
discussion
(10)
Closing
Assumptions made
1.
Are they any assumptions Carl M. Cannon has made? Are
they valid?
2.
What beliefs or values does Carl M. Cannon hold? Are they
explicit?
3.
Look for linguistic devices such as emphatic word, hedges,
intensifiers and others.
The class comes back for a discussion.
Have students in turns present their evaluation on the argument and
discuss some unclear areas together and how the ambiguity is
discursively constructed.
truthfulness
of text, and
find the
evidence
right from
the text.
During the
previous
activity,
teacher
should
monitor
students’
performanc
e and
conduct ongoing
assessment
to elucidate
the grey
areas this
time.
Have students submit their worksheet for further feedback.
Homework: Write a page long reflection paper for the essay.
Worksheet
Fact
Linguistic
cues/comments
By the end of last year, Statistics
2,344 of the 7,574
three-strikers in the
C: Maybe factstate’s penal system
checking is needed?
got their third strike
Is it necessary?
for a property offense.
Opinion
A prison term was
appropriate
Linguistic
cue/comments
Evaluative
adjective:
appropriate
Fact+opinion:
Confusing:
October 2005 edition of Reader’s Digest
Petty Crime, Outrageous Punishment: Why the Three-Strikes Law Doesn't Work
By Carl M. Cannon
There was nothing honorable about it, nothing particularly heinous, either, when Leandro
Andrade, a 37-year-old Army veteran with three kids and a drug habit, walked into a Kmart store
in Ontario, California stuffed five videos into his waistband and tried to leave without paying.
Security guards stopped him, but two weeks later, Andrade went to another Kmart and tried to
steal four more videos. The police were called, and he was tried and convicted.
That was ten years ago, and Leandro Andrade is still behind bars. He figures to be there a lot
longer: He came out of the courtroom with a sentence of 50 years to life.
If you find that stunningly harsh, you're in good company. The Andrade case went all the way to
the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice David Souter wrote that the punishment was "grossly
disproportionate" to the crime.
So why is Andrade still serving a virtual life sentence? For the same reason that, across the
country, thousands of others are behind bars serving extraordinarily long terms for a variety of
low-level, nonviolent crimes. It's the result of well-intentioned anti-crime laws that have gone
terribly wrong.
Convinced that too many judges were going easy on violent recidivists, Congress enacted federal
"mandatory minimum" sentences two decades ago, mainly targeting drug crimes. Throughout the
1990s, state legislatures and Congress kept upping the ante, passing new mandatory minimums,
including "three strikes and you're out" laws. The upshot was a mosaic of sentencing statues that
all but eliminated judicial discretion, mercy, or even common sense.
Now we are living with the fallout. California came down hard on Andrade because he'd
committed a petty theft in 1990 that allowed prosecutors to classify the video thefts as felonies,
triggering the three-strikes laws.
The videos that Andrade stole were kids' movies, such as Casper and Snow White -- Christmas
presents, he said, for nieces and nephews. A pre-sentence report theorized he was swiping the
videos to feed a heroin habit. Their retail value: $84.70 for the first batch and $68.84 for the
second.
When Andrade's case went before the Supreme Court, a bare majority upheld his sentence. But
rather than try to defend the three-strikes law, the opinion merely said the court should not
function as a super-legislature.
Andre will languish in prison, then, serving a much longer sentence for his non-violent crimes
than most first offenders, or even second-timers convicted of sexual assault or manslaughter.
Politicians saw harsh sentences as one way to satisfy voters fed up with the rising crime rates of
the '70s and '80s, and the violence associated with crack cocaine and other drugs. And most
would agree that strict sentencing laws have played a key role in lowering the crime rate for
violent and property crimes.
Last June, Florida Governor Jeb Bush celebrated his state's 13th straight year of declining crime
rates, thanks in part to tough sentencing statues he enacted. "If violent habitual offenders are in
prison," Bush said, "they're not going to be committing crimes on innocent people."
California, in particular, has seen a stark drop in crime since passing its toughest-in-the-nation
three-strikes law more than ten years ago. Mike Reynolds, who pushed for the legislation after
his 18-year-old daughter was murdered by two career criminals, says that under three-strikes,
"those who can get their lives turned around, will. Those who can't have two choices -- leave
California or go to prison. The one thing we cannot allow is another victim to be part of their
criminal therapy."
But putting thousands behind bars comes at a price -- a cool $750 million in California alone.
That's the annual cost to the state of incarcerating the nonviolent offenders sentenced under
three-strikes. Add up all the years these inmates will serve on average and, according to the
Justice Policy Institute, California's taxpayers will eventually shell out more than $6 billion. For
a state with a battered economy, that's a pile of money to spend on sweeping up petty crooks.
The law also falls hardest on minorities. African Americans are imprisoned under three-strikes at
ten times the rate of whites, and Latinos at nearly double the white rate. While crime rates are
higher for these minorities than for whites, the incarceration gap is disproportionately wide under
three-strikes largely because of drug-related convictions.
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is blunt when it comes to the three-strikes approach to
justice: "It's the dumbest piece of public-policy legislation in a long time. We don't have a
massive crime problem; we have a massive drug problem. And you don't treat that by locking
drug addicts up. We're putting away people we're mad at, instead of the people we're afraid of."
There are some telling figures. In 1985 about 750,000 Americans were incarcerated on a variety
of pending charges and convictions in federal and state prisons and local jails. The number of
inmates is now about 2.1 million, of which some 440,000 were convicted on drug charges. A
significant portion of the rest are there because drug addiction led them to rob and steal.
Early on there were signs that mandatory minimum laws -- especially three-strikes statutes -- had
gone too far. Just a few months after Washington state passed the nation's first three-strikes law
in 1993, a 29-year-old named Paul Rivers was sentenced to life for stealing $337 from an
espresso stand. Rivers had pretended he had a gun in his pocket, and the theft came after earlier
convictions for second-degree robbery and assault. A prison term was appropriate. But life
behind bars, without the possibility of parole? If Rivers had been packing a gun -- and shot the
espresso stand owner -- he wouldn't have gotten any more time.
Just a few weeks after California's three-strikes law took effect, Brian A. Smith, a 30-year old
recovering crack addict, was charged with aiding and abetting two female shoplifters who took
bed sheets from Robinsons-May department store in Los Cerritos Shopping Center. Smith got 25
years to life.
As a younger man, his first two strikes were for unarmed robbery and for burglarizing an
unoccupied residence. Was Brian Smith really the kind of criminal whom California voters had
in mind when they approved their three-strikes measure? Proponents sold the measure by saying
it would keep murders, rapists and child molesters behind bars where they belong. Instead the
law locked Smith away for his petty crime until at least 2020, and probably longer -- at a cost to
the state of more than $750,000.
His case is not an aberration. By the end of last year, 2,344 of the 7,574 three-strikers in the
state's penal system got their third strikes for a property offence. Scott Benscoter struck out after
stealing a pair of running shoes, and is serving 25 years to life. His prior offenses were for
residential burglaries that, according to the public defender's office, did not involve violence.
Gregory Taylor a homeless man in Los Angeles, was trying to jimmy a screen open to get into
the kitchen of a church where he had previously been given food. But he had two prior offenses
from more than a decade before: one for snatching a purse and the other for attempted robbery
without a weapon. He's also serving 25 years to life.
One reason the pendulum has swung so far is that politicians love to get behind popular slogans,
even if they lead to bad social policy.
Few California lawmakers, for example, could resist the "use a gun, go to prison" law, a concept
so catchy that it swept the nation, and is now codified in one form or another in many state
statues and in federal law. It began as a sensible idea: Make our streets safer by discouraging
drug dealers and the like from packing guns during their crimes. But the law needs to be more
flexible than some rigid slogan. Ask Monica Clyburn. You can't, really, because she's been in
prison these past ten years. Her crime? Well, that's hard to figure out.
A Florida welfare mom, Clyburn accompanied her boyfriend to a pawnshop to sell his .22caliber pistol. She provided her ID because her boyfriend didn't bring his own, and the couple
got $30 for the gun. But Clyburn had a previous criminal record for minor drug charges, and
when federal authorities ran a routine check of the pawnshop's records, they produced a "hit" -- a
felon in possession of a firearm. That's automatically 15 years in federal prison, which is exactly
what Clyburn got. "I never even held the gun," she noted in an interview from prison.
No one is more appalled than H. Jay Stevens, the former federal public defender from the middle
district of Florida. "Everybody I've described this case to says, "This can't have happened." [But]
it's happening five days a week all over this country."
Several years ago, a prominent Congressman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, was sent to
prison on mail-fraud charges. It was only then that he learned what he'd been voting for all those
years when anticrime legislation came up and he cast the safe "aye" vote. Rostenkowski told of
being stunned at how many young, low-level drug offenders were doing 15- and 20- year
stretches in federal prison.
"The waste of these lives is a loss to the entire community," Rostenkowski said. "I was swept
along by the rhetoric about getting tough on crime. Frankly, I lacked both expertise and
perspective on these issues."
Former Michigan Governor William G. Milliken signed into law his state's mandatory
minimums for drug cases, but after leaving office he lobbied the state legislature to rescind them.
"I have since come to realize that the provisions of the law have led to terrible injustices,"
Milliken wrote in 2002. Soon after, Gov. John Engler signed legislation doing away with most of
Michigan's mandatory sentences.
On the federal level, judges have been expressing their anger with Congress for preventing them
from exercising discretion and mercy. U.S. District Court Judge John S. Martin, Jr., appointed by
the first President Bush, announced his retirement from the bench rather than remain part of "a
sentencing system that is unnecessarily cruel and rigid."
While the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to strike down mandatory minimums, one justice at least
has signaled his opposition to them. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said in a speech to the 2003
American Bar Association meeting that he accepted neither the "necessity" nor the "wisdom" of
mandatory minimums.
"One day in prison is longer than almost any day you and I have had to endure," Justice Kennedy
told the nation's lawyers. "When the door is locked against the prisoner, we do not think about
what is behind it. To be sure, the prisoner must e punished to vindicate the law, to acknowledge
the suffering of the victim, and to deter future crimes. Still, the prisoner is a person. Still, he or
she is art of the family of humankind."
It is important to read critically. Critical reading requires you to evaluate the arguments in the
text. You need to distinguish fact from opinion, and look at arguments given for and against the
various claims. This also means being aware of your opinions and assumptions (positive and
negative) of the text you are reading so you can evaluate it honestly.
Tone and Stance
 Goals and objectives
Students will establish the difference between tone and mood.
Students will be able to identify and appreciate the difference in tone that writer can employ.
Students will be aware that understanding is an important part of understanding what an author
has written.
Students will learn how author’s tone is constructed through various linguistic devises.
Students will begin to explore contemporary American humor.
 Teaching materials: worksheet and a reading text“ Me Talk Pretty One Day by Davis
Sedaris”, and handouts (tone/attitude words)
Orientation
5-7 minutes
description
1. Have students listen to an audio clip that
humorously exemplifies how voice tone can carry
the stance of each speaker.
justification
The orientation will
guide students to
think about the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8RYfweJ8o
2. Ask students read the following two dialogues.
Father: “We are going on a vacation.”
Son: “That’s great!!!”
Father: “We can’t go on vacation this summer.”
Son: “Ok. Great! That’s what I expected.”
Presentation
20 minutes
Pre reading
activity
10-15
minutes
3. Make a point that just as a speaker’s voice can
project his feelings, a writers’ tone plays the same
role.
1. Explain/discuss what an author’s tone is.
- Not an action, but an attitude
- Explicitly or implicitly expressed
2. Different from mood: tone vs. mood
3. Distribute a handout, a list of commonly used
tone words, and goes over some difficult words
for meaning making with the class. (Appendix )
4. Present 3 different excerpts and ask the students
to identify the tone and stance of the author of
each story. (Appendix )
Prior to tone/stance analysis, students practice the
previously learned reading skills, previewing and
predicting and identifying main idea and summarizing
with a lengthy reading, “ Me Talk Pretty One Day by
Davis Sedaris”
1. Who is David Sedaris? (If students have zero
knowledge, teacher will present brief background
information about his writing career.) Or, watch
David Sedaris' BBC Fringe interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LilrdfTnRO
A
2. What does the title of the essay tell you?
3. Ask students to preview the essay by reading the
first and last paragraph and find repeated key
words. Then, predict an overarching theme.
relationship between
tones and feelings
and between tones
and meaning-making
in both spoken
language and written
language.
Articulating many
types of tones will
reinforces students
perceptions of tones
in actual reading.
David Raymond
Sedaris is an
American Grammy
Award-nominated
humorist, comedian,
author, and radio
contributor. Students
may feel unfamiliar
with his work and do
not find his writing
style relevant to
academic reading,
but the way he
perceives the world
and human behavior
patterns the way he
puts them into words
will help students to
approach the text in
a different
perspective.
Reading in
depth: Tone
analysis
1.
2.
3.
4.
40 45minutes
5.
6.
7.
8.
Closing
Have students read the text.
Explain challenging vocabulary if needed.
Ask students to revise their summary.
(connection with the author) Inquire students if
they have been in a situation when they could not
communicate effectively and how they are able to
express their needs/wants.
Have students locate five paragraphs in which
they have visible reactions and identify what
tones are used. Students are urged to be very
specific (humorous, sarcastic, ironic, cynical, and
more).
Then, ask students explain what evidence they
have from the passages, respectively, to support
their answer by completing a worksheet.
(Appendix)
Ask students compare their work with their
shoulder partner.
Lead a class discussion.
Among many types
of tones, humor, or
irony, in a foreign
language can be one
of the most difficult,
especially when they
are subtle/implicit or
socio-culturally
situated. Thus, this
activity will help
develop students’
linguistic sensitivity
to texts on micro
level.
Homework : read another chapter of David Sedaris’s
book
Appendix
Tone/Attitude Words
1. Absurd: silly, ridiculous
2. accusatory-charging of wrong doing
3. ambivalent: undecided, having mixed emotions, unsure
4. amused: entertained, finding humor, expressed by a smile or laugh
5. apathetic-indifferent due to lack of energy or concern
6. awe-solemn wonder
7. bitter-exhibiting strong animosity as a result of pain or grief
8. cynical-questions the basic sincerity and goodness of people
9. condescension; condescending-a feeling of superiority
10. callous-unfeeling, insensitive to feelings of others
11. compassionate: sympathetic, having feeling for others, showing pity, empathy
12. contemplative-studying, thinking, reflecting on an issue
13. critical-finding fault
14. choleric-hot-tempered, easily angered
15. condescending: patronizing, stooping to the level of one's inferiors
16. contemptuous-showing or feeling that something is worthless or lacks respect
17. caustic-intense use of sarcasm; stinging, biting
18. conventional-lacking spontaneity, originality, and individuality
19. disdainful-scornful
20. didactic-author attempts to educate or instruct the reader
21. derisive-ridiculing, mocking
22. earnest-intense, a sincere state of mind
23. erudite-learned, polished, scholarly
24. fanciful-using the imagination
25. forthright-directly frank without hesitation
26. gloomy-darkness, sadness, rejection
27. haughty-proud and vain to the point of arrogance
28. indignant-marked by anger aroused by injustice
29. intimate-very familiar
30. judgmental-authoritative and often having critical opinions
31. jovial-happy
32. lyrical-expressing a poet’s inner feelings; emotional; full of images; song-like
33. matter-of-fact--accepting of conditions; not fanciful or emotional
34. mocking-treating with contempt or ridicule
35. morose-gloomy, sullen, surly, despondent
36. malicious-purposely hurtful
37. objective-an unbiased view-able to leave personal judgments aside
38. optimistic-hopeful, cheerful
39. obsequious-polite and obedient in order to gain something
40. patronizing-air of condescension
41. pessimistic-seeing the worst side of things; no hope
42. quizzical-odd, eccentric, amusing
43. ribald-offensive in speech or gesture
44. reverent-treating a subject with honor and respect
45. ridiculing-slightly contemptuous banter; making fun of
46. reflective-illustrating innermost thoughts and emotions
47. sarcastic-sneering, caustic
48. sardonic-scornfully and bitterly sarcastic
49. satiric-ridiculing to show weakness in order to make a point, teach
50. sincere-without deceit or pretense; genuine
51. solemn-deeply earnest, tending toward sad reflection
52. sanguineous -optimistic, cheerful
53. whimsical-odd, strange, fantastic; fun
Appendix
1. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just
died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery
wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his
or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking
at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.”--a short story “The School” by Donald
Barthelme
2. In perpetrating a revolution, there are two requirements: someone or something to revolt
against and someone to actually show up and do the revolting. Dress is usually casual and
both parties may be flexible about time and place, but if either faction fails to attend the
whole enterprise likely to come off badly. In the Chinese Revolution of 1650 neither
party showed up and the deposit in the hall was forfeited.--Woody Allen
3. There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the
hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist,
it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one
another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out
everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards
of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all. - A
Tale of Two Cities --by Charles Dickens
Appendix
paragraph
tone
What evidence do you elicit from the passage?
critical reading: evaluation and mitigation strategies
 Goals and objectives
Students will become more aware of cultural differences in expressing criticism in
written work.
Students will become more perceptive of author’s evaluative act, particularly negative
evaluation.
Students will be more sensitive to the use of mitigation strategies in academic discourse.
Students will begin to consciously utilize mitigation strategies in their writing.
 Teaching materials: a journal article, cartoon, and PPT slides
Orientatio
n
10-15
minutes
Presentati
on
10-15
minutes
description
Present a set of reviews of restaurants, movies and music
CD.(Appendix ) Discuss the following talking points
1. directness vs indirectness
2. presence of politeness vs. absence of politeness
3. cultural differences in evaluation
4. differences between description and evaluation
justification
This will
connects
everyday
discourse with
academic
discourse
which will be
Teacher leads the discussion into an academic context.
consecutively
introduced.
1. Explains evaluation, particularly negative evaluation, is a
Although the
major component of academic discourse, and then introduce terms for
common mitigation strategies that are used to tone down
mitigation
criticism.
strategies
might be
2. If needed, articulate the meaning of each term.
challenging to
3. Encourage students to provide an example that encapsulates students, the
each strategy while teacher is providing some exemplar
examples
sentences from academic contexts and from reviews above. should be very
clear to them.
1. Hedging
- Modal verbs(would, could, may)
- Adverbs(perhaps, somewhat, possibly)
- Epistemic verbs (seem, appear)
- Imprecise quantifiers(a little, a bit)
- Adverbs of frequency(sometimes, occasionally)
2. Personal attribution
3. Interrogative syntax
4. Implication(implicit)
5. Praise-criticism pairs
Prereading
activity
10
minutes
Before zeroing in on a longer text, activate students’ background
knowledge on the topic.
1. Have students read the title of the text and predict the
content. “Therapeutic and reproductive cloning: a critique”
2. Ask students read topic related cartoon and discuss ethical
issues of cloning
-advocates
-opponents
3. Distribute the journal article and ask students to preview
and skim (by reading heading, subheading, introduction,
and conclusion) to get the gist of the article.
4.
In depth
1. Assign students in pair one subtopic of the journal article
reading
for intensive reading.
2. Have each pair summarize that portion first and then,
mitigation
examine the evaluative language use and mitigation
stategies
strategies. Since each pair is assigned to a relatively shorter
text, students need to thoroughly read it.
30-35
3. Ask one volunteer student to come out and write down each
minutes
summary from each group during the presentations.
4. Have each pair present their observation to the class.
5. Discuss how similarly, or differently, these mitigation
strategies can be used.
6. Have students read the integrated summary and ask if there
is any missing link. If so, ask them to go back to the text
and redo it.
Expansio Ask students write a review for any book they have recently read
n with
(Students have been asked to select one book prior to this lesson),
writing
by using mitigation strategies.
Connecting
reading and
writing will
10-15
minutes
corroborate
1. restaurant review https://www.google.com/#q=restaurant+review&lrd=lrd
I've been to a few Texas Roadhouses and this one was the worst. The food is inconsistent
(like the ribs are dry) and the quality seems lower than other ones I have been to. I used to
like the bread until I learned it has 300 calories a piece without the butter! Also all the food
contains MSG which is a big turnoff. The managers there are especially rude and seem to
hate interacting with the guest. When I was there, I witnessed one yell at a guest, and seemed
annoyed with everyone there. This location has bad management and ok food. I am not going
back
2. movie review http://themovieblog.com/2014/disappointing-raid-2-box-office-hindersmultiplex-indie-expansion/
During opening weekend, THE RAID 2 opened to lukewarm, if not bad, box office
numbers. Playing in over 950 locations, the movie opened around $1 million. A high
quality subtitled movie playing in so many theaters is great for the consumer, but bad for
business…I don’t understand the logic behind Sony Pictures Classics platform release
strategy. This happens often. I am surprised that in my grandparent’s small to medium
size town of Wichita Falls, Texas that most of SPC films screen there. I doubt there is a
demand but it is a valiant effort. As with the first RAID movie which performed almost
identical business, there wasn’t demand for a wide release. No pre-release buzz or eager
audiences could justify the massive expansion. The same studio did the same thing with
the first one (which was my first post for TMB) as well as other movies from CARNAGE
to BEFORE MIDNIGHT. There is a reason VOD is a popular format because niche
audiences can easily access the material.
3. cd review (BBC Music Magazine, Feb/2014)
Before she signed up with Decca, Valentina Lisitsa’s success in promoting her piano
playing globally through the visual medium of You Tube had sceptics implying that she
couldn’t, surely, be as good as she looked. Her intriguingly programmed Liszt recital
should put those doubts to rest. The EL contrabandista operetta fantasy is a serious rarity,
and no wonder, as it’s fiendishly hard to play. Lisitsa is more than up to the challenge: in
the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, besides her power and remarkable accuracy, she
conjures a Lisztian sparkle and crystalline clarity that sound exactly right. In the
transcriptions she finds beautiful colors and line (you won’t hear Schubert’s Der Muller
und der Bach played with more poignancy); and her instinct for searching out wide
musical spaces suits the B minor Ballade impressively.
The downside is her use of the sustaining pedal. Evidently smitten by the additional,
ultra-deep resonating strings on a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, she opts too often for a
liberally pedaled sound in which the notes themselves are clear, but the surrounding
echo-chamber effect lacks variety. Less of this, please-everything else is top-flight.