Advanced English
FORE130005.02
Fall 2007
Instructor:
Classroom Location:
Days & Hours: Monday
9:55-11:35 A.M.
Friday
9:55-11:35 A.M.
Office:
Office Phone:
Mobile Phone:
Office Hours: by appointment
Email:
Textbook:
Close Reading III by Shen et al., Fudan University Press, 2002
Advanced English I by Wu & Huang, Fudan University Press, 2004
Supplementary Material:
Raise the Issue: An Integrated Approach to Critical Thinking by C. Numrich,
Longman Publishing Group, 1994
The Cambridge CAE Course by M. Spratt & L. B. Taylor, Cambridge University
Press, 2000
Course Objectives:
This course is designed to improve students’ language proficiency by exposing
them to authentic literary texts accompanied by relevant skill-building exercises and
tasks. The carefully chosen material is intended to sensitize students to cultural factors,
promote their expansion of lexical knowledge and develop their interpretive strategies
which they can then apply away from the classroom. The course targets the
enhancement of the following skills: previewing and predicting, questioning, inferring
the main idea, identifying the overall structure about the text, guessing the meaning of
unknown words from the context, paraphrasing, summarizing, drawing conclusions,
and reading critically by using a variety of different kinds of clues. The ultimate goal
is to provide students with opportunities to increase their schematic as well as
linguistic knowledge, exercise their reading skills, and build accuracy, fluency and
automaticity in language acquisition.
Course Schedule:
Week 1
9/3
9/7
The Presence of the Word in TV Advertising
discussion of the text
The Presence of the Word in TV Advertising
further discussion of the text
Week 2
9/10
9/14
Week 3
9/17
9/21
Week 4
9/24
9/28
Week 5
10/1
10/5
Week 6
10/8
10/12
Week 7
10/15
10/19
Week 8
10/22
10/26
Week 9
Week 10
10/29
11/2
11/5
11/9
Week 11
11/12
11/16
Presentation: The Influence of TV Commercials
The Presence of the Word in TV Advertising
Comprehensive Practice
Amusing Ourselves to Death
discussion of the text
Presentation: Social Function of Mass Media
Amusing Ourselves to Death
further discussion of the text
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Comprehensive Practice
College Pressures
discussion of the text
Presentation: General and Special Education
College Pressures
further discussion of the text
National Day break
College Pressures
Comprehensive Practice
Letter to a B Student
discussion of the text
Presentation: Excellence vs. Mediocrity
Letter to a B Student
further discussion of the text
Letter to a B Student
Comprehensive Practice
Canadians: What Do They Want?
discussion of the text
Presentation: Value Systems of Different Cultures
Canadians: What Do They Want?
further discussion of the text
Canadians: What Do They Want?
Comprehensive Practice
A Review
Midterm Exam
A Trip for Mrs. Taylor
discussion of the text
Presentation: Loneliness in Old Age
A Trip for Mrs. Taylor
further discussion of the text
A Trip for Mrs. Taylor
Comprehensive Practice
Disney’s Worlds
discussion of the text
Presentation: The Value of Fairy Tales in Education
Week 12
11/19
11/23
Week 13
11/26
11/30
Week 14
12/3
12/7
Week 15
12/10
12/14
Week 16
12/17
12/21
Week 17
12/24
12/28
Week 18
12/31
Week 19
1/4
1/11
Disney’s Worlds
further discussion of the text
Disney’s Worlds
Comprehensive Practice
A Mild Attack of Locusts
discussion of the text
Presentation: Coping with Disasters
A Mild Attack of Locusts
further discussion of the text
A Mild Attack of Locusts
Comprehensive Practice
A Visit to Walt Whitman
discussion of the text
Presentation: The Relationship between Celebrities
A Visit to Walt Whitman
further discussion of the text
A Visit to Walt Whitman
further discussion of the text
A Visit to Walt Whitman
Comprehensive Practice
What Life Means to Me
discussion of the text
Presentation: Metaphor, Personification & Metonymy
What Life Means to Me
further discussion of the text
What Life Means to Me
further discussion of the text
What Life Means to Me
Comprehensive Practice
A General Review
Final Exam
Course Requirements:
This course will involve the student as a whole person in the classroom, allow for
genuine response and develop student autonomy. There are no pre-determined
answers to some of the designed tasks. Students will be encouraged to offer their
individual interpretation or response instead of looking to the instructor for
confirmation of “correct” answers. Discussions will be conducted through group and
pair work so that students can negotiate the reconstruction of meaning with the text in
an interactive way. Course requirements include active class attendance, intensive
reading, enthusiastic participation in pair and group work, timely completion of
assignments and critical presentation of course-related themes.
Grading:
Attendance:
Contribution to Class Discussion
Completion of Assignments
Oral Presentation
Midterm Exam
Final Exam
10%
10%
10%
10%
20%
40%
Recommended Reading:
Garner, Hugh. Hugh Garner's Best Stories. Markham, Ont. : Simon & Schuster of
Canada, 1971.
Gray, Stephen. The Penguin Book of Southern African Stories. Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1985.
Kasdin, Steven. The Collected Jack London: Thirty-Six Stories, Four Complete
Novels, a Memoir. New York : Dorset Press, 1991.
Kingsolver, Barbara.The Best American Short Stories, 2001: Selected from US and
Canadian Magazines. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2001
Lessing, Doris. The Sun between Their Feet. Michael Joseph, 1973.
Levine, Arthur. When Hope and Fear Collide: a Portrait of Today’s College Student.
San Francisco: Jowwey-Bass Publishers, 1998.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass: Selected Poems and Prose. New York: Doubleday,
1997.
Wober, J.Mallory. The Use and Abuse of Television: a Social Psychological Analysis
of the Changing Screen. Hillsdale, N. J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1988