Text: Alan H. Fishken

American Myths and Dreams

Your tasks for the lesson:

Please discuss these questions in class. You should elect a chairperson first. This chairperson should minute (protokollieren) the discussion and e-mail me these minutes (or the result of the lesson). You might also share the work and elect a different person for each task to minute.

1. The text was written in 1975. What does the author mean by the approaching “third century” (remember July 4^th, 1776), and what has his text got to do with it?

2. What structure do all five conclusions have.

3. Analyse each of the five statements separately. What is the “myth”, and in what way has it (not) come true?

4. Now express in five statements what Fishken really wants to say.

5. How would you characterize his style (cynical, ironic, satiric, jaded)? Can you point out any particular figures of speech that create this effect? Would you say this style is appropriate for the topic?

6. Does the last paragraph mean that Fishken still believes in the dream? What definition of the dream is it? Why do you think he finishes on an optimistic note?

7. The text was written about 30 years ago. Add one or two more “myths” that may have been broken in a similar way since then.

PS. Some of you sent me their homework about the “Letters to Norway”, and I e-mailed my comments back.

1. Reading these texts I realised that there had been one mistake in the tasks which I provided for that lesson, and you all copied it. I asked “were they designed to read a larger audience?” which makes no sense at all. It should of course have been “were they designed to reach a larger audience?”

2. I also noticed that there had been comprehension problems with the passage “With whom does […] associate himself?” This means “to what group of people does he belong – or does he feel he belongs.” So the answer might have been that Hovland belongs to the “common people” whom he mentions in his letter, and Haaeim must feel that he belongs to a better sort who may have owned a good farm, and that he was not really used to hard work. Due to a misunderstanding most of your answers to this question were useless.