Issuu

Using E2 This textbook consists of three parts. Content

[ part one ] Succeeding in International English Here we present six fundamental concepts that are key to your success in International English. The concepts, which we refer to throughout E2, are audience, purpose, genre, content, structure and language.

Audience

Purpose

Genre

Structure

Language

[ part two ] Going International This part contains five chapters covering the curriculum’s main topics: 1 Global Issues, 2 Multicultural Societies, 3 The Media, 4 Work and Education and 5 The In-Depth Project. The first four chapters all start with an introductory article 1 that presents the topic, relevant problems, definitions and vocabulary. Use it to gian overview of the topic and as a model for writing and using to sources. The article also introduces you to the wide range of relevant authentic material 2 that follows, set against a grey background. All texts are followed by practice tasks 3 . First, we ask you to practice your receptive skills by reading, watching and listening. Then we show you, concretely, how each text serves as a model of good communication by way of examining its content, structure and language. Finally, in the Over-to-You task we ask you to practice your productive skills by emulating the models. Here you are also urged to make use of the courses in Part Three. Each chapter ends by focusing on exam preparations 4 . Here you will see typical exam tasks on the relevant topic and practice using the material you have worked with to answer them. In chapter 5 we provide a hands-on guide to working with the in-depth project.

[ part three ] Communicating Better The 20 courses focus on what we believe to be the most essential English-language skills. Studying them closely and following their instructions will enable you to communicate well on the exam, in further studies and in working life. Each course consists of concrete step-by-step instructions, model answers and practice tasks. We suggest you use them as references when working with Over-to-You tasks, writing essays or giving oral presentations.

Englishbook Vg2

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Six Fundamental Concepts

PRACTICE 1

In this book, we have three grand ambitions: Firstly, we want you to become so proficient in your reading that you can understand a wide range of advanced text types with relative ease. Secondly, we want you to develop your written and oral language production skills to the point that you are ready to use English in higher education. Last, but not least, we wish to inspire your sense of amazement and wonder. In fact, when you work with the English language and the different topics that we are going to present to you, we hope that you will see much of the world through different eyes.

Who is the intended audience of: a b

c d

a CNN newscast a love poem

the New Testament a cupcake recipe

Consider gender, age group and cultural background.

Our ambitions reflect in the competence aims of International English printed on the cover. Study them closely.

• What information will interest my audience? • What does my audience already know about my topic? • What information does my audience need in order to understand my topic?

Content

GENRE

Additional resources can be found on Ressursbank Elev/ Lærer on www.gyldendal.no/e2

Purpose

Audience

Purpose

Genre

Structure

It is often more difficult to identify the exact purpose of a literary text. When you work with short stories, for instance, you should try to determine whether the purpose of what you read is merely to entertain or to say something fundamental about human existence.

Language

to entertain

to support

In your own work, you can define your purpose by asking yourself:

Audience, purpose and genre The concept of audience is used to identify to whom something is written or said, and the concept of purpose is used to determine why something is written or said. Genre is the expected form and content of a text, which is chosen to suit its audience an purpose.

• Why am I writing or saying this? • What effect do I hope this will have on my audience?

Audience

to discuss

PURPOSE

to instruct

to analyse

to explain

All texts, written and spoken, have an intended audience. An audience may be limited to just one person, such as in a conversation with a friend, but in most cases it is a group of people who share at least one common trait. Such common traits may be age, gender, place of birth, place of residence, education level, cultural background, ethnic background or a common interest. A popular website like Tumblr.com has a broad general audience, whereas a book about trout fishing has a narrow special interest audience. The same goes for this book. You, Norwegian upper secondary school students enrolled on the course International English, are our audience in this book. 8

to advise

to present

Start by making sure you understand the six fundamental concepts.

to persuade

to review

to inform to argue

Succeeding in International English

[ part one ]

<<nytt oppslag, over 5 sider>>

3 The Media GENRE: OPINION PIECE

FIRST Aims

3 The Media

1 2 3

gain in-depth knowledge of the content of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations understand common arguments for and against public surveillance learn the basic principles of the op-ed genre

The World Says No to Surveillance MOSCOW – TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong

hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National 5

Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.

Media and Society

No to Surveillance?

We live in a media saturated world. We get news updates on our smart phones. We watch films and TV-series for entertainment. Media consumption clearly is an important part of modern-day life. But what issues drive the larger conversation on media and its role in society today? This essay discusses the role Anglophone media plays in the global world as well as the challenges facing the free press in face of social and technical developments.

How many people worldwide consume news from the BBC on a weekly basis?

American media are also immensely influential. People all over the world follow recent events through news channels like the CNN. American newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times and weekly magazines like Time and Newsweek reach audiences around the world. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all American inventions coming out of Silicon Valley, a nickname for an area outside San Francisco and the home of the most cutting edge digital media industries. And not least, American TV-series and films dominate popular culture globally. Other countries have their own popular culture industries. Nigeria has its Nollywood and India has its Bollywood, but Hollywood continues to be a powerhouse in global popular culture. As the journalist Tom Brook put it (2014, para. 1), “Hollywood is like an octopus with tentacles extending across the globe.”

CONTEXT

George Orwell (1903– 1950); English author, in novel 1984 (1948)

English Media in a Global Age Anglophone media plays an important role in the global community. The BBC, for instance, plays an important role as a news outlet not just in Britain, but around the world. According to the BBC (2016), a global audience of 348 million people watch or listen to BBC programs or use its digital content on a weekly basis. BBC News alone reached one in every 16 adult worldwide. The largest audiences live in the USA, Nigeria, where the BBC has an audience of 35 million people, and India where the group reaches 23 million people.

arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous. 15

Big Brother is watching you. –

Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked

On 5 June 2013, the British newspaper The Guardian published a secret court order that instructed Verizon, an American telecommunications company, to hand over the records of tens of millions of their subscribers to the National Security Agency (NSA). Two days later, both The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed that the NSA had also tapped the servers of internet companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft to track users’ online activity. Shortly after, on 12 June, it became clear that Edward Snowden (1983 -), a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, was the source. On 23 June, two days after being charged with espionage and theft of government property, Snowden fled to Moscow to avoid prosecution. In this op-ed piece, written two years after the first revelations, Snowden maintains his original stance that surveillance of ordinary citizens is a violation of the right to privacy.

Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing – that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations. Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its 25

disclosure has now ordered it terminated. This is the power of an informed public. Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory

for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness. Since 2013, institutions across Europe have ruled similar laws and operations illegal and imposed new restrictions on future activities. The United Nations declared mass surveillance an unambiguous violation of human rights. In Latin America, the efforts of citizens in Brazil led to the Marco Civil, an Internet Bill of Rights. Recognizing the critical role

of informed citizens in correcting the excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for new laws to protect whistle-blowers. Beyond the frontiers of law, progress has come even more quickly. Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the

language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption – once considered esoteric and unnecessary – are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that

It would be wrong, however, to assume that it is simply a one-way street where American media are consumed by international audiences. Hollywood increasingly relies on global markets to make money. According to Brook (2014), international audiences had in recent years counted for 70 % of the revenue made by the Hollywood studios. Film audiences in BRICS countries and other places with where people have more disposable income on their hands, is a growing segment of the international audience. As a result, studios often have to take into account whether or not a film will attract an international audience when they make decisions on which films to produce and how to produce them. 116

changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia. Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy – the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights – remains under threat. Some of the world’s

most popular online services have been enlisted as partners in the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments

Multicultural societies

[ part two ]

even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological

BRICS Acronym for an association of five major national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

117

160

surveillance close watch kept over someone revelation surprising fact that has been disclosed espionage the practice of spying subpoena an order commanding someone to appear in court treasonous having the characteristics of a traitor indifference lack of interest profound here: very great invasive tending to intrude on a person’s privacy disown refuse to acknowledge as one’s own propriety here: appropriateness disclosure a fact, especially a secret, that is made known terminate bring to an end the Patriot Act 2001 US Act of Congress, intended to help government agencies detect and prevent possible acts of terrorism unambiguous open to only one interpretation excess an amount that is more than usual or necessary flaw defect, fault exploit make use of in a way considered unfair facilitate make easy encryption the practice of encoding and decoding data esoteric understood by only a small number of people by default because of a lack of opposition arbitrary random enshrine preserve or cherish as sacred Bill of Rights here: the first ten amendments (tillegg) to the Constitution of the United States (1791) intercept stop, cut off metadata data about other data intrusive unwanted, unwelcome proclaim announce publically emergence appearance resilience elasticity

Multicultural societies

[ part two ]

161

3 The Media

PREPARING FOR THE WRITTEN EXAM PRACTICE location records are still being intercepted without regard for the guilt or innocence of those affected. We have learned that our government intentionally weakens the fundamental security of the Internet with “back doors” that transform private lives into open books.

Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note. Spymasters in Australia, Canada and France have exploited recent tragedies to seek intrusive

•

Two years on, the difference is profound.

•

This is the power of an informed public.

The heart of the matter In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA tapped millions of phone calls and text messages on a daily basis and that they spied on more than 100 country leaders, including the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

•

Recognizing the critical role of informed citizens in correcting the excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for new laws to protect whistleblowers.

What else has Snowden revealed? Work in small groups and present your findings in class, using a presentation tool of your own choice. See course 5: Giving Presentations.

•

As you read this online, the United States government makes a note.

•

We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation …

•

… the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.

CONTENT 1 In your own words, what does Snowden mean when he says:

new powers despite evidence such programs would not have prevented attacks. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain recently mused, “Do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” He soon found his answer, proclaiming that “for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: As long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”

At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders. Yet the balance of power is beginning to shift. We are witnessing the emergence of a

2 20

post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason. With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.

Snowden, E. J. (2015, June 4). The World Says No to Surveillance. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-tosurveillance.html

TIDBIT

In 2016, the French music icon Jean-Michel Jarre released an upbeat techno song called “Exit”. Mid track, Edward Snowden in person delivers a highly danceable message: “Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.” An accompanying fast-paced video inspired by The Matrix and Jason Bourne-films is available on Jarre’s homepage.

According to you, does Snowden conclude on an optimistic or pessimistic note? Explain.

LANGUAGE 3 Comment on Snowden’s use of the personal pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’. See course 4: Understanding Language Features 3.

Task 1 – Short answer. Answer both 1a and 1b 1a Read the text in the box below. Point out some of the language features and explain their effect. Use examples from the text in your answer.

Annotating personal statements Visit www.theguardian.com and find the interactive article “NSA Files Decoded. What the Revelations Mean to You”. Listen through one of the recorded statements and identify •

its audience and purpose

•

its main idea

•

the most important facts that are presented

•

the most important arguments that are used

From “How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization” How do we retain our sanity in a dumb, dumb world? I wouldn’t be a good teacher if I didn’t come prepared with a few ideas. No. 1: read a fucking book. Something special happens when you set aside the inane distractions of modern culture and immerse yourself in a novel. You open yourself up to new ideas, new experiences, new perspectives. It’s an experiment in patience and mindfulness. The New School for Social Research in New York proved that reading literature improves empathy. It’s true. Reading makes you less of a jerk. So, read often. Read difficult books. Read controversial books. Read a book that makes you cry. Read something fun. But read.

See course 1: Approaching a new text. Share your findings with one of your classmates. 7

OVER TO YOU 4 Genre Study the following guidelines on how to write an op-ed piece. Use examples from the text to show whether Snowden follows these guidelines or not: – Come down hard on one side of the argument. – Identify the counterargument, and refute it with facts. – Emphasize active verbs; go easy on adjectives and adverbs. – Avoid clichés. – Avoid technical jargon and acronyms. – Try to grab the reader’s attention in the first line. End with a strong or thought-provoking line. – Use specific references and easy-to-understand data rather than abstraction. – Anecdotes can sometimes help enhance understanding of an issue. – Ideally, your topic will be timely, but at the same time have a long shelf life (i.e., the problem won’t be solved in a month). Anonymous. (2010). Writing and Submitting an Opinion Piece: A Guide. Columbia University’s EarthInstitute. Retrieved from http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/ view/2636

Discussing the Patriot Act

No. 2: learn something. Your brain is capable of so much. Feed it. Learn something new. The greatest threat to progress is the belief that something is too complex to fix. Poverty is permanent. Racism will always exist. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is too difficult to understand. The public education system is broken. Educate yourself, so you can be part of the conversation. Learn something scientific, something mathematic. Explore philosophy. Study paleontology. Try to learn a new language. You don’t even have to make fluency your goal, just get a few more words in your head. Listen to an educational podcast. Professors from colleges – such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford – are offering their lectures online for free. Think of

The so-called Patriot Act that Snowden refers to, was passed by the US Congress in October 2001. It was designed to protect ordinary citizens of the United States against terrorist attack, but it has remained controversial since then. Prepare to discuss the following statement in class: The Patriot Act is a good tool to fight terrorism. One half of the class should argue in favour of the statement and the other half against it. Before carrying out the discussion itself: •

find a summary of the main content of the Patriot Act

•

find arguments that are commonly used for OR against it

PREPARING FOR THE ORAL EXAM

One of the most important things to do on an exam is to interpret the task correctly. See course 6: Understanding the Task, for more on this. Also, should you find it difficult to get started with your chosen task, Course 3: Getting started, may be of help.

around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. Billions of cellphone

what you could learn. One of my greatest challenges as a teacher was convincing students they were smart after someone had told them they were dumb. No. 3: stop buying so much shit. This may seem like a non sequitur, but I’m convinced consumer culture and idiot culture are closely linked. Simplify your life. Idiocy dominates our cultural landscape because it sells more Nike tennis shoes and Big Macs. When we thoughtfully consider what we bring into our home, we are less likely to be manipulated by empty impulses.

Task 2 – Long answer. Choose one of the alternatives a, b, c or d below. a Discuss why journalists and photographers are sometimes attacked, arrested or killed and to what degree this fact is also a violation of freedom of speech. b Discuss the theme and message in J. G. Ballard’s short story “The Intensive Care Unit”. c Social media does not only influence the lives of individual people, but may also make a huge impact on national and international events. Present two situations where social media played such a vital role, and compare the advantages and disadvantages of the use of social media in these cases. d A journalist will often face the conflict between her responsibility to inform and her responsibility to protect both those affected by her reporting and herself. Discuss how this dilemma takes form in the case of Edward Snowden. The examiner will be using the form presented in Part 1: Succeeding in International English when assessing your answer.

And finally: protect the nerds. A computer programmer from Seattle is doing more to alleviate world poverty, hunger, and disease through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation than any other person in America right now. Nerds create vaccines. Nerds engineer bridges and roadways. Nerds become teachers and librarians. We need those obnoxiously smart people, because they make the world a better place. We can’t have them cowering before a society that rolls their eyes at every word they say. Extract from: Nightengale, K. (2015, March 18). How You Can Save Western Civilization by Reading True Grit. DMagazine. Retrieved from http://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner /2015/03/how-youcan-save-western-civilization-by-reading-true-grit/

1b State you own opinion about two of the points listed in the text above.

Suggested task

Prepare and conduct an oral presentation based on the following competence aim: – analyse and assess the role of some English-language media in international society You are expected to introduce your presentation with a precise thesis statement or thesis question. Be prepared to justify, elaborate on and discuss the information you present in a conversation with your examiner afterwards. Your examiner will also invite you to discuss the role of some other Englishlanguage media in international society that you have not included in your presentation. Examples of thesis questions/statements: – The invention of television has affected our society both positively and negatively. – What are the advantages and disadvantages of the so-called CNNeffect? – Some Internet censorship is beneficial to society.

Suggested requirements for the presentation Your examiner is likely to be evaluating your oral presentation using a set of goal attainments like these: – It should last no more than 10 minutes. – It must have a clear structure: introduction, body and conclusion. – At least three sources should be cited. (According to X …, Y reports/ writes/ argues …, Z claims/says/laments …) – Your sources must be reliable, such as official census bureaus, reputable newspapers and magazines, or this textbook. You should not use information found on message boards, personal blogs, and similar sources. – You should use a formal and academic style of language.

Appoint one of your classmates to take on the role as moderator of the discussion. See course 14: Preparing Conversations.

162

Multicultural societies

[ part two ]

9 Making Introductions The introduction is essential in both written and oral texts because it sets the standards for the rest of the text and prepares your audience for your text’s purpose. There are many ways of making a good introduction, and different types of introductions may be suitable for different types of genres. This course presents you with three practical steps that will help you to create a suitable introduction for texts of most genres.

Step 1

Capture your readers’ interest. You may, for example, begin with: • a quotation • a definition • an anecdote • an interesting fact • a comparison • a strong statement • a question • a familiar situation • a common misconception

Step 2

Present your topic. Explain what the subject of your text is and provide some context to underline its relevance. Do not include discussion in the introduction; this should be saved for the main part of your text. The supporting sentences you include in this step should create an elegant transition to your very important thesis question/statement.

Step 3

Create a thesis question or a thesis statement. This will give your audience a clear understanding of what your text will be about. It will also help you to keep a clear focus throughout your working process as the rest of your text must answer this question or discuss this statement.

PRACTICE 1

Follow the aforementioned steps and create an introduction to two of the tasks below. a

Create a text where you discuss the conflict between the media’s responsibility to inform and the media’s responsibility to protect.

Create a text where you present advantages and disadvantages of multicultural societies.

Create a text where you compare the causes of and solutions to two global challenges. Choose the global challenges yourself.

Create a text where you explain what a Norwegian should be aware of when studying in another country. Choose the country yourself.

Create a text where you analyse two films you have watched this year, focusing especially on characterization and themes.

Create another version of one of the introductions you wrote in task 1, by using a different approach to create interest.

[ part three ]

In pairs or groups, compare your introductions. a

Discuss what captures your interest.

Is it clear what the topic is?

Does the thesis question/statement give you a clear understanding of what the text will be about?

Below are some tasks that will help raise your awareness about audience and purpose. Create the introductions to two of these:

166

Multicultural societies

[ part two ]

167

EXAMPLES 1. Begin with a quotation

Captures the reader’s interest through a quotation

Step 1

The transition between the quotation and the presentation of the topic: Elaborates on the quotation and provides some context

Step 2

The thesis statement Step 3 The first part of this statement also serves as a transition between the general presentation and the thesis

Captures the reader’s interest through an interesting fact

Step 1

The transition between the presentation and the thesis question: Facts are Step 2 used to present the topic in general terms and to underline its relevance The thesis question Step 3

Studying abroad “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime”. Mark Twain sums it up well. To discover the world for ourselves is the main desire for thousands of students who make the momentous decision it is to study abroad. To enrich one’s life with new cultural experiences, new learning experiences, new friends and, perhaps, a new climate sounds exciting beyond comprehension. The benefits of studying abroad are obviously many – but so are the challenges.

2. Begin with an interesting fact The English language What started out as a blurry variety of dialects on a small insignificant island is today the lingua franca of most parts of the world. English is now the mother tongue of more than 350 million people and the second language of approximately 400 million people. In addition, English is the most widely taught language in the world. Considering the crucial role it plays today, it may seem somewhat strange that English as a subject is obligatory for only the first year of upper secondary school in Norway. Should English be made obligatory for all three years of upper secondary school?

Use these courses actively while working with Part Two.

3. Begin with a question Captures the reader’s interest through a question Step 1 Presents the topic in general Step 2 terms and defends its relevance: A brief presentation of two opposite views serves as a transition between the presentation and the thesis question

The American media Are American media killing our worlds’ different cultures? Today, American music, TV-shows and films influence the cultures of so many countries to such an extent that American culture as a worldwide phenomenon has become a controversial issue. On the one hand, one could claim that American media function as an inspiration and even help spread the message of human rights and democracy. On the other hand, there is a danger that American culture is slowly replacing other cultures. What are the advantages and disadvantages of American media’s worldwide influence today?

The thesis question Step 3

4. Begin with a definition Captures the reader’s interest through a definition

Step 1

Elaborates on what terrorism is and presents a specific example to illustrate the problem: A brief Step 2 presentation of two opposite views serves as a transition between the elaboration and the thesis question

Create a speech for 10 graders where you explain the causes of and solutions to a global challenge and encourage your audience to take action. Choose the global challenge yourself.

Write a letter to the editor of a fashion magazine where you discuss the negative effects H&M’s advertisements have on teenagers.

Write an essay for people who are considering entering an interracial relationship where you discuss the blessings and challenges of a mixed marriage.

Captures the reader’s interest through a comparison

Create a speech for the teachers at your school where you discuss how literature or film can contribute to raising their pupils’ awareness of global challenges.

The transition between the presentation and the thesis question: Briefly presents the Step 2 topics to be compared and defends their relevance

Create a presentation for Americans where you explain the importance of Al Jazeera.

The thesis question

163

The thesis question

Step 3

Terrorism “Terrorism” can be defined as “[t]he unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims” (Oxford Dictionaries). Terrorism is an undeniable threat in today’s world; thus measures must be taken to prevent terrorist acts. The airport is one area in which security has increased significantly the past few years. One of the most controversial measures taken is the use of full body x-ray scanning and enhanced pat-downs. On the one hand, this can help security staff hinder terrorist acts. On the other hand, many people are deeply offended by the intrusion of privacy that comes with these measures. What is most important in the war against terror: security or privacy?

5. Begin with a comparison Step 1

BBC and CNN Both are available in more than 200 million homes worldwide. Both are English-speaking. Both broadcast 24 hours a day. Both are huge organizations with thousands of employees. BBC and CNN set the news agenda in many parts of our world and at first glance they may seem rather similar. However, there are many differences between these two news media organizations when it comes to history, organization and journalism. What are the main differences between BBC and CNN and why is it important to be aware of them?

Step 3

Communicating Better

Contents [ part one ] Succeeding in International English

page

Six Fundamental Concepts

Audience, purpose and genre

Content, structure and language [ part two ] Going International

xx publication

text type

level

1 Global Issues Global Perspectives

Introductory article

Overpopulation? Don't Panic! Hans Rosling

Wingspan Productions

Presentation

•

No Plan Bee Dave Goulson

The Financial Times

Opinion piece

••

Climate Migrants Could Dwarf Other Refugee Flows Laurie Goering Climate Change and Migration: The World Must Be Prepared Koko Warner

Reuters

News report

•

The Huffington Post

Opinion piece

••

Fix the Men! Bina Shah

Al Jazeera

Opinion piece

••

Novel excerpt

•

Climate Migrants

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid

•

The Times They Are A-Changin' Bob Dylan

Colombia Records

Song lyrics

Violence Vanquished Steven Pinker

The Wall Street Journal

Feature article

•••

Inequality for All Robert Reich

72 Productions

Documentary film

••

Dirty Money Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer, Wolfgang Jaschensky

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Feature article

••

Preparing for the Exam 2 Multicultural Societies Unity and Diversity

Introductory article

Culture Clash! Adams Media

Instruction manual

••

Fox News Live The New Yorker The Conversation

Oral interview Commentary Analysis

• •• •••

Voices Trevor Noah, Kal Penn, Meghan Markle, Asma Khalid Multicultural America: A Case Study Why am I so Brown? Trinidad Sanchez Jr.

Forbes, NPR, Elle UK, Mitú

Quotes

•

Why Am I so Brown?

Poem

•

A Private Experience Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Thing Around Your Neck.

Short story

••

Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands Terry Morrison, Wayne A. Connaway The UK: Britishness, Brexit and Beyond Interview with Nigel Farage Neil Cavuto (Host) A Perilous Nationalism at Brexit Andrew Solomon Brexit: Europe's New Nationalism is Here to Stay Simon Toubeau The US: American Peoples

Preparing for the Exam

Englishbook Vg2

page

3 The Media

publication

text type

level

Media and Society

Introductory article

Photo Journalism Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich

Photos

•

Open Road Films

Film

•

Wired UK

Feature article

TedTalk

Presentation

•

Huffington Post

Documentary film Blog post

•• ••

Red Cross

Press release

••

Twitter

Poem

•

The Intensive Care Unit J. G. Ballard

Myths of the Near Future

Short story

•••

No to Surveillance? Edward Snowden

The New York Times

Opinion piece

••

Spotlight: Investigative Journalism Tom McCarthy (Director)

page

Echo Chambers The Web's Echo Chamber Leaves us None the Wiser Alan Martin Filter Bubbles Eli Pariser

•••

The Role of Social Media #Chicago Girl Ala'a Basatneh The Game Changer: Social Media and the 2016 Presidential Election R. Kay Green Is Social Media Changing the Way We Deal with Disasters Jamie Sport No, You Cannot Borrow My Phone Charger Brian Bilston

Preparing for the Exam 4 Work and Education Your Future

Introductory article Informal essay

•

Studying Abroad – Make it Happen

Informative article

•

Personal Statement

Guide

•

Jess, vi can English Morten Møst

Dagens Næringsliv

You Don't Have to Have a Dream Tim Minchin

Univeristy of Western Australia

Inspirational speech

••

My First Job David Lodge

London Review of Books

Short story

••

Guide

•

Applying for a Job Will it Pay Off? How to Get a Job at Google Thomas L. Friedman Why Getting A Liberal Arts College Education Is Not A Mistake Jessica Kleiman Work and Migration Qatar: A Nation of Immigrants Brexit as Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Migrant Migrant Jobs and Communities Working in the UK

New York Times Forbes

Opinion piece Opinion piece

••• •••

Latino USA, NPR Morning Edition, NPR Life Matters, ABC

Radio news report Radio news report Live radio interview Interview

•• • •• •

Preparing for the Exam 5 The In-Depth Project [ part three ] Communicating Better

page

Approaching a New Text

Making Conclusions

Choosing Sources

Referring to Sources

Commenting on Trends and Statistics

Revising Your Text

Understanding Language Features

Preparing Conversations

Giving Presentations

How to Explain

Understanding the Task

How to Discuss

Getting Started

How to Persuade

Extending the Five-Paragraph Structure

How to Compare and Contrast

Making Introductions

Writing More Precisely

Writing Body Paragraphs

Approaching Literature and Films

[ part one ]

Succeeding in International English

6â€ƒ

[ part one ]

Six Fundamental Concepts In this book, we have three grand ambitions: Firstly, we want you to become so proficient in your reading that you can understand a wide range of advanced text types with relative ease. Secondly, we want you to develop your written and oral language production skills to the point that you are ready to use English in higher education. Last, but not least, we wish to inspire your sense of amazement and wonder. In fact, when you work with the English language and the different topics that we are going to present to you, we hope that you will see much of the world through different eyes. Our ambitions reflect the competence aims of International English printed on the cover. Study them closely.

Content

Audience

Purpose

Genre

Structure

Language

Audience

[ part one ]

PRACTICE 1

Who is the intended audience of: a a CNN newscast b a love poem

c the New Testament d a cupcake recipe

Consider gender, age group and cultural background.

When you write a text or prepare a speech or presentation, you should anticipate your audience’s expectations and needs. Keep the audience’s situation and perspective in mind and ask yourself questions like these: • What information will interest my audience? • What does my audience already know about my topic? • What information does my audience need in order to understand my topic?

Purpose

In many cases the purpose of a nonfiction text is obvious. The purpose of a soft drink ad is to sell soft drinks, the purpose of a news report is to inform, the purpose of a political speech might be to argue and persuade, and the purpose of an essay that you hand in to your teacher might be to show your ability to present and discuss a current global issue. Occasionally, some of these purposes overlap. It is often more difficult to identify the exact purpose of a literary text. When you work with short stories, for instance, you should try to determine whether the purpose of what you read is merely to entertain or to say something fundamental about human existence.

to entertain

to support

In your own work, you can define your purpose by asking yourself: • Why am I writing or saying this? • What effect do I hope this will have on my audience?

to advise

to present

to discuss

PURPOSE

to instruct

to analyse

to explain

to persuade

to review

to inform to argue

Succeeding in International English

PRACTICE 2 Look at these two texts. What is their main purpose? a

20 MINUTES ON FACEBOOK

LINKS SHARED

TAGGED PHOTOS

EVENT INVITES

STATUS UPDATES

FRIEND REQUESTS

WALL POSTS

PHOTOS UPLOADED

COMMENTS MADE

MESSAGES SENT

1,000,000

1,323,000

1,484,000

1,851,000

1,972,000

1,587,000

2,716,000

10,208,000

2,716,000

Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. Rowling, J. K. (1997) Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone.

Genre

Written Exams 2010–2016 • Genre instructions by frequency write a short story (4), write an essay (1), write a news article (1) • Instruction verbs by frequency discuss (31), discuss and compare (6), discuss and respond to (4), compare (4), comment on (4), compare and contrast (1), compare and discuss (1), explain and compare (1), explain and discuss (1), reflect and discuss (1), reflect on (1)

We define genre as a conventional form of written or spoken text. This means that a genre-specific text follows a certain norm. It gives the audience a general idea of the structure of the text and of what language features and content to expect. When producing a text yourself, deciding on which genre to use comes as a natural third step after identifying your audience and your purpose. It gives you an idea of the appropriate form. In a written exam, you may be asked to write a text in a well-defined genre, such as an “essay”. However, most tasks say nothing about genre as such. Instead, they contain instruction verbs that define only your purpose. In the latest written exams, discuss is by far the most commonly used instruction verb followed by compare. Therefore, we recommend that you study our courses How to Discuss and How to Compare and Contrast in detail. We also provide specific advice on How to Explain and How to Persuade.

PRACTICE 3 The genres of nonfiction are often divided into five different purposes: to discuss, to explain, to persuade, to inform and to tell a story. Categorise each of the following genres according to its main purpose: a political speech b an encyclopaedia entry c an autobiography

[ part one ]

d an instruction manual e a school essay f a newspaper article

Content, structure and language The concepts of content, structure and language are used to comment on and evaluate all written and spoken work and your teacher and examiners will make use of them when they comment on and assess your accomplishments and skills. You should use them actively, too. We recommend it as a working routine that you examine content, structure and language whenever you approach a new text or film. Note that when the term text is used in this book, it includes both written and oral language. There is no universally agreed-upon definition of what constitutes good communication, oral or written, but the following may serve as a short, general checklist:

Content

Good content means that • the content is relevant for a well-defined audience and purpose • the main ideas are clear and focused • the main ideas are supported by facts and examples from relevant and reliable sources

Structure

Good structure means that • the information presented is logically sequenced • there are clear links between the ideas • the genre chosen is suitable for the audience and purpose

Language

Good language means that • the vocabulary is rich and precise • the sentence structure is varied and grammatical • the spelling and punctuation is accurate There is also the important element of meeting formal requirements. In a written exam, your external examiners are your audience, and they follow specific criteria when they evaluate your answer. As you can see, everything they look for in your text is related to content, structure and language. In the rubric on the next page, Utdanningsdirektoratet lists different degrees of goal attainments. The column on the far right describes an ideal exam answer.

Succeeding in International English

Kjennetegn på måloppnåelse for sentralt gitt skriftlig eksamen i internasjonal engelsk Hovedområder/ Kategori

Karakter 2 Besvarelsen…

Karakter 3–4 Besvarelsen…

Karakter 5–6 Besvarelsen…

Språk og språklæring

—— inneholder enkle og overflatiske svar på oppgavene, og deler av eksamenssvaret kan være noe på siden av oppgaveinstruksjonen

—— inneholder relevante svar på oppgavene i samsvar med oppgaveinstruksjonen og viser en viss grad av selvstendighet

—— inneholder presise, fyldige og relevante svar på oppgavene i samsvar med oppgaveinstruksjonen, og viser en stor grad av selvstendighet

Kommunikasjon

—— viser at eventuelle kilder er brukt på uselvstendig måte og/eller mangler kildehenvisninger

—— viser at eventuelle kilder er brukt på en redelig måte med henvisning —— viser rimelig god faglig innsikt og oversikt

Språk

—— viser meget god faglig innsikt og oversikt

—— viser lite faglig innsikt eller oversikt – viser kjennskap til språklige virkemidler

—— viser noe kjennskap til språklige virkemidler når det er relevant

—— består av tekster som har svak og tilfeldig struktur, enkle setninger og som preges av gjentakelse og oppramsing

—— består av tekster med forholdsvis logisk struktur og indre sammenheng og noe variasjon i setnings bygning

—— viser i liten grad bruk av tekstbinding

—— har de mest vanlige former for tekstbinding

—— viser begrenset forståelse av informasjon basert på tallmateriale og statistikk

—— viser forståelse av informasjon i tallmateriale og statistikk, og formidler formålet med slik informasjon på en forståelig måte

—— viser et begrenset ordforråd av generell og fagspesifikk art

—— viser et tilstrekkelig ordforråd av generell og faspesifikk art

—— viser et variert og nyansert ordforråd av generell og fagspesifikk art

—— er preget av språklige, formelle svakheter, men er i stor grad forståelig

—— formidler formålet med teksten stort sett godt, selv om en del språkfeil kan forekomme

—— har ingen kommunikasjonsforstyrrende språkfeil

Kultur, samfunn og litteratur Tekststruktur

—— viser at eventuelle kilder er brukt på en redelig måte med hensiktsmessig kildehenvisning

—— inneholder analyse av språklige virkemidler når det er relevant

—— består av tekster med klar og logisk struktur, god flyt, god indre sammenheng og variert setningsbygning —— har variert og hensiktsmessig tekstbinding —— viser god forståelse av informasjon i tallmateriale og statistikk, og formidler formålet med en slik informasjon på en reflektert og logisk måte

Karakter 1 uttrykker at besvarelsen viser lavere måloppnåelse enn det som står ovenfor Source: www.udir.no

[ part one ]

PRACTICE 4 Visit www.udir.no and look up “Vurderte eksamenssvar i SPR3008 Internasjonal engelsk”. There you will find a previous exam task and different answers to the task. Choose one of the answers and study the comments that are given by the examiners. Write your own justificatory remarks in English with the help of the glossary below, which translates the least familiar words and phrases used in the official criteria.

Glossary overflatiske superficial være noe på siden av deviate from på [en] uselvstendig måte (here) with a lack of independent judgement; undiscerningly kildehenvisninger citations faglig innsikt eller oversikt academic insight or broad understanding språklige virkemidler language features i samsvar med in accordance with selvstendighet (here) independent judgement på en redelig måte honestly fyldige full hensiktsmessig appropriate tilfeldig arbitrary preges av gjentakelse og oppramsing characterized by repetition and enumeration tekstbinding linking words tallmateriale og statistikk figures and statistics indre sammenheng self-consistency; coherence setningsbygning sentence structure formidler formålet med slik informasjon conveys the purpose of such information flyt fluency reflektert considered begrenset ordforråd av generell og fagspesifikk art limited general and subject-specific vocabulary språklige, formelle svakheter linguistic, formal errors forståelig comprehensible; possible to understand tilstrekkelig ordforråd sufficient vocabulary nyansert nuanced kommunikasjonsforstyrrende språkfeil language errors that hinder communication (grad av) måloppnåelse (degree of ) goal attainment

Succeeding in International English

EXAMPLE Here is an example of a good text in an informal style. Read it carefully and study our comments regarding audience, purpose, genre, content, structure and language. AUDIENCE:

Gap-year students are just misery tourists mixing with The Poor because it looks good on Facebook By Tanya Gold, The Guardian, 6 November 2008

The number of teenagers taking gap years has shrunk, like a wildebeest’s watering-hole in a drought. It’s the credit crunch, growing more silvery linings by the day. And this pleases me. I don’t like to see posh teenagers doing misery tourism and returning with batik trousers and malaria. (Because they are too stupid to take malaria pills and wear non-batik trousers.) Affluent European adolescents used to do the Grand Tour. They went to Italy to admire the art. Now they go to Africa to admire the shit. Gap years are moral imperialism. It’s a year-long narcissism party, where the gap-yearers use Africans and South Americans and Indians as props in the movie of their own wonderfulness. They want to have a “caring experience”. So they invade slums and orphanages and shanty towns. They turn up with teeth like brand-new fridges and shout, “Let’s build a waterslide, guys!” Then they disappear back to their universities back home. It’s rare that they do anything useful. Developing countries have labour already. They don’t need ours. The carbon cost of flying 200,000 British adolescents long-haul each year will one day put the mud huts they build under water. Many charities privately admit they are a waste of space. And doesn’t the developing world have enough to grieve it without Cambridge University students poncing around looking caring, having Jesus Christ moments, before buggering back home to spend a lifetime exploiting it? “Look,” the gap-yearers go, eyeballs spinning, “The Poor. We must help The Poor by building them a mud hut they could have built themselves and giving them a Kit-Kat.” Cue photograph of gap-yearer helping The Poor, to illustrate good qualities on their Facebook page. How do I know this? Read the websites for gap-year students commenting on their disappointing experiences. They clog up the internet with their whining. “No one met me at the airport!” they squeal, shivering back in their English towns, texting each other on their mobile telephones made of Congolese minerals and blood. “There was no breakfast! Strange things came out of my arse!” They seemed to have confused their gap year with staying at the Marriott Hotel – Slum and Shanty Branch, Dumpsville. They thought their experience of helping The Poor would be better. More fun. More Club 18–30, less Club I Died By the Age of Five Because There Isn’t Any Medicine Here, You Fool. They don’t seem to realise that The Poor live in squalor because they are – well – poor. While the economy melts around their ears, the Dolce e Gabbana missionaries will be staying at home this year because of the recession.…

[ part one ]

Gold’s audience is easy to identify. She addresses every reader of The Guardian (a centre-left newspaper read by mostly well-educated middle class-people) who takes an interest in the topic of gap-year travel. In particular, she addresses gap-year students themselves.

PURPOSE: The author’s purpose is apparent from the title, which in this case also serves as a bold thesis statement. She wants to convince her audience that gap-year students only want to expose themselves to the world on social media.

GENRE: We can see from the content, structure and language of the text that this can be categorized as a “personal essay”, often used in “opinion pieces”. The author shares personal observations and reflections, and the text is written in a semi-literary language. The personal essay genre is also well suited to Ms Gold’s audience and purpose.

CONTENT: Throughout the text, Gold keeps a firm focus on her subject matter, the gap-year students. She starts with a clear statement and continues by explaining and supporting it with facts and concrete examples, such as the reduction in numbers of gap-year teenagers, the carbon cost of flying and the fact of the economic recession.

STRUCTURE: Immediately, in the title and first paragraph, the reader is introduced to the topic and the purpose of the text. The author’s opinions and ideas are presented one by one in short paragraphs that follow the Golden Rule: Each paragraph is introduced by a topic sentence that is supported by easy-to-understand arguments and concrete examples.

LANGUAGE: The text has a rich and varied vocabulary, a varied sentence structure, and there are no mistakes in spelling, punctuation or grammar. With the exception of a few incomplete sentences that are defensible for their stylistic effect, the text contains no formal language errors. Innovative similes,”teeth like brand-new fridges”, contrasts like “art” versus “shit”, and metaphors like “mobile telephones made of Congolese minerals and blood” and “Dolce e Gabbana missionaries”, make the text an original and enjoyable read and Gold’s purpose is convincingly communicated.

PRACTICE 5 Now we challenge you to apply what you have just learnt by reading the text below while keeping the six fundamental concepts in mind. For each of the six concepts, answer the question and give some evidence in the form of words, phrases or whole sentences quoted from the text. Use our comments on Gold’s text as inspiration. a Audience: Who is the audience? b Purpose: For what purpose(s) is this written? c Genre: What genre(s) does the text belong to?

d Content: What is the topic of the text? How is the focus maintained by facts and examples? e Structure: How is the text organised? f Language: How can the language be described?

Mediterranean “migrants” – the connotations and misgivings of one eight-letter word I am asking you to place yourself in the shoes of another. I want you to put your preconceptions aside, remove the blinders we comfortably hide behind, not unlike the ostrich with its head in the sand, and open your eyes to the Mediterranean situation as if it were happening to you. Imagine waking your children in the morning. Imagine feeding and dressing them. Imagine pulling a little girl’s hair into a ponytail, arguing with a little boy about which pair of shoes he wants to wear. Now imagine, as you are doing that, you know later today you will strap their vulnerable bodies into enveloping life jackets and take them with you in a rubber dinghy – through treacherous waters that have claimed all too many who have done the same. Think of the story you’d have to tell to reassure them. Think of trying to make it fun. Consider the emotional strength needed to smile at them and conceal your fear. What would it feel like if that experience – your frantic flight from war – was then diminished by a media that crudely labelled you and your family “migrants”? The term migrant no longer fits when it comes to describing the horror unfolding in the Mediterranean. It is not hundreds of people who drown when a boat goes down in the Mediterranean, nor even hundreds of refugees. It is hundreds of migrants. It is not a person – like you, or me, filled with thoughts and history and hopes. It is a migrant. A nuisance.

Migrant deaths are not worth as much to the media as the deaths of others. Drowning disasters drop further and further down news bulletins. We rarely talk about the dead as individuals anymore. They are numbers. The “migrant” term reduces these people to shadows we can shun. A British foreign minister can then refer to them as “marauding migrants” and hate speech and thinly veiled racism can fester. The media are the puppet-masters, making it easier for governments who have political reasons for not calling those drowning in the Mediterranean what the majority of them are: refugees. We give weight to those who want only to see economic migrants. We pave the way for racism and xenophobia when we fail to imagine the girl with the pony tail. So again I ask you to imagine, to not only open your eyes, but to open your hearts. Give these struggling people back their humanity. Give them faces and names. See them as individuals with their hope for a safe and better life. Migrant is a word that strips suffering people of their dignity. Substituting refugee for it is – in the smallest way – an attempt to give some back. Barry Malone, Al Jazeera. Adapted from www.aljazeera.com/blogs/editors-blog/2015/08/ al-jazeera-mediterranean-migrants-150820082226309.html

Succeeding in International English

[ part two ]

Going International

16â€ƒ

[ part two ]

18â€ƒ

[ part two ]

1 Global Issues Global Perspectives An important part of International English is educating you for the future and for your role as a global citizen. But knowing the past is important in preparing for the future. As the author William Faulkner noted, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The past matters. The institutions built and the arguments made in the past have shaped our understanding of global interaction today. The past has given us the tools with which we will try to meet the challenges of the future. Therefore, this essay explores the history of global institutions, before engaging with current and prospective global challenges.

The rise of global citizenship

When it comes to the history of global institutions and connections today, it is hard to overestimate the role of the Second World War (1939–1945). People all over the world were affected. Only a few decades earlier, the world had been involved in the First World War (1914–1918). Coined as the “War to End All Wars”, the conflict had been so bloody that no one imagined that a similar war would break out again. The American president Woodrow Wilson initiated the League of Nations to negotiate conflicts between countries. But it was not enough. Another world war broke out just over two decades later. Something had to be done. The traumas made it clear to many that it was necessary to build international institutions to limit the odds of another world war. This meant establishing a number of institutions and organizations with a mission to alleviate human suffering and to promote collaboration. The United Nations, for instance, was established in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified in 1948. The United Nations would establish separate organizations, each working to promote education, to improve public health, and to provide a system to care for refugees. The UN built on a sense of a shared destiny. It promoted a form of global citizenship, where loyalty was not to the nation state, but to universal principles of human rights and international collaboration.

Why was the United Nations formed? What does it mean to be a global citizen?

Many heeded this call for global citizenship. The post-war years were a time of rapid expansion of what came to be known as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Although groups like missionary societies, the abolitionist movement, and the labor movement had previously built extended transnational networks between peoples across the world, the war ushered in a new era of the NGO. The British Oxfam (est. 1942), for instance, became a major player in global aid. More recently, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (est. 2000) has grown to be the largest private foundation in the world, donating millions of dollars each year Going International

to various global development projects. NGOs work in many areas: women’s rights and children’s rights; public health and environmentalism; fair trade and community development. But at its base is a sense of being global citizens; what happens to people on the other side of the world matters to everyone.

A global turn in the 1990s

Cleary, global developments affected people throughout the century. But a quick search of Google books’ Ngram Viewer shows that authors used the terms global age and globalization much more frequently in the 1990s than before. Why did this happen? The end of the Cold War is one explanation. It divided the world in two blocs: the USA-led capitalist bloc and the Soviet-led communist bloc. The historian Wolf Schäfer writes: “The Cold War affected every country, all cultures, and the whole physical globe” (1995 para. 3). This conflict drew all peoples into a global ideological battle. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the world faced a new reality. Would this be an era of global communication and interaction? Did we move from a bipolar world to a world dominated by American culture? What kind of world would that be? Why was globalization important in the 1990s?

People gave very different answers to these questions. Some saw the new era as an era of opportunities. The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama suggested in The National Interest that the end of the Cold War was “an end of history” (1989). Western liberal, capitalist, and democratic ideals had won and the whole world was now united in one ideological framework.

What values did Fukuyama believe would dominate the world in the future?

Others argued that new fissures would emerge. In a 1995 article in Foreign Affairs entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington criticized Fukuyama’s theory. Instead of having the whole world agree with Western ideas, he suggested, there would be a divide between “the West and the rest.” The struggle would be between civilizations, he argued, and not between nation states. Western civilization would be pitted against the other civilizations and he pointed to the Chinese and Muslim civilizations as particular threats to the West (1995). In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001, many concluded that Huntington was right. Was not the terrorist attack evidence of a divide between the West and the Muslim world?

What did Huntington say would clash?

One staunch critic of Huntington was the Palestinian American literary critic Edward W. Said. Shortly after 9/11, he wrote an article in the left-leaning magazine The Nation entitled “The Clash of Ignorance.” Huntington lumped together a highly diverse religion with followers in many different cultures and countries, Said argued. Would it not be fairer, Said asked, to compare the Islamic terrorist network Al Qaida and its then-leader Osama bin Laden with violent cults in other parts of the world? One of the examples Said put forward was David 20

[ part two ]

1 Global Issues

Koresh, the leader of the American cult the Branch Davidians. In 1993, Koresh led 75 of his followers, men, women, and children, to death in a conflict with the American government. If Koresh did not represent the entire West, bin Laden did not represent the entire Muslim world (2001).

Why did Said disagree with Huntington?

Huntington’s Civilizational Divides: Samuel Huntington categorized the world into nine civilizations, arguing that the fault lines between them would shape international relations and serve as the driving force of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

Almost two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the discussion continues. The rise of al Qaida, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State (ISIS) made some think Huntington’s thesis was right, after all. The thousands of foreign fighters who joined ISIS from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East to fight for an Islamic caliphate indicate that at least a minority of Muslim extremists see themselves engaged in a civilizational battle against the West. ISIS wants a major conflict with the West, the journalist Graeme Wood (2015) explained in the Atlantic, because it is part of their apocalyptic vision. Yet others point out that most of the victims of militant Islamic groups are not Christians or Westerners. The comedian Dean Obeidallah (2016), an American of Italian and Palestinian descent, argued that ISIS is an enemy of Islam. After all, the majority of victims are Muslim, living in Muslim majority countries like Syria and Iraq. ISIS was not about Islam, he insisted, but about power over people, especially Muslim people. Simply put, ISIS wants people to believe there is a clash of civilizations because it serves its interest.

Going International

Globalization 3.0?

Is Friedman a supporter or critic of globalization?

What did Klein not like about globalization?

Globalization is not new. Rather, the first era of globalization occurred as from Christopher Columbus’s landing in the Americas until the turn of the 19th century. European nations expanded their reach across the world and global trade routes increased and intensified. During “Globalization 1.0,” Thomas Friedman explained, the world shrunk from “a size large to a size medium.” The world then went through “Globalization 2.0.” Between 1800 and 2000, the world went “from a size medium to a size small,” thanks to trade and business. Since the turn of the 21st century, he wrote, the world has been in the midst of “Globalization 3.0,” which has made the world “a size tiny and flatte[ned] the playing field at the same time” (Friedman, 2005, para. 9). He argued that the tech-savvy individuals are now the force of globalization. Today, it is possible for people all over the world to partake in commerce and exchange ideas as well as compete for jobs and market shares. Anyone with the skills and knowledge can succeed.

Others claim that Friedman’s assertion that the world is flat is simply not true. The Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein is one of the leading stars of an anti-globalization movement that criticizes existing capitalist economic structures. In her book No Logo (2000), Klein claimed that large multinational corporations dominate the economy. It is a rigged system that benefits the wealthy and exploits workers and the poor. To her, asserting that globalization works for you if you just make an effort is nothing but an insult. The Indian born economist Pankaj Ghemawat chimed in by adding, “Actually, the world isn’t flat.” “We’re very, very far” from living in a world where borders do not matter. The world is not globalized, but consists of several semi-globalized units. People with similar cultures tend to trade with each other. A shared history increases the chance that neighboring and similar countries interact. Moreover, most of the world’s trade is made via trade blocs such as the European Union, Ghemawat pointed out, and not in a free, global marketplace where whoever brings the best product and idea to the table wins. Also, interpersonal contact is less global than you would think. Only 2% of all phone calls in the world were

[ part two ]

1 Global Issues

between people in different countries. 3% of the world’s population live in a different country than they were born in. In short, Ghemawat described Friedman’s theory as nothing but “globaloney” (as cited in Wooldridge, 2011).

How was Friedman wrong according to Ghemawat?

Whether globalization is a fact or pure globaloney, it is safe to say that a major financial crisis in a country can have ripple effects across the globe. The 2008 collapse of the American housing market affected the worldwide economy, causing fears of a repeat of the Great Depression following the 1929 stock market crash. Economic growth in countries like China has affected your wallet in numerous ways. We now have access to mass-produced goods for a fraction of what it would cost to manufacture them at home. Not all economies have an equal impact on the global economy. Should the American or Chinese economies crash, it would have a greater impact on the world economy than if crashes were to occur in smaller countries. One example is Venezuala. The Venezuelan economy tanked after the price of oil went down. The people of Venezuela face staggering inflation and food shortages. For Venezuelans, the situation is dire, but the impact on the world economy has been minor compared to what would have happened if the American economy had collapsed in a similar way. The USA is tremendously important for international trade. But only a couple of centuries ago, few expected the USA to be the world power it is today. It was nothing but a loosely collected assortment of states evolving in the shadow of grand European empires. Similarly, communist China’s ascent as a major force in the global economy took many by surprise. Power balances have shifted in the past, and they can shift again. But which countries will be important in the future?

Source: The World Bank 2015

Going International

Why does the World Bank suggest that Africa can dominate the world economy in the future?

One answer is: the countries with more people. At least, that is what the World Bank suggests. While the number of producers and consumers–the factors that drive economic growth–declines in the West, African countries could potentially become the powerhouses of financial progress in the future, according to the World Bank (2015). If African countries experience political stability and form policies that promote education and public health, financial progress could also be the future for the more troubled parts of the continent.

Global risks

What is a pandemic?

Which effects of climate change are mentioned here?

Pandemics – global epidemics of incurable infectious diseases – are among the most feared threats to humanity. Viruses and bacteria do not respect national borders. This is bad news for our modern, urbanizing world. As the journalist Nicky Woolf explained, “as our cities get bigger and international travel becomes easier, the risks involved in an outbreak grow even higher” (2014, para. 4). An outbreak of an infectious disease in one part of the world can, and has, had an impact on the whole world. The Spanish flu killed millions of people in 1918. The global Swine flu scare of 2009 and the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, however, never became the pandemics we feared they would be. Nevertheless, as Woolf (2014) said, “So what is [the next big pandemic]? And are we ready for it?” Climate change is another factor that will affect people all over the world. More extreme weather, rising sea levels, and more difficult conditions for food production are but three of many scenarios we will have to deal with in the future. It does not matter where you live or whether or not you have contributed to a warmer climate. Indeed, poorer countries with lower climate gas emissions could be even more at risk. Higher food prices, for instance, will affect poor people and those who live just above the poverty level more than those with middle and higher incomes (Bullard, 2015). People in the Cold War era feared a global disaster following an atomic bomb. Today, however, many fear cyber attacks. According to Keith Breene, with the World Economic Forum, dictatorships like North Korea and terrorist networks like ISIS frequently use cyber attacks to hurt their enemies. The Iranian hacker group Rocket Kitten, Breene reported, nearly destroyed a major Saudi Arabian oil company in a massive cyber attack on its IT system. Cyber attacks are now a major part of the military as well. The American military started using cyber warfare in the fight against ISIS. “While traditional weaponry is still being used

[ part two ]

1 Global Issues

against IS[IS],” Breene (2016, para. 2) explained, “it is hoped that by targeting the organization’s recruiting, financial and military information systems, serious damage can be inflicted.” It will probably not be the last time they engage in cyber warfare.

What is a cyber attack?

Whether or not we do have the tools to solve these urgent issues remains to be seen. Will the world move towards more peace or more conflict? Will we find a just way to develop the economy for all people, all over the world? Will we be able to deal with the global risks of tomorrow? Regardless of what we do, the choices we make today will be there long after we are gone. Our actions will live on. They will set the terms for future generations, just as our forefathers and foremothers made decisions that have shaped our reality. You could do worse, then, than carefully study the following texts, which address some of the urgent global issues of today.

Useful terminology In your own words, explain the meaning of the words below. You may consult a dictionary or an encyclopedia, but you must use your own words when you write your definitions. international transnational globalization United Nations the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

collaboration ratify Non-Governmental Organizations 9/11 Cold War global citizenship

clash of civilizations end of history pandemic cyber attack

TIDBIT

Sources Breene, K. (2016, 4 May). Who are the cyberwar superpowers? Retrieved from the World Economic Forum website: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/who-are-the-cyberwar-superpowers/ Bullard, G. (2015, 1 December). See What Climate Change Means for the World’s Poor. National Geographic. Retrieved from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151201-datapoints-climate-change-povertyagriculture/ Friedman, T. L. (2005, 3 April). It’s a Flat World, After All. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www. nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/its-a-flat-world-after-all.html Fukuyama, F. (1989). The End of History? The National Interest, Summer. Retrieved from the University of Oklahoma website: http://www.ou.edu/uschina/gries/articles/IntPol/Fukuyama%20End%20of%20 History.pdf Klein, N. (2000). No Logo: Taking an aim at the brand bullies. New York: Picador. Obeidallah, D. (2016, 6 July). No One Wants to See ISIS Defeated More than Muslims. Huffington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-obeidallah/isis-defeat-muslims_b_10825028.html Said, E. (2001, 4 October). The Clash of Ignorance. The Nation. Retrieved from: https://www.thenation.com/ article/clash-ignorance/ Schäfer, W. (1995, 24 March). The Global Age. Retrieved from the Stony Brook University website: http://www. stonybrook.edu/globalhistory/age.html Wood, G. (2015, March). What ISIS Really Want. The Atlantic. Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/ magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ Wooldridge, A. (2011, 20 April). The Case Against Globaloney. The Economist. Retrieved from: http://www. economist.com/node/18584204 Woolf, N. (2014, 3 October). Ebola isn’t the big one. So what is? And are we ready for it? The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/03/-sp-ebola-outbreak-risk-global-pandemic-next World Bank. (2015, October). “Africa’s Population Boom: Will It Mean Disaster or Economic and Human Development Gains?” Retrieved from the World Bank website: http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/ publication/africas-demographic-transition

Zombie disasters Since the Night of the Living Dead (1968) introduced zombies – flesh eating dead people inspired by Haitian folklore – they have been a staple of disaster movies. In recent years, The Walking Dead, a comic book series since 2003 and TV series since 2010, has explored what will happen if the world is destroyed by a virus that turns people into zombies. A motley crew of survivors has to fight off not just zombies, but also other survivors from competing groups. Beneath the gore and horror, the series explores deeply human questions: Who can you trust? How far will you go to survive? How do you, or how will you, rebuild society?

Going International

PRACTICE CONTENT 1 How did the Second World War change the global community? 2 What was the UN’s mission? 3 What type of organizations are Oxfam and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? 4 What was the Cold War? When did it end? 5 How did Francis Fukuyama and Samuel P. Huntington view the future in different ways? 6 What was Edward Said’s criticism of Huntington? 7 What does Thomas Friedman mean by Globalization 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0? 8 What was one of the messages of Naomi Klein’s No Logo? 9 Why does the World Bank believe Africa can dominate the world economy in the future? 10 How can diseases be a global threat? 11 What is a cyber attack? STRUCTURE 12 Read the introduction and the conclusion. How does the author pick up themes from the introduction in the conclusion? 13 Focus on the paragraphs following the subheading The global turn of the 1990s. What are the topic sentences in those paragraphs? LANGUAGE 14 Look up the word baloney. What do you think Ghmeawat meant by coining Friedman’s theory globaloney. 15 The last sentence in the text states: “You could do worse, then, than carefully study the following texts, which address some of the urgent global issues today.” What is the difference between the words then and than? 16 In what ways does the author refer to other people’s opinions? Write a list of the reporting verbs and other expressions that signal that the author builds on or uses another person’s words. See course 12: Referring to Sources. 17 Find all the direct quotes in the text. Rewrite them in your own words. 18 Choose one subtopic addressed in the text. Use some terms listed under Useful Terminology to write a paragraph in which you comment on that subtopic.

[ part two ]

OVER TO YOU 19 Occupy Wall Street The anti-globalization movement Occupy Wall Street emerged in New York City in 2011. The protesters challenged the bankers and stockbrokers in New York’s financial district Wall Street as the country was in the midst of a deep financial crisis. a What issues are the protestors concerned with today? How do they present their case? Visit their website http://occupywallst.org/ and choose a recent event reported or issue discussed. b Write two paragraphs where you comment on the language used by the activists. How do they attempt to persuade their audience to accept their point of view? Use examples from the text. See course 4: Understanding Language Features. 20 The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit organization which gathers politicians and leaders from the private sector to discuss solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow. Each year, WEF publishes a Global Risk Report where they present what WEF participants consider to be the most urgent challenges to global stability. Below you see the results of a survey performed in the fall of 2015. The percentages in the chart below show the share of respondents who listed the specific risks among their top five concerns for the future. The respondents were asked to consider two time frames: 18 months and ten years. Write a paragraph where you comment on the graphs from the 2016 Global Risk Report. See course 3: Commenting on Trends and Statistics.

1 Global Issues

21 A challenge to global citizenship In a speech to the Conservative Party in the wake of the 2016 “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union, the British Prime Minister said: “But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You

don’t understand what citizenship means.” What do you think she meant by this? Do you agree with her? Write two paragraphs: one where you make the case for May’s statement and one where you make the case against it. See course 10: Writing Body Paragraphs.

TIDBIT

James Bond – a history teacher? The fictional British spy hero James Bond has fought against different villains over the years. These films echo the global power dynamics of their times and tell us something about what global disasters people were worried about. Created at the height of the Cold War, Thunderball (1965) showcased the worries over the proliferation of the atomic bomb. In the 2015 film Spectre, its main villain was the secret organization Spectre and its plan to establish a global surveillance network.

Further studies

Global disasters are frequent topics for film and literature. Civilizational collapse owing to climate change, earthquakes and contagious disease are only a handful of the apocalyptic scenarios regularly portrayed in fiction. Some examples are: Short stories: Helen Simpson, “Diary of an Interesting Year” (2009) Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950) Films: Contagion (2011) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) The Road (2009) Research centers and global communities: Pew Research Center, Global Attitudes and Trends: http://www.pewglobal.org/ United Nations: www.un.org World Economic Forum: www.weforum.org

Going International 27

FIRST Does overpopulation worry you? Why/why not? Share your thoughts with your classmates.

2 Literacy rates 1820: 12% 2016: 85% 3 Living in a democracy 1820: 1% 2016: 56% 4 Reaching age of 5 1820: 57% 2016: 96%

GENRE: PRESENTATION

TIDBIT

Worse than ever? The media may be full of bad news but here are five improvements over the last 200 years: 1 Living in extreme poverty 1820: 94% 2016: 10%

Overpopulation? Don’t Panic! Hans Rosling (1948–2017) was a Swedish doctor and professor of international health. He also co-founded of the Gapminder foundation, whose mission is “to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview that everyone can understand.” The significance of his work is reflected in TIME Magazine’s naming of Rosling as one of the world’s 100 most influential people (2012). He has become under Content famous for his engaging presentations featuring animated statistics, something that has earned him the nickname “The Jedi master of statistics”. His presentations often take on pressing global issues and aim to debunk myths. “Don’t Panic. The Truth About Population” is a good example. Its opening demonstrates Rosling’s skills at capturing his audience’s attention:

5 Vaccinated (against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus) 1820: 0% 2016: 86%

“We live in a world of relentless change. Huge migrations of people to new megacities filling soaring skyscrapers and vast slums. Ravenous appetites for fuel and food. Unpredictable climate change. And all this in a world where the population is still growing. Should we be worried? Should we be scared? How to make sense of it all?

Source: World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org

Seven billion people now live on this planet of ours. Isn’t it beautiful? But when some people think about the world and its future, they panic. Others prefer not to think about it at all. But tonight I’m going to show you how things really are. My name is Hans Rosling. I’m a statistician at – no, no, no, no, don’t switch off! Because with the latest data from all countries I’m going to show you the world in a new way. I’m going to tell you how world population is changing and what today’s data tell us about how the future of the world will be. We undeniably face huge challenges, but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloomy and that mankind already is doing better than many of you think!”

Watch the whole presentation at http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/ Runtime: 58:50.

[ part two ]

TAKE NOTE! Study the questions carefully before you watch and take notes while watching.

1â€‚ Global Issues

Useful terminology Before watching, learn the following terms: migration megacities population bomb densely populated contraception fertility rate population size average number developing countries child survival nutrition hygiene sanitation medically advanced the Industrial Revolution demography lifespan

income distribution proportion statistician sata axis (plural: axes) BC AD estimate fraction percent vertical horizontal decrease increase prediction rates (high or low)

Going International

29â€ƒ

PRACTICE CONTENT 1

How is today’s population changing?

2 What are the reasons for the population growth of the past and in present times?

OVER TO YOU 14 Global challenges are connected a In his presentation, Rosling shows how overpopulation is linked to several factors. Write a short explanation of how overpopulation is linked to each of the following:

3 Why is population growth higher in undeveloped countries?

• poverty • child survival • life expectancy • education and literacy • climate change • women’s rights

4 Why did the population grow so slowly before the 1800s? 5 How can the population keep growing when the number of children does not increase? 6 What do today’s data presented by Rosling tell us about how the future of the world will be?

b Create a presentation in which you explain the link between overpopulation and one other global challenge of your choice in more detail. Choose a specific audience for your presentation and adjust your language and style accordingly. Examples of audiences you could choose are children aged 10–12, professors, teenagers, politicians, etc. See course 5: Giving Presentations for guidance. Also remember to choose reliable sources and to refer to these correctly in your presentation. See course 2: Choosing Sources and course 12: Referring to Sources for further guidance.

7 Which specific measures can be taken in order to reduce population growth in the future? 8 What is Rosling’s thesis statement and how successful do you think he is in defending it? 9 Rosling states (13:42): “The problem here is not lack of knowledge, it’s preconceived ideas.” What does he mean by this? 10 Make a stand and place yourself on the line below. Explain your position. Population growth is out of control.

The challenge of population growth has already been solved.

11 Rosling claims in his conclusion that “the world is much better than many of you think”. Discuss to what extent you agree with Rosling’s “possibilistic” claim.

15 Instruction manual for Gapminder Hans Rosling said the following about Gapminder: “Gapminder is a non-profit foundation based in Stockholm. Our goal is to replace devastating myths with a fact-based worldview. Our method is to make data easy to understand. We are dedicated to innovate and spread new methods to make global development understandable, free of charge, without advertising. We want to let teachers, journalists and everyone else continue to freely use our tools, videos and presentations.” Create an instruction manual for students of International English explaining how Gapminder works with a special focus on the statistics part. See course 3: Commenting on Trends and Statistics, for useful expressions.

STRUCTURE 12 How has Rosling structured his presentation and which elements has he used to create variation? What is your assessment of this structure? LANGUAGE 13 Hans Rosling’s mother tongue is Swedish and when he gives his presentations in English, you can hear that English is not his first language. He still communicates very effectively. a How can you hear that English is not Rosling’s mother tongue? b If Rosling’s presentation had been given by a student in your class, which grade would you give him if you focused only on the language? Give reasons for your views.

[ part two ]

TIDBIT

c It is difficult to learn to speak English like a native. What do you do to improve your English? What kinds of mistakes do you think disrupt communication and which do not?

World population Did you know that you can follow the world’s population growth in real time? Visit a population clock on the web and find out how many births and deaths the world saw today or this year. Use for instance Worldometers’ clock at http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

1 1 Global Issues

16 Expanding-circle English When discussing English as a global language, we may refer to Braj Kachru’s three circles of English: EX

TEN

E R CI R CL E UT

ussia and V a, R iet hin na .C ngapore & . Si I eg

D I N G C I R CL E

17 Presentation skills

INNER CIRCLE eg. UK & US

ia nd

Hans Rosling was famous for his excellent presentation skills. The Inner Circle: English is the primary language. Examples: The United Kingdom, The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland The Outer Circle: English is not a mother tongue but an official language or it is important for historical reasons. Examples: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, The Philippines, Singapore The Expanding Circle: English plays no historical or official role but is widely used as a foreign language or as a lingua franca. Examples: Norway, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, Japan Hans Rosling and most Norwegian students of International English are expanding-circle Englishspeakers. There is wide disagreement as to what constitutes correct English within the expanding circle. How important do you think it is that expanding-circle speakers follow the conventions of an official variety? Write a paragraph beginning with one of the following topic sentences: • One does not have to speak correct English as long as one’s imperfect English is understandable. • Even though one’s imperfect English may be understandable, it is still important to speak English correctly.

List of presentation techniques: • The use of concrete examples • Personalizing the topic(s) at hand • The use of humour • Visualization through graphs, illustrations, film clips etc. • The use of body language • Addressing the audience directly • Speaking vividly • Being independent of a manuscript • Being enthusiastic and passionate • Appealing to people’s emotions (pathos) • Appealing to people’s logic (logos) • Establishing your credibility (ethos) a Which of the techniques in the list can you identify in “Don’t Panic. The Truth About Population”? b Explain the effects of each of the presentation techniques you have identified.

FACTS

When writing your paragraph, keep in mind the “Golden Rule” presented in course 10: Writing Body Paragraphs: “Each paragraph must be structured around a main point. Every sentence in the paragraph typically has one of three roles in relation to this one point: to state it, support it or bring it to a conclusion.”

HANS ROSLING COMMUNICATION

CONVICTION

Further studies

Gapminder World: Statistics, videos, downloads and more: http://www.gapminder.org TED-talks on population: http://www.ted.com/topics/population

Going International 31

FIRST Aims: • Get an introduction to different genres in news outlets • Gain insight into the twin challenges of climate change and migration

Climate Migrants

CONTEXT

In late 2015, the United Nations Climate Change Conference joined leaders from all over the world in Paris to discuss climate change. The Paris Agreement was celebrated as a landmark achievement in the global collaboration to face the challenge. One of the topics discussed during the conference how climate change affects different people in different ways. More extreme weather – such as droughts, floods and storms – might cause thousands if not millions of people to migrate to safer places in search of a better life. But what is the legal status of these people? The Geneva Convention is central to the discussion. Ratified in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War, the convention set up a new framework to protect the rights of people suffering in conflict situations. Should this framework apply to climate refugees? On the next pages you find two texts that address climate change and migration from different angles. The first is a news report from Reuters, a news agency providing reports to newspapers from all over the world. The second is an opinion piece by Koko Warner published in The Huffington Post, an online news aggregator and blog that belongs to the political centre-left.

[ part two ]

GENRE: NEWS REPORT

1 Global Issues

Climate migrants could dwarf other refugee flows: experts warn PARIS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As weather extremes strengthen and seas rise around the world, forced migration linked to climate pressures is poised to become a “mega5

problem” that could dwarf existing flows of conflict refugees, migration experts warned on

Reuters in 2017, Reuters worked with a network of 2,500 journalists who provided news reports from 200 countries across the world.

Thursday. “We’re way behind in protection and assistance to this group that we haven’t even recognized the size of,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee 10

Council, speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. climate negotiations. Last year, 11 million people fled conflict or violence in Syria, Afghanistan and other troubled regions of the world, he said. But the average number of people displaced by natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, has averaged 22.5 million a year since

2008 and is growing, he said. At the Paris talks, aiming to seal a deal to address climate change this week, “it’s important to recognize in a legally binding document that this is a mega-problem,” Egeland said.

As of Thursday, the draft climate deal did, for the first time, mention the need to protect migrants fleeing climate pressures, said William Lacy Swing, director general of the International Organization for Migration. That is crucial because “no one can expect to live in peace if we let extreme poverty be

exacerbated by the climate crisis,” said Nicholas Hulot, a special envoy of the French president. In places from the island nation of Tuvalu, hit by storm surges, to the Sahel’s drought-prone Burkina Faso, “for many men, women and children, the disaster is right here and now,” he

said. Low-lying Bangladesh could see a 15 percent increase in net poverty by 2030 as a result of climate pressures, including flooding, storm surges, erosion and salt intrusion in drinking water and farmland, said Kamal Uddin Ahmed, secretary of the country’s Ministry of

Environment and Forests. The crowded country of 156 million could also eventually lose a sixth of its territory if a warming world leads to 1 meter of sea-level rise – likely before the turn of the century at the current rate of climate change, scientists say.

Such losses could mean “we need to think of ways to uphold displaced peoples’ right to survive,” Uddin Ahmed said. That could include migration, he added. Monique Barbut, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, said 45

people under pressure from creeping deserts and drought are increasingly relocating – not just temporarily but permanently. “People are making the only rational choice, to move as a coping mechanism,” she said.

In Mexico, at least 600,000 people each year move permanently from dry areas to other parts of the country, or across international borders, she said.

poised prepared exacerbated made more serious or intense envoy agent, representative net final; after deductions are made

Going International

In North Africa and the Middle East, some of the major drivers of migration “are now deeply rooted in the depletion of natural resources, as well as aspiration for a better economic future,” she said. Africa’s Sahel region is particularly at risk of a migration surge, Barbut said.

About 80 percent of people depend on farming, herding, fishing or other jobs connected to the land, and population is rising fast, at about 3 percent a year, even as temperatures increase and rainfall becomes hugely more uncertain. 10

Helping people find ways to stay, rather than migrate, will require spending money both to limit climate change impacts, and to help the poor find ways to cope with changes that are already inevitable, said Alfredo Zamudio, head of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council. 15

“Displacement can be prevented, can be minimized, by increased investment in (climate change) mitigation and adaptation measures,” he said. “This is a time for action.” His agency is collecting data on displacement in 173 countries around the world, to better understand the trends.

Some level of increase in climate-related migration is now inevitable, and countries should start planning for it, said Michelle Leighton, chief of labor migration at the International Labour Organisation. 25

Measures should include smoothing the way for migrants to gain skills and find jobs in their new regions and countries, she said. “These are people who bring skills and talents and ideas that can help fill labor shortages, of depletion emptying, using up aspiration desire to achieve something herding keeping animals inevitable unavoidable displacement the state of being moved, often involuntarily mitigation making less severe adaptation adjusting to something smoothing here: removing obstacles shortages not having enough of certain essentials trafficking the act of illegally moving people across borders

which there are many,” she said.

Making it possible for them to find jobs is crucial, she said, because “without regular pathways, migrants are going into the informal economy, and this doesn’t help societies.” Migrants who struggle to find work can end up going to recruiting agencies that take a big

Volker Turk, a refugee protection expert at the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said he hoped the new global climate deal, now in its final days of negotiation in Paris, would give human mobility “the attention it deserves.”

“If the reality is not accepted and dealt with … we see a whole host of consequences,” he warned. Laurie Goering, December 10, 2015, Reuters

[ part two ]

share of their income, and are at much higher risk of trafficking, she said.

1 Global Issues

PRACTICE CONTENT 1 What kinds of people does the journalist interview in this article? 2 Write a short summary of the news article. 3 Choose five direct quotes from the news report. Paraphrase the quotes. STRUCTURE

A news report aims to be a neutral text that informs the readers about an event. If there are divergent opinions on what occurred, the journalist often includes more than one point of view. News reports often follow the structure of the Inverted Pyramid, where the main message and the most important details are given in the beginning of the text. The journalist presents the 5 Ws: who, what, when, where, and why/ how in the “lead” – the first paragraph – before elaborating on the story. Often, a news report ends with a quote.

LANGUAGE 6 Find the reporting verbs and other expressions used to signal that Reuter’s journalist refers to or quotes someone else’s words. Why do you think the journalist made the choices she made about which words to use? 7 Replace the reporting verbs used with other ones such as claimed, argued, and held. Discuss how different reporting verbs may change the tone of the text. 8 Direct quotes given verbally, especially by non-native speakers, sometimes have a lower register than those given by native speakers. Which parts of these quotes signal a lower register? Rewrite the quotes using a higher register. “We’re way behind in protection and assistance to this group that we haven’t even recognized the size of … ” … “it’s important to recognize in a legally binding document that this is a mega-problem … ”

Low register describes informal or very informal (slang) terms and contractions.

9 In Norwegian, the number 22.5 million is written as 22,5 millioner/millionar. As you see, there is a difference in punctuation as well as in grammar. In English we use a full stop/period while in Norwegian we use a comma. Million is singular in English, while millioner/millionar is plural in Norwegian. In the introduction above, however, the author has written “millions of people.” Most newsworthy info Who? What? When? Why? How?

Important details

Other general info Background info

• Why is the word plural in that context? Consult a good dictionary such as one of the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries for information on when to put numbers in singular or plural. Look up the terms hundred, thousand, and million. • Find other numbers in the text and translate them into Norwegian. What changes do you have to make?

4 Identify the 5 Ws given in the lead. 5 Carefully read the news report from Reuters. How closely does the journalist follow the Inverted Pyramid?

Going International 41

Dr Koko Warner researches the impacts of climate change in communities across the world and has conducted research on climate change and migration in 40 countries around the world. The International Council of Science recently named her one of the top 20 women making waves in the climate change debate. She is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group 2 on Adaptation.

GENRE: OPINION PIECE

AUTHOR

Koko Warner You can follow her on Twitter @Koko_Warner.

Climate Change and Migration: The World Must Be Prepared During the climate negotiations in Paris and against the background of an ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, we call on the international community to pursue a protection framework for environmental migrants and people displaced because of climate stressors.

The current refugee crisis in Europe is about a civil conflict in Syria and not about climate change. However, it sends a signal about the kinds of human movements we will see in the future as climatic stressors, such as storms, droughts, heat waves and sea level rise increasingly impacts jobs, food security, and the stability of urban and rural areas.

People will move away from regions that climate change slowly renders uninhabitable, such as small island states in the Pacific affected by sea level rise and parts of South East Asia dealing with coastal erosion. They will move towards areas they hope will provide safe and sustainable livelihoods. Almost half of the world’s population depends on agricultural

production for their livelihoods and this sector is most severely impacted by a changing climate. All countries and governments will be affected by people on the move whether those countries are areas of origin, transit, or destination. People will move either in anticipation of

climate stressors or in response to them. The international community needs a robust legal framework to guide efforts to assist people on the move because of climate stressors. At the current stage, people leaving their countries due to climate stressors are not considered refugees under the Geneva Convention, which

specifies that a refugee is fleeing from a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Climatic or environmental factors are not recognized as persecuting factors and only some countries grant temporary protection status and waive visa requirements for migrants whose

home country faces a severe natural hazard. People who move are often particularly vulnerable and need a scope of assistance – from legal protection to access to labor markets, valid identification, and integration opportunities. The current situation in Europe shows us that we are not yet prepared for such

large movements of people within or across borders. While the challenges of the current pursue seek stressors sources of stress render make, cause sustainable durable origin home transit move between places destination goal anticipation expectation, preparation robust sturdy, strong legal law-related framework structure persecuted oppressed grant give temporary not permanent waive forego immense great policies method, overall plan endorse state one’s approval of

[ part two ]

refugee situation are immense, governments and the international community are guided by national and regional policies that follow the clear normative and legislative framework of the Geneva Convention. 40

Such policies and frameworks are currently not in place for environmental migrants. Now just days before a historic climate agreement must be forged between leaders of the world in Paris, countries are considering ways to address migration, displacement, and planned relocation–be it a framework, a facility, or other protective approach. 45

1 Global Issues

Source: Maplecroft 2014 25

Recently, over 100 governments have endorsed the Protection Agenda of the Nansen Initiative on Disasters, Climate Change, and Cross-Border Displacement. This agenda, supported by United Nations University as an Advisory Group member, helps point the way for filling legal gaps and providing evidence-based policy and operational support for vulnerable affected people.

In the post-2015 world, all current signals point to a need to invest in research and policy analysis to develop a reference point which will not only help to protect vulnerable people, but will also serve long-term sustainable development. 35

displacement the process of being moved, often involuntarily affected impacted reference point something to assess or evaluate development against

Koko Warner, December 01, 2015, The Huffington Post

Going International

PRACTICE CONTENT 1 What is Koko Warner’s main point? STRUCTURE Koko Warner’s text is an op-ed. 2 Go through the text and identify the main point of each paragraph. An op-ed, or an opinion piece, expresses someone’s opinion on a topic. The author is often an expert. In contrast to the author of an editorial, the author of an op-ed is not affiliated with the publication that publishes the piece.

3 Warner’s op-ed is a call for action. She tries to persuade the international community to establish new policies. Analyse the rhetorical strategies the author uses to argue her case. See course 17: How to Persuade. LANGUAGE To answer the following questions, please see course 4: Understanding Language Features. 4 Find the main clause in these sentences: • “During the climate negotiations in Paris and against the background of an ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, we call on the international community to pursue a protection framework for environmental migrants and people displaced because of climate stressors.”

[ part two ]

• “Now just days before a historic climate agreement must be forged between leaders of the world in Paris, countries are considering ways to address migration, displacement, and planned relocation – be it a framework, a facility, or other protective approach.” • “This agenda, supported by United Nations University as an Advisory Group member, helps point the way for filling legal gaps and providing evidence-based policy and operational support for vulnerable affected people.” 5 Which grammatical phenomenon does the author use when she writes “ … be it a framework … ” in the second sentence listed above? Why do you think the author chose to write the sentence in this way? Rewrite the sentence “Now just days … ” so it does not include “be it.” 6 Rewrite these sentences in the active voice: • “All countries and governments will be affected by people on the move whether those countries are areas of origin, transit, or destination.” • “While the challenges of the current refugee situation are immense, governments and the international community are guided by national and regional policies that follow the clear normative and legislative framework of the Geneva Convention.” • “This sector is most severely impacted by a changing climate.” 7 Define the terms below in your own words. • environmental migrants • civil conflict • climate stressors • integration • planned relocation

1 Global Issues

OVER TO YOU 9 The Paris Agreement The Paris Agreement was sent out to be ratified – to be formally sanctioned – by the participating countries. At least 55 countries or countries representing 55% of the climate gas emissions had to ratify the agreement for it to come into effect. Write a paragraph where you explain the main content of the agreement, how many countries that have ratified it and what its current status is. See course 15: How to Explain. 10 Climate migrants: choosing and using sources What is the situation in areas pointed to as particularly vulnerable to climate change in the texts above? • Pick one area and research what the situation is for people living there today. • Find at least three sources from different news outlets and organizations. See course 2: Choosing Sources. • Write a paragraph for each source where you describe and explain the different types of sources selected, using the 5 Ws and the H. Follow the example below or see course 15: How to Explain. • Insert citations in your paragraphs, following the APA or another style. See course 12: Referring to Sources. • Set up a bibliography of the sources you used. See course 12: Referring to Sources. EXAMPLE

The op-ed “Climate Change and Migration: The World Must Be Prepared” was written by the scientist and climate activist Koko Warner and published in the center-left news generator Huffington Post in connection with the climate conference in Paris in 2015. Warner called the international community to develop policies that provide climate refugees legal protection on par with more traditional refugee groups.

What: The op-ed “Climate … ” Who: Koko Warner, scientist and climate activist, primarily for readers who identify with the center-left politically Where: Huffington Post When: In Dec. 2015, in connection with the Paris conference

11 Discussing climate migrants Form groups of 4–8 people. Each group member should read one text from the list of articles provided at www. gyldendal.no/e2. Study your text carefully and prepare to partake in a prepared conversation about migration with your group members. In your conversation, begin by presenting and explaining the texts. Spend no more than 5 minutes on each one. Make sure you cover the 5 Ws and the H. For instance: What is the main point? Who wrote it and for what audience? When was it written? Why was it written? Comment on whether or not you find the arguments and views presented in your text convincing. Finish with a discussion about the different views that have been presented in your group. Remember to use relevant terminology and to use facts and examples when you give reasons for your views. See course 14: Preparing Conversations.

Why: to develop new policies

Further studies

Climate and Migration Coalition: http://climatemigration.org.uk/about-us/ International Organization for Migration: https://www.iom.int/

Going International

2 Choosing Sources You will often be expected to use sources when you write texts or give oral presentations. Use them to help you express an idea but also to strengthen your arguments by basing them on facts, theories and research. Sources can be written, oral, visual, or audio-visual and some are only accessible online.

Types of sources include: • newspapers and magazines • poetry, drama and prose fiction • encyclopaedias and dictionaries • research articles and reports • statistics • handbooks and instruction manuals • wikis, personal websites and blogs • radio broadcasts and podcasts • television broadcasts • advertisements and commercials • online videos and films • cinema viewings, DVDs and Blu-rays • paintings, drawings and maps • songs and musical recordings • speeches and lectures • interviews and conversations

Choosing sources is, in fact, a matter of making important strategic decisions. The basic rule is: Every source that you use must be both relevant and reliable.

240 [ part three ]

Step 1

Choose relevant sources. The tasks themselves will often give you a good lead. If you need background information about a particular news issue, for instance, it is natural to check what international news agencies say. If you are looking for historical or biographical data, you should check sources that are considered standard works on your topic. Discuss also with your teacher or the school librarian where you can find the most relevant information.

Step 2

Choose reliable sources. To evaluate your sources, ask the following questions: • Who wrote it? Are they experts in their fields? Are their views controversial? • Where was it published? • Is there an agenda, political, commercial, personal or other? • When was it published? When was it last updated?

As a rule you can trust • Factual information and statistics published by the UN and by state agencies, like FedStats and SSB • Major news organizations • Even though they may be biased, their very existence depends on their trustworthiness: Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, are considered to be among the best. • Academic journals and articles • University websites • School textbooks

As a rule you should avoid • Personal blogs and websites • Discussion forums • Wikis • Conspiracy theories and urban legends

As a rule of thumb: Cross-check all the information that you want to use with two other reliable sources.

Step 3

Search for information. Whether your preferred search engine is Google, Bing, or Yahoo! Search, you will save a lot of time and frustration if you follow these tips: Use tabs All major search engines allow you to use tabs like Images, News, Videos, Maps and More. If you are looking for a specific image, use the Image tab, and so on. Use quotation marks If you type war on terror in the search field, your search engine will look for content that includes those three words in any order. However, if you put your search terms in quotation marks, the engine will search for the whole phrase. The search “war on terror” will generate a much more manageable result. Use a hyphen ( – ) You can make your search engine ignore irrelevant hits. If you are searching for information about football, and you are not interested in American football, you can enter football -american, i.e. the word football followed by a space, followed by a minus sign (or hyphen) then american with no space in between them. Sources that feature the word american will then be removed from the search result. Use the asterisk wildcard The asterisk (*) is a placeholder for any word you might have forgotten or do not know. If your search is “never was so much * by so many”, the * can represent any word at all, including owed. The search engine will then take you to the famous quote by Winston Churchill. Be creative Sometimes a synonym, a conglomeration of words, or a random association, can help you to find what you are looking for. If you need recent statistics about population growth in India, you can enter, for instance, pie chart population growth census India now, and use the Images tab. Communicating Better

241

TAKE NOTE!

Wikipedia Be cautious when you go to Wikipedia for information. The articles are written by volunteers who monitor each other’s work. Typically, they are not experts in the fields, and even Wikipedia says about itself that it cannot be considered a reliable source. We do not want to discourage you from using Wikipedia altogether, though. Wikipedia may serve as a good starting point when exploring a new topic. The citation lists that follow many of the articles are often worth close study, because they might refer to credible sources.

TAKE NOTE!

Common knowledge does not require documentation. Clearly, there is no need to refer to a source if you say that Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States or that Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.

PRACTICE 1 Relevance Suggest 2–3 relevant sources when your topic is: • multicultural London • international organized crime • educational opportunities abroad for Norwegian students

2 Reliability Visit the following websites and assess them as reliable or unreliable: avn.org.au, census.gov, daniken.com, foodbabe.com, illuminati-news.com, khanacademy.org, martindalecenter. com, memory.loc.gov, newscientist.com, smithsonianmag. com, vaccineliberationarmy.com, wolframalpha.com, 911truth.org 3 Web-searching methods Explain the expressions web search query, Boolean search, fuzzy search and phrase search.

4 Top-level domains A top-level domain, a TLD, is the last element of an internet address. The following seven TLDs were created in the early days of the internet: .com, .org, .net, .int, .edu, .gov, and .mil. What do they stand for? Create a list of different websites that use them. Does the TLD itself say anything about a site’s reliability? What do the country code TLD s.ar, .de, .es, .hk, .in, .ru, and .za stand for? Create a list of at least five more country code TLDs. 5 Fake news Vanessa Otero, a Canadian patent attorney, made the chart to the right about news sources. Otero wanted to present a simplified visual format of various news sources in order to help ordinary people distinguish between decent and terrible ones. She stresses that she is no media expert and that more data would make the chart both more accurate and less subjective. You can read about her reasoning and methodology here: www. allgeneralizationsarefalse.com Study the info-graphic to the right and the advice in Step 2 on choosing reliable sources. Go online to find three examples of articles: • one you trust • one that seems plausible but is in some way compromised • one that is completely false

Justify your choices.

242 [ part three ]

Ny Ill kommer

Communicating Better

243â€ƒ

8 Extending the Five-paragraph Essay A five-paragraph essay is a non-fiction text of at least five paragraphs that presents, discusses, clarifies or analyzes a given topic.

“It ain’t watcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” Jack Kerouac

The traditional five-paragraph essay is a basic recipe for organizing texts, and it is by far the most applicable method of structuring written schoolwork of some length. It helps your audience to grasp your purpose quickly and to follow your line of thought without much effort. This structure is well suited for non-fiction texts like argumentative and persuasive essays, speeches, oral presentations, university application letters, book reviews, literary analyses and more. Fictional texts, diary entries, personal letters, etc., follow other structuring principles. In order to structure your ideas around a given topic, we suggest that you follow these steps:

Step 1

Create a good title. It should intrigue your reader and give a clear hint about the content of your essay. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns should be written with upper-case first letters, as in these borrowed examples: • Is the Internet Making Us Smarter or Dumber? • Wrap It up: An Ode to the Burrito

Step 2

Write an interesting introduction where you present your topic and formulate a clear thesis statement/question.

Step 3

Support your thesis statement by presenting three main points, or arguments, in three clear body paragraphs. Introduce each body paragraph with a topic sentence, and let them follow each other in a logical order. For instance, you can arrange your arguments/body paragraphs according to chronology or their order of importance. As you will see, the arguments in our sample essay are arranged according to their importance. In each body paragraph, make sure the topic sentence is followed by supporting sentences that substantiate the claim you make. Explain and refer to facts and concrete examples.

278 [ part three ]

Step 4

Create a memorable conclusion where you refer to your thesis statement/ question.

Step 5

List the sources used.

EXAMPLE Title: The title hints at the topic of the text. First Paragraph: Introduction Create interest by referring to an important person in the world of education. General presentation of essay topic Thesis statement expresses the main idea – that schools must adapt to current challenges. The rest of the essay will present arguments to support this claim. Second paragraph: Body Paragraph 1 Topic sentence contains the first main argument, that traditional teaching methods are obsolete. The rest of the paragraph supports this claim by explaining and giving specific examples. Third Paragraph: Body Paragraph 2 Topic sentence tells the reader what this paragraph will contain.

The main part of the paragraph supports the claim made in the topic sentence.

Fourth Paragraph: Body Paragraph 3 Here the final body paragraph is introduces by a topic sentence which presents the strongest point or argument. It also connects with the previous paragraph. As above, the rest of the paragraph supports the claim made in the topic sentence.

Goodbye Old School It is worth paying attention when the headmaster of Eton College, Tony Little, criticizes the British school system. After all, it has been called “the envy of the world” and Eton College has a reputation of being the number one boys’ public school. In an article in The Guardian, Mr Little describes the current exam system in Britain as “unimaginative and outdated” and he even claims that schools today “have failed to prepare young people for modern working life” (Radcliffe, 2014). What he says illustrates the situation in several other countries, too: All over the world, young people work hard to get an education that is, in a sense, worthless. There is good reason to claim that traditional teaching methods are parts of the problem and that we urgently need to reconsider what secondary schools should teach. To prepare the young for the future, for jobs that do not yet exist and technology that is still to be invented, we can no longer accept chalk-and-talk methods in schools. Since time immemorial, upper secondary students have been subjected to written tests and oral hearings almost on a daily basis, and they have spent years in silence and boredom, listening to teachers whose sole focus has been their own voice. We still need schools to teach Pythagoras, German verbs, the citric acid cycle and the Battle of Waterloo, of course, but recitation of factual information does not make much sense when almost everything we need to know is just seconds away on a smartphone. Today, it is far more important to know how to examine. process and use information than to render large amounts of loosely connected facts. To carry significance beyond the average pub quiz, facts must be put into a context, and what is known as collaborative learning is a good method to achieve this. In simple terms, collaborative learning means that students work in small groups to discuss concepts and ideas and to solve open-ended questions or problems. A typical task might be “What are the main causes and consequences of illegal immigration to Europe?” or “What role does the UN play in the Middle East?” Teachers can concentrate on guidance and counselling rather than on mere knowledge transfer. Through joint efforts in groups, the students reach a deeper understanding of the different topics they are working with. Besides knowing how to handle colossal amounts of information, students today also need to master a number of other skills. Besides knowing how to handle colossal amounts of information, students today also need to master a number of other skills. According to OECD’s Katerina Ananiadou and Magdalena Claro (2009), other requirements include global awareness, cross-disciplinary thinking, flexibility, creativity and perseverance (pp. 9–11). In our complex, competitive and fast-changing world, such skills are relevant at all school levels, from primary schools to institutions of higher learning. They are key factors to success in working life, too.

Fifth Paragraph: Conclusion A short conclusion rounds it all off. No new information is added and the entire paragraph is a reference back to the thesis statement.

Unavoidable and rapid changes in society make it necessary for schools to change their teaching methods. If we do not change the system that Mr Little describes as outdated, it will remain difficult for students to face modern challenges. Collaboration as a preferred pedagogical principle, and the OECD 21st century skills as ideal goals, can make schools relevant again.

Sources are listed alphabetically. Here, the APA style of reference is used.

Sources Ananiadou, K. & Claro, M. (2009). 21st Century Skills and Competences for New Millennium Learners in OECD Countries. OECD Education Papers, No 41. Retrieved from www.oecd. org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote = EDU/WKP(2009)20&doclanguage = en Ratcliffe, R. (2014, Aug 5). Eton headmaster: England’s exam system unimaginative and outdated. The Guardian. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/education/2014/ aug/05/eton-headmaster-exam-system-unimaginative

Communicating Better

279

TAKE NOTE!

Subheadings are commonly used in feature articles and news articles for the purpose of quick navigation through the text. When skimming through a text, the reader can look for the subheadings and easily move to whatever parts interest him/her the most. Subheadings are usually not recommended in a traditional five-paragraph essay, though. The essay itself will make more sense if all the elements are allowed to follow each other in a planned sequence. Therefore, the argument goes, subheadings will only disturb the flow of thought from thesis statement to conclusion.

Beyond the five-paragraph essay The five-paragraph essay is an excellent tool to organize your thoughts with, and we strongly advise that you use it when you answer school assignments and exam tasks. However, experienced writers often find it limiting. You will seldom come across an authentic newspaper article, an essay or a report that rigidly follows the formula described in this course. When you feel confident about writing five-paragraph essays, you can deviate from the standard format, too, without compromising on clarity. Depending on the scope of your topic, you may write essays of six or seven paragraphs or more. In our experience, however, it is difficult to write a good essay that consists of fewer than five paragraphs. Here are some additional tips: • The thesis statement does not have to be placed at the end of the first paragraph. It can occur at the beginning or in the middle of it, in the title or in a later paragraph, as long as it is explicitly clear to the reader what your thesis statement is. • In an extended essay or report, the thesis statement may consist of an entire paragraph. It will normally be placed at the end of the introduction. • You do not have to write a topic sentence at the beginning of each body paragraph, as long as you explicitly connect each paragraph and each main point to the thesis statement. • A good text is also a matter good language and good content. To develop and mature as a writer you should read a lot of texts written by acclaimed journalists and authors. Good writers immerse themselves in reading and they constantly borrow words and phrases from each other. We encourage you to follow the same strategy.

280 [ part three ]

PRACTICE 1 Choose any non-fictional text in this book and identify: • the introduction, the body and the conclusion • the thesis statement • the topic sentence of each body paragraph

Does the conclusion contain a reference to the thesis statement/question? 2 Paragraphs a-e to the right follow each other in a random order. Use the principles of the five-paragraph essay and arrange them into a logically coherent sequence under the title “Are We Alone in the Universe?”

a According to another theory, life may be a rather common thing in the Universe; even in our solar system at least several planets or their moons (Venus, Mars, Titan, Ganymede and Europa), in addition to Earth, show signs of having an atmosphere and in theory may host some primitive life forms. All in all, taking into account the vastness of the Universe and the minuteness of our knowledge of it, it is very improbable that life doesn’t exist anywhere else at all. b Throughout its history humankind asked itself this question and constantly tried to answer “no”. The idea of sentient living beings who are not people has been present in the writings of historians, geographers and other scientists for as long as science itself has existed. Mermaids, cynocephali, various bizarre species of beastmen, antipodes: all of them were embodiments of this dream. In the course of time, the limits of the known Universe expanded and it became known that no such creatures existed. The only place left to seek non-human life now is other planets. Is there any hope of finding it? c Of course, there is no definite answer to the question posed by the title. Nobody can say for sure that extra-terrestrial life exists or does not exist for the sheer fact that the part of the Universe we know is less than negligible. In my opinion, life may exist on other planets, but we are not going to find it very soon. And of course, if we find it, it will become the most important discovery humankind has ever made. d Of all the chemical elements only carbon and silicon seem to be a suitable basis for life, although silicon can form connections with far fewer other elements. Needless to say, we have never encountered silicon-based life forms but, if they exist, they may have properties that have nothing in common with what we used to associate life with.

3 Compose an outline for a five-paragraph essay. Include a thesis statement, three topic sentences and a closing comment. Choose between the following topics: • benefits and challenges of multiculturalism • the importance of English in work and education • poverty as a global issue

e There are a great number of theories concerning extra-terrestrial life. According to the “rare Earth hypothesis”, the conditions on Earth are close to unique and the possibility of them taking place on any other planet is close to zero. However, this theory takes it for granted that the appearance of life requires conditions identical to those on Earth. But is it true? If life on other planets exists, it may be completely different from what we are used to not only in form, but in fundamental principles as well.

Communicating Better

281

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

PRACTICE 1 Follow the steps above and create an introduction to two of the tasks below. a Create a text where you discuss the conflict between the media’s responsibility to inform and the media’s responsibility to protect. b Create a text where you present advantages and disadvantages of multicultural societies. c Create a text where you compare the causes of and solutions to two global challenges. Choose the global challenges yourself. d Create a text where you explain what a Norwegian should be aware of when studying in another country. Choose the country yourself. e Create a text where you analyse two films you have watched this year, focusing especially on characterization and themes.

2 Create another version of one of the introductions you wrote in task 1, by using a different approach to create interest.

3 In pairs or groups, compare your introductions. a Discuss what captures your interest. b Is it clear what the topic is? c Does the thesis question/statement give you a clear understanding of what the text will be about?

4 Below are some tasks that will help raise your awareness about audience and purpose. Create the introductions to two of these: a Create a speech for 10th graders where you explain the causes of and solutions to a global challenge and encourage your audience to take action. Choose the global challenge yourself. b Write a letter to the editor of a fashion magazine where you discuss the negative effects H&M’s advertisements have on teenagers. c Write an essay for people who are considering entering an interracial relationship where you discuss the blessings and challenges of a mixed marriage. d Create a speech for the teachers at your school where you discuss how literature or film can contribute to raising their pupils’ awareness of global challenges. e Create a presentation for Americans where you explain the importance of Al Jazeera.

282 [ part three ]

EXAMPLES 1. Begin with a quotation

Captures the reader’s interest through a quotation

Step 1

The transition between the quotation and the presentation of the topic: Elaborates on the quotation and provides some context

Step 2

The thesis statement Step 3 The first part of this statement also serves as a transition between the general presentation and the thesis

Captures the reader’s interest through an interesting fact

Step 1

The transition between the presentation and the thesis question: Facts are Step 2 used to present the topic in general terms and to underline its relevance The thesis question Step 3

Studying abroad “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Mark Twain sums it up well. To discover the world for ourselves is the main desire for thousands of students who make the momentous decision it is to study abroad. To enrich one’s life with new cultural experiences, new learning experiences, new friends and, perhaps, a new climate sounds exciting beyond comprehension. The benefits of studying abroad are obviously many – but so are the challenges.

The thesis question Step 3

4. Begin with a definition Captures the reader’s interest through a definition

Step 1

Step 3

5. Begin with a comparison Captures the reader’s interest through a comparison

Step 1

The transition between the presentation and the thesis question: Briefly presents the Step 2 topics to be compared and defends their relevance The thesis question

Step 3

Communicating Better

283