Hints: Text I and J


     The second pair of texts offers a different set of contrasts.  Text I, "Die letzte Chance, den 'Besenstern' in Augenschein zu nehmen," and Text J,  "Einmal Leipzig einfach," illustrate how reader demographics (e.g. region, age, gender, socio-economic bracket) affect readability.  "Die letzte Chance" is a newspaper article on the Comet Hale-Bopp of recent fame; "Einmal Leipzig" is one telling the story of one of the last "escapees" from the former East Germany who willingly is returning there, even though it was not yet a free state (the text is from mid-1989, before the final fall of the wall).

     -From the standpoint of language difficulty, both texts may be about equal.  Hale-Bopp was so familiar at the time it was written that many readers would have had no difficulty guessing about unfamiliar vocabulary from context (e.g.  a whole paragraph on how to photograph a comet or on the constellations is readily interpolated).  "Einmal Leipzig" describes the train trip of an individual who has lived in the West, but who is now returning to her home and family in the East because the West was so alien.  These experiences are described in vocabulary that students learn to work with in German from early phases of their instructions (personal characteristics, relatives, travelling).

     -In terms of educational variables, the texts make similar demands on their readers, because both presuppose a fairly sophisticated readership, one which is either (in the first case) technically informed about astronomy, or about the politics of European borders (one which understands what a return to the East Block meant for an individual in the last days of the Cold War).   Neither article is written for a technical community (e.g., for historians, sociologists, or astronomers), but both are written in literate, correct, and higher than colloquial German.

     -Sociological variables will most likely be the chief indicators of the difficulty of this text for a target audience.  Students in a science academy will probably find the Hale-Bopp article easy;  ones in a performing arts academy may find it easy, but might be more interested in its use to talk about astrology rather than telescopes.  In contrast, "Einmal Leipzig" will appeal to a student body that is interested in world affairs or refugee issues, or that has relatives who have immigrated and thus have experienced similar adaptation stories. (See the next Unit of this course for how minimal context clues would facilitate this identification of reader and text content.)

TEXT PAIRS 4-6 in Exercise 1
FOLLOW-UP BRAINSTORMING