Both activities require research as well as writing/designing.  The crux of both tasks, however, is almost identical: students have to design a communication that will fill a particular communicative goal for a targeted community.  To do that requires a mix of cultural and linguistic knowledge, and an ability to identify with an audience, not only with one's own ideas.

     Designing a website as if one were a German critic will require students to deal with the touchy issue of Germany in World War II -- and Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the unconquered past that keeps coming back when war criminals and Swiss bank accounts come into the news.  The designer must realize that certain groups of Germans will still be reluctant to see a play that demonstrates how quickly Germans in 1947 wanted to blot out memories of the previous decade.

     The second option, a website for German-Americans, is an interesting task that will require students to negotiate historical consciousness and linguistic resources across generations.  German-Americans are often older groups, and they have specific patriotic notions about what Germany means to them.  Designing such a website may involve community interviews, and students will learn about different historical points of view as they discover that German-Americans have not forgotten World War II.