Greetings from the United States!

WHAT?

"Greetings from the US" is made up of two parts: Writing (letter) and Speaking about your fictional trip across The Atlantic. Cultural aspects are included in both parts.

A US state will be randomly selected for you and the first part is for you to write a letter home from that state.

In the second part, prepare to give a presentation where you talk about the contents of your letter. The twist is that you do it in a way so that the listener doesn't know  what state you have been to. 

HOW?

Text

Google your state or go directly to ne.se, https://www.usa.se/delstater/, www.usa.com or wikipedia.org to find out more.

Look for interesting facts, history, famous places, religious beliefs, buildings, artists and people in general, attractions, local traditions, climate, specific foods – all things that make this place special.

Aim to focus on three different aspects of your state. These could for example be history, local food, religious beliefs, locations, people and local traditions - anything specific. What comes natural will be depending on which state you are in.

One of these aspects needs to include a comparison to life in Sweden. Let's for instance say that you write about the beverage "moonshine", then there is definitely a Swedish counterpart that you can write about.

Write a no more than 1000 words long letter. Include the things people usually do. Make it personal but at the same time try to cram in as much information as you can about what you have found out from your extensive research :) 

Presentation

Prepare to tell your class about your trip. Of course you will have great use of everything that you have written in your letter home and now you will basically say the same things, but in a different way, since

1) you will omit certain information to make it a geography quiz and

2) you are now back and here to talk about your experience.

Your presentation needs to be at least 3 minutes, but no more than 5 minutes long. Prepare with pictures and keywords. 

This is what you do: Basically, talk about your trip, places you have visited, things you have done a learned, but without telling the audience exactly where you have been. For instance, if you have been to the Statue of Liberty, of course it will be too easy to figure out which state you are in if you tell your audience just that. Rather talk about this statue you have seen, one which once was a gift from France. 

You do not want to simply read your letter out loud. That would ruin the purpose of the assignment.

Do not tell your classmates which state you are in, since that would ruin the quiz-part of the presentations.

WHY?

This project is about practicing and improving your writing and speaking of English by aiming to be

• clear (vara tydlig)
• fluent (ha flyt) and
• coherent (vara sammanhängande)

along with

• adapting (anpassa) to the situation and
• working to improve and progress your work (bearbeta)

and

• adding to your cultural knowledge of the English-speaking parts of the world

SCHEDULE

Preparations & work on text

Weeks 35-38

Research & writing

Work on presentations

Week 39 and 40

Presentation week 41

This will give you three weeks+ in total to work.