| The learning tasks are consistently sequenced as follows: |
| Pre-Reading Tasks: Complete before Reading the Text. |
- Before Reading (Перед чтением): Read guided questions, in English, to prepare to read the chapter’s text.
- Chronology (Исторические даты): Match the English translations of important events given in Russian; in some chapters, also practice reading dates out loud in Russian. (The chronology activity will help students acquire vocabulary essential for understanding the text.)
- Historical and Political Lexicon (Историческая и политическая лексика): Read alphabetically sequenced list of historical, geographical, and political terms.
- Rhetoric (Вводные слова, союзы, риторические средства): Read alphabetically sequenced list of connecting words and phrases.
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| Pre-Reading Tasks: Read and Reflect before Reading the Text. |
- Map Activity (Найдите на карте): Locate important places on a map and explain (orally or in writing as assigned) why those places are important for our understanding of the chapter’s topic. The map activity is not included in every chapter, but the numbering of tasks is consistent throughout the chapters, regardless.
- General Comprehension (Хорошо ли вы понимаете текст?): Answer general comprehension questions in English.
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| Reading Tasks: Complete upon Successive Re-Readings of the Text. |
- Ideology of the Text (Идеология текста): Identify the ideological perspective of the author.
- Roots (Корни): Find words in the text with given roots and analyze given words by roots.
- Word Formation (Словообразование): Create adjectives from nouns or verbs.
- Word Meaning (Значение слов): Use roots, prefixes, and suffixes to identify the meaning of given words.
- Words, Expressions, and Constructions (Слова, выражения, конструкции): Translate into English selected phrases and sentences from the text.
- Circumlocution (Перефразируйте): Explain in Russian given words or phrases from the text.
- Translation (Перевод): Translate from Russian into English given phrases and sentences from the text.
- Participles and Verbal Adverbs (Причастия и деепричастия): Identify the infinitive from which a given word is formed or create a participle or verbal adverb from a given infinitive (format varies by chapter).
- Work with Pronouns and Antecedents (К какому слову относится местоимение?): Identify the antecedent of the pronoun in given sentences from the text.
- Word Order (Порядок слов): Determine how meaning is influenced by word order in the given sentences.
- Structure of the Sentence (Структура предложения): Determine how many clauses are in each of the given sentences and identify the predicate and subject in each clause.
- Structure of the Text (Построение текста): Rewrite sentences in the text that feature the given connecting words and phrases (using different strategies to convey the meaning of connecting words and phrases).
- Additional Historical Terms (Дополнительные исторические термины): Make a list of historical terms in the text not included in the historical lexicon in section 3.
- Summary (Краткое содержание): Draw up a paragraph-long summary of the text, using historical terms from exercise 19 and connecting words and phrases from section 4.
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| Post-Reading Tasks: Complete after Reading and Mastering the Text. |
- Lecture (Лекция): Listen to a mini-lecture by the author of the text.
- Presentation (Выступление): Make a presentation based on the summary, using rhetorical devices in the lecture (section 21).
- History in Film (История в фильмах): Watch a film related to the text and answer questions about the film.
- Symposium (Симпозиум): Prepare an oral presentation on a topic related to the text.
- Research Report (Письменная работа): Write a paper on the topic of the oral presentation, using additional sources as necessary.
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| We hope that teachers and students will find the tasks helpful. |
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Benjamin Rifkin
Temple University, Philadelphia |
Olga Kagan
University of California, Los Angeles |
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