This course is designed to enable students, by continuing to improve their English and through constant participation in the online activities,

§    to understand major aspects of modern American culture;

§    to read American newspapers and magazines with greater ease and understanding;

§    to discuss American films with greater understanding; and

§    to think about the issues of the culture they situate through reading and discussing

American culture.

本課程設計給願意積極透過線上教學，持續學習英語的學生。課程主要教學目標:

§   了解當代美國主要文化元素；

§   學習閱讀美國報章雜誌；

§   欣賞並討論美國電影的相關議題；

§   能在閱讀文本後，思考相關文化議題和文化差異。

1.提供線上說明作業內容

2.線上即時作業填答

3.作業檔案上傳及下載

4.線上測驗

5.成績查詢

1.      Weekly Assignments (40%)

a.       2 Journals (10%)—Each Journal 5%

b.      Weekly Online Discussions (30%)

2.      Group Report Proposal (10%)

3.      Group Report (20%)

4.      Class Participation and Performance (10%)

5.      Midterm Exam[筆試](20%)

How do we understand American culture beyond the names like New York Yankees, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, or Dr. Martin Luther King?  In the 1860 preface to The Marble Faunt, the well-known novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne has written about America:

No author, without trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadows . . ., no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land.

Ralph Waldo Emerson has also commented on this new nation:

So in this continent, the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles and all the European tribes, of the Africans, and of the Polynesians—will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state.

However, this nation is no longer new, and it has quite a big share of problems, shadows and contradictions.  How do we, as both non-Americans and ESL (English as second language) learners, come to know the dream of freedom and democracy, and the contradictions within this dream in US culture?

This course aims to introduce the social and cultural diversity of American culture today, and in some historical perspectives.  To make the culture vividly present, the course will use films and news articles, matched with discussion questions and other learning activities.  To achieve these goals we will in the first place focus on the general introduction to US culture.  Then the second part will be using three different but related divisions to understand American culture: The American History and Society, US in the 1960s, and American Popular culture.  Hopefully, in the end of this semester, students will not only have an outlook of US culture, but also apprehend some issues in broader perspective, through which we can look at Taiwan’s cultural issues more objectively.

In this course the assigned readings will mostly be from the handouts, including newspaper, magazine articles, and other texts.  We will also be viewing the materials from the Internet, like photos, short media clips from Youtube, and Hollywood films about the main issues of American culture.

撇開紐約洋基隊(New York Yankees)、麥克傑克森(Michael Jackson)、女神卡卡(Lady Gaga)、馬丁路德金恩博士(Dr. Martin Luther King)，我們如何認識美國呢? 在1860年知名的小說家霍桑(Nathaniel Hawthorne )在The Marble Faunt一書的序言中以正面的態度評論美國。而愛默生(Ralph Waldo Emerson)曾對這個國家有以下的評論:

        「在這個大陸，結合愛爾蘭、德意志、瑞典、波蘭和歐洲各民族、

          非洲、波西尼亞，將會產生一個新的族群、新的信仰和新的國家。」

然而，這個國家不再是新的，反而出現了很多問題、陰影和衝突。我們身為台灣人和英語學習者(ESL)要如何去了解美國追尋自由的夢、民主制度、和內部的衝突?

本課程將從歷史的脈絡，探討當今美國的社會和文化多樣性。課程將欣賞影片和閱讀新聞報導後，進行討論和活動，以便讓學生有更深的文化了解。本課程第一部分，概括美國的文化，第二部份將透過三個不同的面向來探討美國的文化特色: 1)美國歷史與社會、2) 1960年代的美國、3) 美國流行文化。希望在課程結束後，學生不僅對美國文化有概念性的認識，也可以在探討美國文化議題的同時，將觸角延伸到台灣，思考並關心這塊土地。

本課程指定的閱讀教材，主要整理自報紙、雜誌和其他相關文件。其他學習資源包含網路上的影音資料、Youtube影片、探討美國文化的相關電影。