Newspaper class: Germany reunified 26 years ago

Source.  

(FULL ARTICLE)

Group 401V: Be ready to discuss this article on the week of October 10.
Group 401 (day) and 501V: Be ready by the week of October 17.

Our thanks to Ekaterina Oreshnikova -- this article is from her reading diary.

In addition to the usual tasks (below), be prepared to evaluate how the author used graphics and maps. The printed version of the article included several comments; you might want to consider other comments that we didn't include in the printed version. 

Your tasks:

• Summarize the whole article in two or three sentences.
• Identify and summarize the major subdivisions of the article. (The subdivisions can be one paragraph or a cluster of paragraphs devoted to one aspect of the article.)
• Prepare to discuss: What is the main goal of the article? Is the article successful in meeting that goal?
• Prepare to discuss: What did you learn from this article, and what questions did the article provoke without answering? Were the comparisons between east and west fair? Were the differences explained in a clear way? ... in a fair way? Are you tempted to post a comment?
• Bring to class: words and phrases from the article that are unfamiliar or unclear to you.

Useful words and phrases:

not everyone was convinced
a handful
a public spotlight (a spotlight)
to embrace change
influx
reliant on
to be evenly spread
entry-level position
political climate
sympathizer
quick to fill the void
bleak
legacy
pool
small arms
to posit
melting pot (and melting pot dynamic)