Abitur Hessen Englisch 2022 · LK

Alternative concepts of life

Aufgabe

You are participating in an internet project on alternative lifestyles with other European students and you have found a suitable article.

Write an e-mail to your project coordinator (a teacher), outlining the purpose of the RTR meetings and the reasons for “workamping”. (Material) (100 BE)

Material

Heike Buchter: Jobber auf dem großen Treck (2018)

Es sind vielleicht zweihundert Zuhörer, die an diesem Januarmorgen auf Campingstühlen ausharren, in der grellen Sonne der Mojave-Wüste. Die Mehrheit ist schon älter, viele haben Gehstöcke bei sich, einige sogar Rollatoren. Sie sind in diese abgelegene Region des Bundesstaates Arizona gekommen, um einem Mann zuzuhören: Bob Wells.

Mit seinem runden Gesicht und dem langen Bart sieht der 62-Jährige aus wie ein sonnenverbrannter Weihnachtsmann. Er ist der Initiator des „Rubber Tramp Rendezvous“, kurz RTR: eines jährlichen Treffens von Menschen, die in mobilen Heimen leben und auf den jeweiligen Stellplätzen arbeiten oder in der Nähe. „Workamping“ nennt sich das auch, also halb arbeiten und halb Camping. Wells ist ein Workamper der ersten Stunde. [...]

Nach wie vor stellen Senioren den größten Anteil an den Workampern. Bei vielen älteren Amerikanern reicht die Altersvorsorge nicht, rund 19 Prozent der über 65-Jährigen arbeiten zumindest in Teilzeit. So viele waren es zuletzt vor der Einführung der staatlichen Renten und Krankenversicherung in den sechziger Jahren. Doch seit der Finanzkrise 2008, als Millionen ihre Jobs und viele dazu noch ihr Heim verloren, stießen immer mehr Jüngere hinzu. Laut dem Magazin Workamper News liegt das Durchschnittsalter der modernen Wanderarbeiter inzwischen bei 53 Jahren. [...]

Zehn Tage lang sprechen die RTR-Teilnehmer über Erfahrungen, über Jobs, Campingplätze und Reiserouten. Vieles dreht sich um praktische Belange. Es gibt eine Tauschbörse für Kleidung, Seminare zum Umgang mit Behörden, zum Bau von Solarsystemen, Selbstverteidigungskurse für Frauen. Man redet über Freundschaft und Solidarität – über Armut, Krankheit und Einsamkeit spricht niemand gern. [...]

Für viele Workamper in Not ist der RTR-Organisator Bob Wells eine Anlaufstelle geworden. Lange habe er versucht, Hilfesuchenden aus eigenen Mitteln zu helfen, sagt er. Doch der Bedarf übersteige inzwischen seine Möglichkeiten. Jetzt will er mit Spenden seiner Anhänger eine Art Hilfsmission für „Rubber Tramps“ gründen. Hilfe von staatlicher Seite erwartet er schon lange nicht mehr. Die gescheiterte Gesundheitsreform¹ sei nur das jüngste Beispiel dafür, dass sich die Politik vom Bürger abwende. [...]

Bis zur Krise 2008 gehörte es zum American dream, ein eigenes Haus zu besitzen. Die monatliche Kreditrate drückte, aber es war schwer vorstellbar, freiwillig darauf zu verzichten. 2005, auf der Höhe der Immobilienblase, erreichte die Wohnungseigentumsquote in den USA fast 70 Prozent (in Deutschland waren es 52 Prozent). Seitdem ist die Eigentumsquote auf 64 Prozent gesunken, wo sie trotz der wirtschaftlichen Erholung seit Jahren stagniert.

Nach den Gründen für ihren Abschied vom festen Wohnsitz gefragt, rechnen viele Workamper vor, wie viel sie das Wohneigentum gekostet hat. Es ist nicht nur der Kredit. Um sich ein Eigenheim leisten zu können, ziehen viele in die weitere Umgebung und nehmen lange Fahrten zur Arbeit in Kauf. Durchschnittlich sind amerikanische Pendler heute 30 Minuten lang zwischen Arbeit und Wohnort unterwegs, fast doppelt so lange wie vor 30 Jahren. Außerhalb der Metropolen gibt es so gut wie keinen öffentlichen Nahverkehr, also sind die meisten auf das Auto angewiesen. Das wiederum erhöht die Lebenshaltungskosten.

Am Ende arbeite man nur, um zu wohnen, sagt Justin Burke. Der 32-Jährige will ein solches Dasein vermeiden. Wie sein Vater vor ihm fing er gleich nach der Highschool bei Chrysler an. Zehn Jahre arbeitete er in der Autofabrik. Als zunehmend Jobber angeheuert wurden, die für weniger Lohn arbeiteten, sah Burke keine Zukunft mehr dort. Er kündigte und zog nach Denver, wo er für den Fahrdienst Uber arbeitet.

Er ist zum RTR gekommen, um seine künftige Existenz als Wanderarbeiter vorzubereiten. Burke und die anderen Teilnehmer sind nicht allein mit ihren Zweifeln an den Verheißungen von Besitz und Konsum, nach denen so viele Amerikaner lange strebten. Ihre Antwort – der Verzicht auf einen festen Wohnsitz – ist eine der radikalsten, die es in den USA gibt. „Das hier“, sagt Burke und zeigt auf die Wohnwagen, Busse und Transporter, die zwischen den Saguaro-Kakteen stehen, „das hier ist eine Rebellion.“

¹ Die im Jahr 2010 unter Präsident Obama eingeführte Krankenversicherungspflicht wurde im Rahmen einer Steuerreform im Jahr 2018 von den Konservativen wieder beendet, was für steigende Versicherungsprämien und weniger Krankenversicherte vor allem unter Geringverdienern sorgte.

Heike Buchter: Jobber auf dem großen Treck, in: Die Zeit, 01.03.2018

1 Outline what the reader learns about Frank McCourt's biography and the circumstances of his life in Ireland and the USA. (Material 1 und Material 2)

2 Examine Frank McCourt's images of Ireland and the USA, his experiences, attitude and stylistic devices, also taking into account language and stylistic devices.

3.1 “The immigrant’s heart marches to the beat of two quite different drums, one from the old homeland and the other from the new. The immigrant has to bridge these two worlds, living comfortably in the new and bringing the best of his or her ancient identity and heritage to bear on life in an adopted homeland.” (Mary McAleese, former Irish president, 1997–2001)

Comment on this statement, taking into account the experience of Frank McCourt and other American immigrant experiences dealt with in class.

3.2 “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” (Material 2)

As a journalist of the New York Times, you are asked to write an article for a special edition on “The Immigrant Experience”. Write an article on immigration to the USA assessing the quote, referring to material dealt with in class.

Material

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging (memoir, 2018)

I had left Britain to leave being British. I believed that relocating my future to one or more of Africa’s

many nations would solve the problems of belonging that had nibbled away at me, a mixed-race girl

growing up in Britain, for as long as I could remember. I had not meant to come back, not after two

years, not ever, but to settle in West Africa for good, and take up my place in the world as a proud

5 African, in places where I thought I would fit in.

Exactly the opposite had happened. Living in Senegal I had discovered, to my endless confusion, how

British I was. Returning to London meant the relief of familiarity, of home, but the painful reminder

that home was a place that had surveyed me as alien, questioned me about my background, and

expected me to provide explanations. Very little, it seemed, had changed. [...]

10 I had brown skin, an African name, hair that coiled tightly, knotted and frizzed when brushed, and

never flopped around my face. I shared this with my sister, characteristics we inherited from our

mother, who is black and African – from Ghana – and our father, who is white with a mother from

Yorkshire and a father who came to Britain as a Jewish German refugee. [...]

[E]veryone around us was white. Our neighbours were white. My school friends were white. The

15 history I learned was about white people, the books I read were about white children; Jack and Jill,

Peter and Jane – that was what childhood was meant to look like.

I’m not sure how many of my neighbours in Wimbledon, where I still live, would approve of this

description. Most of the well-heeled residents of my home suburb prefer to say they do not see race at

all. And because race allegedly did not exist, in this all-white world, the whiteness that made me so

20 self-conscious was regarded as completely normal. It was I who was at odds with my environment – I

did not conform. But, since there was no such thing as race, there was no space in which it could

matter.

But it did matter to me. Even before I had a vocabulary to express it, race began to manifest itself in

my life. [...]

25 I learned how common my experiences were. And I learned something else, something that over time

has come to crystallise the uniquely British problem we have with race and identity. In Britain, we are

taught not to see race. We are told that race does not matter. We have convinced ourselves that if we

can contort ourselves into a form of blindness, then issues of identity will quietly disappear. My sister

and I were no different. My parents were, laudably, concerned with nurturing us with a happy

30 childhood, full of opportunity. Race, heritage and identity did not rank among their priorities for

raising their children.

But like the people in my books, being taught not to see race only heightened my sensitivity to the

extent of my difference. I didn’t find race, race found me; in the playground or the classroom, on the

street, in the shops. I already knew that I looked different – kids work that out for themselves – but

35 that there was something bad about my difference, something inherently undesirable about being

black: that, I had to be taught.

The first teachers were my peers at school. From the age of seven to the age of eighteen, I went to the

same school, where I was one of a minuscule number of children with brown skin. [...]

Even when it’s quite clear that people around me are conscious that I’m different, because of how I

40 look, I know exactly how to reassure them. I’ve been conditioned in the art of English manners,

politeness, harmless banter and casual charm my whole life; [...] you learn to send the subliminal

message: don’t worry about the fact that I’m black, I won’t make you feel uncomfortable. I may be

brown, my hair is a texture you don’t understand, I have a name you struggle to pronounce, but it’s

OK – I am completely non-threatening, I am brown, but safe. [...]

45 [My boyfriend] Sam 1 had what I did not: absolutely zero desire to make himself appealing, non-

threatening and safe. Sam and his peers spoke their own language, and had their own value system,

their own subculture, their own music, their own aesthetic and fashion ideals. It had nothing to do with

the white, middle-class world of Wimbledon and beyond, and it wasn’t interested in making itself

palatable to that world either. From where I was standing, what Sam had was a coherent,

50 multidimensional identity which was unequivocally his. It was black, and it was proud. I dreamed of

this certainty, and I was drawn to it, with a gravitational pull. [...]

I am the eternal outsider. In Wimbledon, I am the black girl. The more I asserted my black identity,

the more of a threat I became to the prevailing order – that race is something unseen, unspoken of and

unacknowledged in polite society. In Tottenham, I am the rich girl, who speaks ‘like a white person’,

55 and has access to privilege and opportunity most people cannot imagine. For years I internalised this

as a status that carried with it multiple rejections, because everywhere I went, I was other. But over

time, it began to manifest as an opportunity to observe and question our attitudes towards race and

identity, driven by a fascination that perhaps only an outsider can have, and, maybe, the ability to see

things that only an outsider can see.

(948 Wörter)

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018, S. 3–19.

Hinweis

Afua Hirsch (born 1981): British writer and journalist, daughter of a British father and a Ghanaian mother

1 Sam is black, comes from a Ghanaian family and has grown up in Tottenham, a very multicultural borough of London.

1

Outline the experiences that shape the author's view of her identity. (Material)

(30 BE)

Material

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging (memoir, 2018)

I had left Britain to leave being British. I believed that relocating my future to one or more of Africa’s

many nations would solve the problems of belonging that had nibbled away at me, a mixed-race girl

growing up in Britain, for as long as I could remember. I had not meant to come back, not after two

years, not ever, but to settle in West Africa for good, and take up my place in the world as a proud

5 African, in places where I thought I would fit in.

Exactly the opposite had happened. Living in Senegal I had discovered, to my endless confusion, how

British I was. Returning to London meant the relief of familiarity, of home, but the painful reminder

that home was a place that had surveyed me as alien, questioned me about my background, and

expected me to provide explanations. Very little, it seemed, had changed. [...]

10 I had brown skin, an African name, hair that coiled tightly, knotted and frizzed when brushed, and

never flopped around my face. I shared this with my sister, characteristics we inherited from our

mother, who is black and African – from Ghana – and our father, who is white with a mother from

Yorkshire and a father who came to Britain as a Jewish German refugee. [...]

[E]veryone around us was white. Our neighbours were white. My school friends were white. The

15 history I learned was about white people, the books I read were about white children; Jack and Jill,

Peter and Jane – that was what childhood was meant to look like.

I’m not sure how many of my neighbours in Wimbledon, where I still live, would approve of this

description. Most of the well-heeled residents of my home suburb prefer to say they do not see race at

all. And because race allegedly did not exist, in this all-white world, the whiteness that made me so

20 self-conscious was regarded as completely normal. It was I who was at odds with my environment – I

did not conform. But, since there was no such thing as race, there was no space in which it could

matter.

But it did matter to me. Even before I had a vocabulary to express it, race began to manifest itself in

my life. [...]

25 I learned how common my experiences were. And I learned something else, something that over time

has come to crystallise the uniquely British problem we have with race and identity. In Britain, we are

taught not to see race. We are told that race does not matter. We have convinced ourselves that if we

can contort ourselves into a form of blindness, then issues of identity will quietly disappear. My sister

and I were no different. My parents were, laudably, concerned with nurturing us with a happy

30 childhood, full of opportunity. Race, heritage and identity did not rank among their priorities for

raising their children.

But like the people in my books, being taught not to see race only heightened my sensitivity to the

extent of my difference. I didn’t find race, race found me; in the playground or the classroom, on the

street, in the shops. I already knew that I looked different – kids work that out for themselves – but

35 that there was something bad about my difference, something inherently undesirable about being

black: that, I had to be taught.

The first teachers were my peers at school. From the age of seven to the age of eighteen, I went to the

same school, where I was one of a minuscule number of children with brown skin. [...]

Even when it’s quite clear that people around me are conscious that I’m different, because of how I

40 look, I know exactly how to reassure them. I’ve been conditioned in the art of English manners,

politeness, harmless banter and casual charm my whole life; [...] you learn to send the subliminal

message: don’t worry about the fact that I’m black, I won’t make you feel uncomfortable. I may be

brown, my hair is a texture you don’t understand, I have a name you struggle to pronounce, but it’s

OK – I am completely non-threatening, I am brown, but safe. [...]

45 [My boyfriend] Sam 1 had what I did not: absolutely zero desire to make himself appealing, non-

threatening and safe. Sam and his peers spoke their own language, and had their own value system,

their own subculture, their own music, their own aesthetic and fashion ideals. It had nothing to do with

the white, middle-class world of Wimbledon and beyond, and it wasn’t interested in making itself

palatable to that world either. From where I was standing, what Sam had was a coherent,

50 multidimensional identity which was unequivocally his. It was black, and it was proud. I dreamed of

this certainty, and I was drawn to it, with a gravitational pull. [...]

I am the eternal outsider. In Wimbledon, I am the black girl. The more I asserted my black identity,

the more of a threat I became to the prevailing order – that race is something unseen, unspoken of and

unacknowledged in polite society. In Tottenham, I am the rich girl, who speaks ‘like a white person’,

55 and has access to privilege and opportunity most people cannot imagine. For years I internalised this

as a status that carried with it multiple rejections, because everywhere I went, I was other. But over

time, it began to manifest as an opportunity to observe and question our attitudes towards race and

identity, driven by a fascination that perhaps only an outsider can have, and, maybe, the ability to see

things that only an outsider can see.

(948 Wörter)

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018, S. 3–19.

Hinweis

Afua Hirsch (born 1981): British writer and journalist, daughter of a British father and a Ghanaian mother

1 Sam is black, comes from a Ghanaian family and has grown up in Tottenham, a very multicultural borough of London.

2

Relate the author's struggles with her identity to similar experiences dealt with in class, especially referring to the short story "My Son the Fanatic".

(40 BE)

Material

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging (memoir, 2018)

I had left Britain to leave being British. I believed that relocating my future to one or more of Africa’s

many nations would solve the problems of belonging that had nibbled away at me, a mixed-race girl

growing up in Britain, for as long as I could remember. I had not meant to come back, not after two

years, not ever, but to settle in West Africa for good, and take up my place in the world as a proud

5 African, in places where I thought I would fit in.

Exactly the opposite had happened. Living in Senegal I had discovered, to my endless confusion, how

British I was. Returning to London meant the relief of familiarity, of home, but the painful reminder

that home was a place that had surveyed me as alien, questioned me about my background, and

expected me to provide explanations. Very little, it seemed, had changed. [...]

10 I had brown skin, an African name, hair that coiled tightly, knotted and frizzed when brushed, and

never flopped around my face. I shared this with my sister, characteristics we inherited from our

mother, who is black and African – from Ghana – and our father, who is white with a mother from

Yorkshire and a father who came to Britain as a Jewish German refugee. [...]

[E]veryone around us was white. Our neighbours were white. My school friends were white. The

15 history I learned was about white people, the books I read were about white children; Jack and Jill,

Peter and Jane – that was what childhood was meant to look like.

I’m not sure how many of my neighbours in Wimbledon, where I still live, would approve of this

description. Most of the well-heeled residents of my home suburb prefer to say they do not see race at

all. And because race allegedly did not exist, in this all-white world, the whiteness that made me so

20 self-conscious was regarded as completely normal. It was I who was at odds with my environment – I

did not conform. But, since there was no such thing as race, there was no space in which it could

matter.

But it did matter to me. Even before I had a vocabulary to express it, race began to manifest itself in

my life. [...]

25 I learned how common my experiences were. And I learned something else, something that over time

has come to crystallise the uniquely British problem we have with race and identity. In Britain, we are

taught not to see race. We are told that race does not matter. We have convinced ourselves that if we

can contort ourselves into a form of blindness, then issues of identity will quietly disappear. My sister

and I were no different. My parents were, laudably, concerned with nurturing us with a happy

30 childhood, full of opportunity. Race, heritage and identity did not rank among their priorities for

raising their children.

But like the people in my books, being taught not to see race only heightened my sensitivity to the

extent of my difference. I didn’t find race, race found me; in the playground or the classroom, on the

street, in the shops. I already knew that I looked different – kids work that out for themselves – but

35 that there was something bad about my difference, something inherently undesirable about being

black: that, I had to be taught.

The first teachers were my peers at school. From the age of seven to the age of eighteen, I went to the

same school, where I was one of a minuscule number of children with brown skin. [...]

Even when it’s quite clear that people around me are conscious that I’m different, because of how I

40 look, I know exactly how to reassure them. I’ve been conditioned in the art of English manners,

politeness, harmless banter and casual charm my whole life; [...] you learn to send the subliminal

message: don’t worry about the fact that I’m black, I won’t make you feel uncomfortable. I may be

brown, my hair is a texture you don’t understand, I have a name you struggle to pronounce, but it’s

OK – I am completely non-threatening, I am brown, but safe. [...]

45 [My boyfriend] Sam 1 had what I did not: absolutely zero desire to make himself appealing, non-

threatening and safe. Sam and his peers spoke their own language, and had their own value system,

their own subculture, their own music, their own aesthetic and fashion ideals. It had nothing to do with

the white, middle-class world of Wimbledon and beyond, and it wasn’t interested in making itself

palatable to that world either. From where I was standing, what Sam had was a coherent,

50 multidimensional identity which was unequivocally his. It was black, and it was proud. I dreamed of

this certainty, and I was drawn to it, with a gravitational pull. [...]

I am the eternal outsider. In Wimbledon, I am the black girl. The more I asserted my black identity,

the more of a threat I became to the prevailing order – that race is something unseen, unspoken of and

unacknowledged in polite society. In Tottenham, I am the rich girl, who speaks ‘like a white person’,

55 and has access to privilege and opportunity most people cannot imagine. For years I internalised this

as a status that carried with it multiple rejections, because everywhere I went, I was other. But over

time, it began to manifest as an opportunity to observe and question our attitudes towards race and

identity, driven by a fascination that perhaps only an outsider can have, and, maybe, the ability to see

things that only an outsider can see.

(948 Wörter)

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018, S. 3–19.

Hinweis

Afua Hirsch (born 1981): British writer and journalist, daughter of a British father and a Ghanaian mother

1 Sam is black, comes from a Ghanaian family and has grown up in Tottenham, a very multicultural borough of London.

3.1

“Ideally, we would live in a utopian society where there were rainbows and butterflies and skin color was not a factor in our decision-making, but the unfortunate reality is that it is. Racism has not been eradicated but rather has changed and become more covert and insidious.”

(Janice Gassam Asare, author, first-generation Cameroonian-American, 2019)

Assess the statement referring to the development of race relations in the US.

(30 BE)

Material

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging (memoir, 2018)

I had left Britain to leave being British. I believed that relocating my future to one or more of Africa’s

many nations would solve the problems of belonging that had nibbled away at me, a mixed-race girl

growing up in Britain, for as long as I could remember. I had not meant to come back, not after two

years, not ever, but to settle in West Africa for good, and take up my place in the world as a proud

5 African, in places where I thought I would fit in.

Exactly the opposite had happened. Living in Senegal I had discovered, to my endless confusion, how

British I was. Returning to London meant the relief of familiarity, of home, but the painful reminder

that home was a place that had surveyed me as alien, questioned me about my background, and

expected me to provide explanations. Very little, it seemed, had changed. [...]

10 I had brown skin, an African name, hair that coiled tightly, knotted and frizzed when brushed, and

never flopped around my face. I shared this with my sister, characteristics we inherited from our

mother, who is black and African – from Ghana – and our father, who is white with a mother from

Yorkshire and a father who came to Britain as a Jewish German refugee. [...]

[E]veryone around us was white. Our neighbours were white. My school friends were white. The

15 history I learned was about white people, the books I read were about white children; Jack and Jill,

Peter and Jane – that was what childhood was meant to look like.

I’m not sure how many of my neighbours in Wimbledon, where I still live, would approve of this

description. Most of the well-heeled residents of my home suburb prefer to say they do not see race at

all. And because race allegedly did not exist, in this all-white world, the whiteness that made me so

20 self-conscious was regarded as completely normal. It was I who was at odds with my environment – I

did not conform. But, since there was no such thing as race, there was no space in which it could

matter.

But it did matter to me. Even before I had a vocabulary to express it, race began to manifest itself in

my life. [...]

25 I learned how common my experiences were. And I learned something else, something that over time

has come to crystallise the uniquely British problem we have with race and identity. In Britain, we are

taught not to see race. We are told that race does not matter. We have convinced ourselves that if we

can contort ourselves into a form of blindness, then issues of identity will quietly disappear. My sister

and I were no different. My parents were, laudably, concerned with nurturing us with a happy

30 childhood, full of opportunity. Race, heritage and identity did not rank among their priorities for

raising their children.

But like the people in my books, being taught not to see race only heightened my sensitivity to the

extent of my difference. I didn’t find race, race found me; in the playground or the classroom, on the

street, in the shops. I already knew that I looked different – kids work that out for themselves – but

35 that there was something bad about my difference, something inherently undesirable about being

black: that, I had to be taught.

The first teachers were my peers at school. From the age of seven to the age of eighteen, I went to the

same school, where I was one of a minuscule number of children with brown skin. [...]

Even when it’s quite clear that people around me are conscious that I’m different, because of how I

40 look, I know exactly how to reassure them. I’ve been conditioned in the art of English manners,

politeness, harmless banter and casual charm my whole life; [...] you learn to send the subliminal

message: don’t worry about the fact that I’m black, I won’t make you feel uncomfortable. I may be

brown, my hair is a texture you don’t understand, I have a name you struggle to pronounce, but it’s

OK – I am completely non-threatening, I am brown, but safe. [...]

45 [My boyfriend] Sam 1 had what I did not: absolutely zero desire to make himself appealing, non-

threatening and safe. Sam and his peers spoke their own language, and had their own value system,

their own subculture, their own music, their own aesthetic and fashion ideals. It had nothing to do with

the white, middle-class world of Wimbledon and beyond, and it wasn’t interested in making itself

palatable to that world either. From where I was standing, what Sam had was a coherent,

50 multidimensional identity which was unequivocally his. It was black, and it was proud. I dreamed of

this certainty, and I was drawn to it, with a gravitational pull. [...]

I am the eternal outsider. In Wimbledon, I am the black girl. The more I asserted my black identity,

the more of a threat I became to the prevailing order – that race is something unseen, unspoken of and

unacknowledged in polite society. In Tottenham, I am the rich girl, who speaks ‘like a white person’,

55 and has access to privilege and opportunity most people cannot imagine. For years I internalised this

as a status that carried with it multiple rejections, because everywhere I went, I was other. But over

time, it began to manifest as an opportunity to observe and question our attitudes towards race and

identity, driven by a fascination that perhaps only an outsider can have, and, maybe, the ability to see

things that only an outsider can see.

(948 Wörter)

Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018, S. 3–19.

Hinweis

Afua Hirsch (born 1981): British writer and journalist, daughter of a British father and a Ghanaian mother

1 Sam is black, comes from a Ghanaian family and has grown up in Tottenham, a very multicultural borough of London.

3.2

“By the end of my childhood, I’d learned that black people were ugly. It took a few more years to learn that we were criminals too. The younger children thought I was the ‘scariest’ girl in the school. [...] I looked ‘scary’, because I am black.”

(Afua Hirsch, in: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, 2018)

Your school plans a project to support and celebrate diversity and inclusion. To kick off the project, you are supposed to give a speech to your fellow students and the whole school community. Write this speech, also taking Afua Hirsch’s statement into account.

(30 BE)

Material

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling (excerpt from the short story, 2019)

The story is set in the near future.

When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be

necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon

render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no

matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock

5 of traditional literacy.

It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read

as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her

messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist

predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she

10 makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she

can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I

remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence.

Under those specific circumstances, English becomes a bit like a second language to her, one that she

can speak fluently but can only barely write.

15 It may sound like I’m disappointed in Nicole’s intellectual achievements, but that’s absolutely not the

case. She’s smart and dedicated to her job at an art museum when she could be earning more money

elsewhere, and I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments. But there is still the past me who

would have been appalled to see his daughter lose her ability to spell, and I can’t deny that I am

continuous with him.

20 It’s been more [than] thirty years since I read that essay, and in that period our lives have undergone

countless changes that I couldn’t have predicted. The most catastrophic one was when Nicole’s

mother, Angela, declared that she deserved a more interesting life than the one we were giving her and

spent the next decade crisscrossing the globe. But the changes leading to Nicole’s current form of

literacy were more ordinary and gradual: a succession of software gadgets that not only promised but

25 in fact delivered utility and convenience, and I didn’t object to any of them at the times of their

introduction.

So it hasn’t been my habit to engage in doomsaying whenever a new product is announced; I’ve

welcomed new technology as much as anyone. But when Whetstone released its new search tool

Remem, it raised concerns for me in a way none of its predecessors did.

30 Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing

personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives. People consult their lifelogs for a

variety of reasons – everything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic

reactions – but only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting

through the results. Lifelogs are the most complete photo album imaginable, but like most photo

35 albums, they lie dormant except on special occasions. Now Whetstone aims to change all of that; they

claim Remem’s algorithms can search the haystack by the time you’ve finished saying “needle.”

Remem monitors your conversation for references to past events and then displays video of that event

in the lower-left corner of your field of vision. If you say “Remember dancing the conga at that

wedding?” Remem will bring up the video. If the person you’re talking to says “The last time we were

40 at the beach,” Remem will bring up the video. And it’s not only for use when speaking with someone

else; Remem also monitors your subvocalizations. If you read the words “the first Szechuan restaurant

I ate at,” your vocal cords will move as if you’re reading aloud, and Remem will bring up the relevant

video.

There’s no denying the usefulness of software that can actually answer the question “Where did I put

45 my keys?” But Whetstone is positioning Remem as more than a handy virtual assistant: they want it to

take the place of your natural memory. […]

How will it change a person’s conception of herself when she’s only seen her past through the

unblinking eye of a video camera? Just as there’s a feedback loop in softening harsh memories, there’s

also one at work in the romanticization of childhood memories, and disrupting that process will have

50 consequences.

The earliest birthday I remember is my fourth; I remember blowing out the candles on my cake, the

thrill of tearing the wrapping paper off the presents. There’s no video of the event, but there are

snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. In fact, I suspect I no

longer remember the day itself. It’s more likely that I manufactured the memory when I was first

55 shown the snapshots, and over time, I’ve imbued it with the emotion I imagine I felt that day. Little by

little, over repeated instances of recall, I’ve created a happy memory for myself.

Another of my earliest memories is of playing on the living room rug, pushing toy cars around, while

my grandmother worked at her sewing machine; she would occasionally turn and smile warmly at me.

There are no photos of that moment, so I know the recollection is mine and mine alone. It is a lovely,

60 idyllic memory. Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? No; absolutely

not.

(933 Wörter)

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, in: Ted Chiang: Exhalation, New York 2019, S. 185–187, 206–207.

1

Outline the information on the technology used in the narrator's world. (Material)

(30 BE)

Material

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling (excerpt from the short story, 2019)

The story is set in the near future.

When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be

necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon

render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no

matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock

5 of traditional literacy.

It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read

as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her

messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist

predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she

10 makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she

can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I

remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence.

Under those specific circumstances, English becomes a bit like a second language to her, one that she

can speak fluently but can only barely write.

15 It may sound like I’m disappointed in Nicole’s intellectual achievements, but that’s absolutely not the

case. She’s smart and dedicated to her job at an art museum when she could be earning more money

elsewhere, and I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments. But there is still the past me who

would have been appalled to see his daughter lose her ability to spell, and I can’t deny that I am

continuous with him.

20 It’s been more [than] thirty years since I read that essay, and in that period our lives have undergone

countless changes that I couldn’t have predicted. The most catastrophic one was when Nicole’s

mother, Angela, declared that she deserved a more interesting life than the one we were giving her and

spent the next decade crisscrossing the globe. But the changes leading to Nicole’s current form of

literacy were more ordinary and gradual: a succession of software gadgets that not only promised but

25 in fact delivered utility and convenience, and I didn’t object to any of them at the times of their

introduction.

So it hasn’t been my habit to engage in doomsaying whenever a new product is announced; I’ve

welcomed new technology as much as anyone. But when Whetstone released its new search tool

Remem, it raised concerns for me in a way none of its predecessors did.

30 Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing

personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives. People consult their lifelogs for a

variety of reasons – everything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic

reactions – but only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting

through the results. Lifelogs are the most complete photo album imaginable, but like most photo

35 albums, they lie dormant except on special occasions. Now Whetstone aims to change all of that; they

claim Remem’s algorithms can search the haystack by the time you’ve finished saying “needle.”

Remem monitors your conversation for references to past events and then displays video of that event

in the lower-left corner of your field of vision. If you say “Remember dancing the conga at that

wedding?” Remem will bring up the video. If the person you’re talking to says “The last time we were

40 at the beach,” Remem will bring up the video. And it’s not only for use when speaking with someone

else; Remem also monitors your subvocalizations. If you read the words “the first Szechuan restaurant

I ate at,” your vocal cords will move as if you’re reading aloud, and Remem will bring up the relevant

video.

There’s no denying the usefulness of software that can actually answer the question “Where did I put

45 my keys?” But Whetstone is positioning Remem as more than a handy virtual assistant: they want it to

take the place of your natural memory. […]

How will it change a person’s conception of herself when she’s only seen her past through the

unblinking eye of a video camera? Just as there’s a feedback loop in softening harsh memories, there’s

also one at work in the romanticization of childhood memories, and disrupting that process will have

50 consequences.

The earliest birthday I remember is my fourth; I remember blowing out the candles on my cake, the

thrill of tearing the wrapping paper off the presents. There’s no video of the event, but there are

snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. In fact, I suspect I no

longer remember the day itself. It’s more likely that I manufactured the memory when I was first

55 shown the snapshots, and over time, I’ve imbued it with the emotion I imagine I felt that day. Little by

little, over repeated instances of recall, I’ve created a happy memory for myself.

Another of my earliest memories is of playing on the living room rug, pushing toy cars around, while

my grandmother worked at her sewing machine; she would occasionally turn and smile warmly at me.

There are no photos of that moment, so I know the recollection is mine and mine alone. It is a lovely,

60 idyllic memory. Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? No; absolutely

not.

(933 Wörter)

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, in: Ted Chiang: Exhalation, New York 2019, S. 185–187, 206–207.

2

Analyze how the narrator's attitude towards technology is conveyed.

(30 BE)

Material

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling (excerpt from the short story, 2019)

The story is set in the near future.

When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be

necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon

render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no

matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock

5 of traditional literacy.

It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read

as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her

messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist

predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she

10 makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she

can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I

remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence.

Under those specific circumstances, English becomes a bit like a second language to her, one that she

can speak fluently but can only barely write.

15 It may sound like I’m disappointed in Nicole’s intellectual achievements, but that’s absolutely not the

case. She’s smart and dedicated to her job at an art museum when she could be earning more money

elsewhere, and I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments. But there is still the past me who

would have been appalled to see his daughter lose her ability to spell, and I can’t deny that I am

continuous with him.

20 It’s been more [than] thirty years since I read that essay, and in that period our lives have undergone

countless changes that I couldn’t have predicted. The most catastrophic one was when Nicole’s

mother, Angela, declared that she deserved a more interesting life than the one we were giving her and

spent the next decade crisscrossing the globe. But the changes leading to Nicole’s current form of

literacy were more ordinary and gradual: a succession of software gadgets that not only promised but

25 in fact delivered utility and convenience, and I didn’t object to any of them at the times of their

introduction.

So it hasn’t been my habit to engage in doomsaying whenever a new product is announced; I’ve

welcomed new technology as much as anyone. But when Whetstone released its new search tool

Remem, it raised concerns for me in a way none of its predecessors did.

30 Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing

personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives. People consult their lifelogs for a

variety of reasons – everything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic

reactions – but only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting

through the results. Lifelogs are the most complete photo album imaginable, but like most photo

35 albums, they lie dormant except on special occasions. Now Whetstone aims to change all of that; they

claim Remem’s algorithms can search the haystack by the time you’ve finished saying “needle.”

Remem monitors your conversation for references to past events and then displays video of that event

in the lower-left corner of your field of vision. If you say “Remember dancing the conga at that

wedding?” Remem will bring up the video. If the person you’re talking to says “The last time we were

40 at the beach,” Remem will bring up the video. And it’s not only for use when speaking with someone

else; Remem also monitors your subvocalizations. If you read the words “the first Szechuan restaurant

I ate at,” your vocal cords will move as if you’re reading aloud, and Remem will bring up the relevant

video.

There’s no denying the usefulness of software that can actually answer the question “Where did I put

45 my keys?” But Whetstone is positioning Remem as more than a handy virtual assistant: they want it to

take the place of your natural memory. […]

How will it change a person’s conception of herself when she’s only seen her past through the

unblinking eye of a video camera? Just as there’s a feedback loop in softening harsh memories, there’s

also one at work in the romanticization of childhood memories, and disrupting that process will have

50 consequences.

The earliest birthday I remember is my fourth; I remember blowing out the candles on my cake, the

thrill of tearing the wrapping paper off the presents. There’s no video of the event, but there are

snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. In fact, I suspect I no

longer remember the day itself. It’s more likely that I manufactured the memory when I was first

55 shown the snapshots, and over time, I’ve imbued it with the emotion I imagine I felt that day. Little by

little, over repeated instances of recall, I’ve created a happy memory for myself.

Another of my earliest memories is of playing on the living room rug, pushing toy cars around, while

my grandmother worked at her sewing machine; she would occasionally turn and smile warmly at me.

There are no photos of that moment, so I know the recollection is mine and mine alone. It is a lovely,

60 idyllic memory. Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? No; absolutely

not.

(933 Wörter)

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, in: Ted Chiang: Exhalation, New York 2019, S. 185–187, 206–207.

3.1

“Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives.” (Material)

Taking Ted Chiang’s vision of the future as a starting point, discuss benefits and risks of recording, storing and sharing one’s personal data.

(40 BE)

Material

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling (excerpt from the short story, 2019)

The story is set in the near future.

When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be

necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon

render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no

matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock

5 of traditional literacy.

It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read

as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her

messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist

predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she

10 makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she

can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I

remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence.

Under those specific circumstances, English becomes a bit like a second language to her, one that she

can speak fluently but can only barely write.

15 It may sound like I’m disappointed in Nicole’s intellectual achievements, but that’s absolutely not the

case. She’s smart and dedicated to her job at an art museum when she could be earning more money

elsewhere, and I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments. But there is still the past me who

would have been appalled to see his daughter lose her ability to spell, and I can’t deny that I am

continuous with him.

20 It’s been more [than] thirty years since I read that essay, and in that period our lives have undergone

countless changes that I couldn’t have predicted. The most catastrophic one was when Nicole’s

mother, Angela, declared that she deserved a more interesting life than the one we were giving her and

spent the next decade crisscrossing the globe. But the changes leading to Nicole’s current form of

literacy were more ordinary and gradual: a succession of software gadgets that not only promised but

25 in fact delivered utility and convenience, and I didn’t object to any of them at the times of their

introduction.

So it hasn’t been my habit to engage in doomsaying whenever a new product is announced; I’ve

welcomed new technology as much as anyone. But when Whetstone released its new search tool

Remem, it raised concerns for me in a way none of its predecessors did.

30 Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing

personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives. People consult their lifelogs for a

variety of reasons – everything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic

reactions – but only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting

through the results. Lifelogs are the most complete photo album imaginable, but like most photo

35 albums, they lie dormant except on special occasions. Now Whetstone aims to change all of that; they

claim Remem’s algorithms can search the haystack by the time you’ve finished saying “needle.”

Remem monitors your conversation for references to past events and then displays video of that event

in the lower-left corner of your field of vision. If you say “Remember dancing the conga at that

wedding?” Remem will bring up the video. If the person you’re talking to says “The last time we were

40 at the beach,” Remem will bring up the video. And it’s not only for use when speaking with someone

else; Remem also monitors your subvocalizations. If you read the words “the first Szechuan restaurant

I ate at,” your vocal cords will move as if you’re reading aloud, and Remem will bring up the relevant

video.

There’s no denying the usefulness of software that can actually answer the question “Where did I put

45 my keys?” But Whetstone is positioning Remem as more than a handy virtual assistant: they want it to

take the place of your natural memory. […]

How will it change a person’s conception of herself when she’s only seen her past through the

unblinking eye of a video camera? Just as there’s a feedback loop in softening harsh memories, there’s

also one at work in the romanticization of childhood memories, and disrupting that process will have

50 consequences.

The earliest birthday I remember is my fourth; I remember blowing out the candles on my cake, the

thrill of tearing the wrapping paper off the presents. There’s no video of the event, but there are

snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. In fact, I suspect I no

longer remember the day itself. It’s more likely that I manufactured the memory when I was first

55 shown the snapshots, and over time, I’ve imbued it with the emotion I imagine I felt that day. Little by

little, over repeated instances of recall, I’ve created a happy memory for myself.

Another of my earliest memories is of playing on the living room rug, pushing toy cars around, while

my grandmother worked at her sewing machine; she would occasionally turn and smile warmly at me.

There are no photos of that moment, so I know the recollection is mine and mine alone. It is a lovely,

60 idyllic memory. Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? No; absolutely

not.

(933 Wörter)

Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, in: Ted Chiang: Exhalation, New York 2019, S. 185–187, 206–207.

3.2

For the European Youth Event on digital media, write a speech in which you assess the potential of using technology in education.

(40 BE)