Rules/Warnings:

1. If you get someone who is proficient in German to proofread your essay, we will consider this cheating. We recognize that you can learn from having someone look over your essay for you, but we have to enforce this rule in order to make the grading fair for everyone. It IS OK for you to ask such a person (or an instructor in the German Lab) 3 or 4 specific questions on how to say something.

2. If you use an online translator for significant parts of your essay, we will consider this cheating. Note that online translators tend to produce noticeably absurd translations. Consequently, even if your instructor is not sure you are using an online translator, you are likely to get a bad grade for your essay if you use one. You also risk becoming a laughing stock in our department, like the student (this really happened!) who submitted an essay on "Ludwig Dienstwagen Beethoven" ["Dienstwagen" is a possible translation of "van," though it generallly means "company car"...].

3. Please give a word count for your essays (in Microsoft Word, you just need to select "Word Count" from the "Tools" menu to do this).

Fundamental Advice

Please don't write out an essay in English and then try to translate it into German.  This will be an awful amount of work for you, and using a dictionary to try to do a lot of things you haven't learned just leads to lots of misunderstandings.  Doing this often causes students who have worked very hard to get bad or mediocre grades, because the result is often incomprehensible. Click here for advice on writing in German without thinking in English.

Aufsatz 3 (250 Wörter)

THEMA 1:
Schreiben Sie einen Bewerbungsbrief für einen Job.  Benutzen Sie das Modell in V "Schreibecke" Seite 376. [But you should be sure to change the job you are applying for to match your own interests etc.  If you are at all interested in working in Germany, you can make this letter a useful first model for your eventual real application.  You may also want to have a little fun by exaggerating your abilities in the letter, as in this silly English model.]

THEMA 2:
Das Sams: Schreiben Sie, was bis jetzt in Eine Woche voller Samstage passiert ist. Schreiben Sie die Geschichte aus der Perspektive des Sams [==> Ich bin das Sams. Letzten Samstag...]

• Wenn Sie möchten, können Sie auch eine neue Episode erfinden [=invent], z.B. das Sams in der Deutschklasse, oder das Sams in Wien oder Berlin.
• Benutzen Sie das Präteritum oder das Perfekt!