From the Editors

Abstract

We are delighted to share with you a wonderful collection of articles in this fall issue of Die Unterrichtspraxis. Not only does this issue contain five regular articles, but we also present a special section on “Sustainability and Community Engagement in German Studies,” co-curated by Kiley Kost, Dan Nolan, and Seth Peabody.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are the focal point of Franziska Schweiger's article, a topic that recurs throughout the issue. Schweiger examines the intersection of contingent faculty labor and institutional diversity and offers four concrete steps for how German teachers and professional bodies can address systemic structures. The article by Karin Wurst proposes to tackle reforms in undergraduate and graduate education in tandem, being mindful to maintain student interest while also preparing graduate students as the faculty of the future. Joshua Brown presents a culturally relevant approach to food customs in the German curriculum, an article co-written with two former students, Tristan Devick and Connor Zielinski. It highlights the implementation of culturally relevant and critical pedagogies of language learning to address issues related to social awareness in the language classroom. Next, Kathryn Sederberg introduces an intermediate language course designed around the hit German-language TV series Babylon Berlin, including sample classroom activities, assignments, and assessments. The course follows a literacy-based approach, developing students' critical interpretative skills and visual literacy while also addressing the need to target students' listening skills. The last regular article by Kerstin Kuhn-Brown demonstrates how a genre-based textual analysis of Karin Bloth's narrative Stark und ohnmächtig zugleich (2004), through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics, can serve as a useful methodology for advanced learners of German to support their analyses of GDR texts and materials. The six contributions in the special section are introduced by the co-curators in their section introduction.

As always, we close with a big thank you to our authors, reviewers, and Editorial Advisory Board for their dedication to our profession, particularly in these ongoing tumultuous times. All articles are doubleblind reviewed by a minimum of two expert readers. Please consider adding yourself as a reviewer to our database at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/up and sharing your manuscripts. We especially welcome contributions on flexible models of language instruction, language for professional purposes, education abroad, and collaborations between K-12 and college instructors. If you are interested in writing a book or software review for the journal, please contact the book and software review editor Dr. Dan Walter.

Bleiben Sie gesund!