1.4: Who is this book for?

The “Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century” course at Portland State University, where the materials in this textbook were piloted, features three weekly classes of sixtyfive minutes, taught for a period of ten weeks, i.e., an academic quarter. The texts can be taught in various orders; a typical number of chapters to cover per quarter would be twenty. The book is intended for adult learners, and an average student enrolled in the course has an ILR-2 level of proficiency (corresponding to ACTFL’s Advanced Low – Intermediate High level in either speaking, writing, or reading), though some students have been rated as high as Superior or Advanced Mid. Among the students enrolled in the course in 2013 and 2016, 78.6 percent were simultaneously taking Russian Flagship classes; 42.9 percent were exempt from Advanced Russian (a distinct fourth-year Russian language class, with O. Kagan, A. Kudyma, and F. Miller’s Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced or S. Freels’s Russian in Use as textbooks) on the basis of their proficiency level; 35.5 percent completed three quarters of Advanced (fourth-year) Russian in the previous year; and 35.7 percent were heritage speakers of Russian who acquired literacy skills from home, extracurricular classes, or schooling in Russia. Thus, while the potential audience of this book may seem like a relatively small group of students, in reality it represents a highly important group whose needs must be met. Moreover, many instructors assume that such students are ready, right after their completion of Advanced-level language courses, to read literature and analyze its characters, its message, its cultural references, and its impact independently. But this is far from the case. Hence, this book functions as a necessary bridge that teaches students how to check meanings and facts, how to guess from context, and eventually, how to reach the end of the bridge and read and enjoy literature on their own.