Lesson Plans for US-China Institute.

Note: I teach an AP Government/Economics class. We do the Government component in the fall with the spring touching on Economics. We will have covered some global interdependence with the AP class.

Day one:

Standards: 12.2 Students analyze the elements of America’s market economy in a global setting and 12.6 Students analyze issues of international trade and explain how the U.S. economy affects, and is affected by, economic forces beyond the United States’s borders.

Purpose/Objective: Unit is focusing on Global trade. Students will be able to discuss and compare and contrast the reasons why the US and China allow unrestricted trade.

Materials: 60 minutes segment, questions

I show a 60 Minutes video segment on China and how it copies everything, from intellectual property to foods. There will be questions that are attached. Students will answer the questions and will be followed by a class discussion. The school community I teach in has an Asian population of nearly 50%. The discussion will be dealing with how many students have purchased fake Chinese goods, the reasons for them etc. For homework, the students will research and print article online relating to the Chinese copying. There are countless articles and the purpose of this is to have a second day of discussion. Students will use a jigsaw on the articles and discuss with the class.

Day Two (separate day):

Standards: 12.2 Students analyze the elements of America’s market economy in a global setting

Purpose/Objective: Still will able to analyze a rental agreement and the reasons for the contract. The students will be able to compare and contrast an American contract with a Chinese contract. Students will also find living arrangements via the internet so they can fill in their contract.

Materials: Contracts, internet, online sources

We do a financial literacy component in our Economics class. The students are given time to find hypothetical jobs, living arrangements etc. The students also fill out a Rental Agreement with the location of where they will reside. Before doing this we will discuss the reasons why a contract is needed. The reason of course is someone has scammed someone else. We will look at the contracts on commercial activities, specifically the sale of a house. The Chinese figured out the needs for a contract centuries ago and we will compare and contrast the two types of contracts. Students will analyze the original documents and draw comparisons. Who conducts the contracts and who upholds them? The information will be disseminated through a lecture/discussion. Many of my students may have family members who drawn up similar contracts in China and we will discuss that as a class.

World Geography class (days three and four): I also teach a World Geography class.
There are no California standards for World Geography, so I referred to the National Standards instead.

Standard: 1. How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information.
6. How culture and experience influence people's perception of places and regions.

Purpose/Objective: Students will be able to identify political and physical areas and regions in Asia and China and then be able to compare and contrast Chinese philosophies and explain how they have influenced the region.

Materials: Blank maps, Philosophies information, chart and questions.

The students label blank maps and there are map quizzes. I will have the students use an online source for the labeling of China. The website I am planning on using is http://www.ifitweremyhome.com. Much of the info here is from the CIA Factbook online, but students will be able to draw comparisons between the two countries. Attached are the lists of locations and the map that they will use. After we label that section, we will do a scaled down version of the Four philosophies debate we had in class. We will cover Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism. I already tried this with my students this year and it went really well. What I did was divide the class into four groups and had them read the articles together in class with their groups. I also gave them the chart to fill out and they filled out the sections for their respective philosophy. That was the first day. The second day they used a jigsaw approach and every student in the group discussed one component of their philosophy while the rest of the class filled in their charts. It was the basis for our debate. The next day we actually began our debate in class and it went well in one of my classes. I used Clay’s guiding questions as a basis for discussion. At the end of the debate the students had to write which philosophy they felt was the best and why. It was a nice way to tie all the elements of the class.

I was not able to figure out how to attach the materials but they were included in the lesson plans that were mailed.