Woman Warrior - USC US-China Institute

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June 24, 2012 at 6:26 am #2823

Rob_Hugo@PortNW
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One of the books I am itching to be able to teach is Woman Warrior. For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, it weaves together a Chinese immigration story with the legend of Mulan. I think this is especially fun after Disney decided to "immortalize" Mulan in Disney princess form. I had a couple of students read it and really love it, but I had not provided them much in the way of background resources. For my website review, I went in search of resources that would make the teaching of this novel possible.
Enter Urban Dream Project resources page: http://urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/language_arts/core/11/kingston/curriculum.html
Sadly many of the links do not work, which only goes to emphasize the severe lack of information on this book, but I think it is worth checking out for some ideas about Chinese mythology, something that many of us may cover in a world mythologies unit in English class in 9th or 10th grade.
I am continuing my search for the resources needed to be able to cover this book with it's many complicated weavings, but hopefully my own understanding of history from this class will assist in my ability to teach this book in the future.

June 24, 2012 at 6:26 am #15647

Anonymous
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I read this book when I was in college and it was the first book I thought of when I proposed teaching an Asian Literature course at my high school. Along with Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife, it was one of the first books I had encountered written from a Chinese woman's perspective. I plan to delve more deeply into my knowledge of Chinese mythology as I planned my curriculum unit around the quest for utopia in "Peach Blossom Spring."

I'll definitely have to revisit this book as I do believe it is appropriate to teach to high school students. I just renewed my NCTE membership and found some great resources for teaching this text. I found a pdf article called Multiculturally Challenged in which Gigi Jasper writes, "One of my favorite books is The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. This work is often taught on the college level, but I have found it can work well for high school students, if I am willing to steel myself against the often hideous preconceptions of minorities and women that my students seem to bring to class."
edited by nparmar on 6/24/2012
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