"Asia For Educators" Web Page

[Maria Blake]

          The website that I would like to use for my classroom will consist of the one titled “Asia for Educators.” The website is rich with resources on a variety of subjects, mostly related to history, geography, oral history, literature, and art,  as those subjects relate to east Asian countries and time periods going as far back as 4000 BCE and as far forward as 2000 ADE. The website is useful because it carries resources for three countries that are connected to the curriculum of a Sophomore English class: the one being China, the other Korea, and the last one Japan, since the literature we study relates to historical fiction and world literature covering the WWII period in the U.S. and abroad, and literature that was written by foreign writers. George Orwell’s Animal Farm invites the study of government and such a study brings connection between the book and the political realities in China and North Korea. The website is clearly organized, broken down into categories easily accessed and researched, with a variety of pertinent links with resources within that can lead to pdf documents, or other useful websites for teachers to use. 

            The categories listed above in the website relate to  four major subject areas that would be of interest to educators, but also to students, if they have their personal research questions, or they are given an assignment and they need to use the webpage as a resource. Those categories are:  “Timelines,” “Keypoints,” “Primary Resources,” and “Lesson Plans.” By clicking “Timelines,” the web user will access the timelines of chronological periods for the five major east Asian regions, that is, “China,” “Japan,” “Korean,” “Vietnam,” and “South Asia.” The timelines will give a synoptic and graphic information about the history of each country from early in history to the 2000 ADE. Moreover, when selecting “Central Themes and Key Points” there are within “documents [that] highlight major developments that educators may wish to focus upon in courses on East Asian history,” such as one interesting section on “The Geography of East Asia,” which helps students with difficulty identifying the location of the country under discussion in literary, or historical, documents of study  be able to locate it. 

            “Primary Sources with DBQs” is the next tab that can be accessed after the above, or before, dependent on the needs of the user. The latter section provides useful resources for not only history teachers but, also, literature teachers who seek literature that could be used to contextualize the literature the students are reading. For instance, four resources that I liked were the ones on the “Oral Histories of the Colonial Era,” “Oral  Histories of the Comfort Women,” “Manifesto of the Korean Communist Party,” and “On Eliminating Dogmatism by Kim II Sung.” The first two  can be used in the context of reading about WWII and Japanese-American Internment through the reading of Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston’s, Farewell to Manzanar, so students can connect to the effects of war on individuals and society. The aim of using those resources will be  help students think of how war makes people act in ways that are contrary to morality. The last two documents can be used in connection to George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, where a reference to the government type of communism is made, so students can study a theoretical document that explains better what communism stands for, since the explanation of the term is given an illustrative description in the story-telling context of Animal Farm with animals representing the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which influenced the Chinese communistic tradition, and later the reason why Russia occupied North Korea during the end of WWII.  

            Finally, by clicking the last tab called, “Lesson Plans,” teachers can access lesson plans that range in subjects from geography and history, to art and literature. Some of those lessons take the user to external links, such as the link that leads to resources on art from a museum that cover subjects related to different themes of art, but mostly art along the lines of religion, such as Buddhism, so religion is studied in light of art, and the effect on learning is interdisciplinary and stronger in terms of the long-impact learning will have on the student’s memory, when using such resources.  

 

 Asia for Educators--Primary Resources with DBQ

Oral Histories of the Colonial Era

Oral Histories of the Comfort Women

 Manifesto of the Korean Communist Party

 On Eliminating Dogmatism by Kim IISung

Asia For Educators: Lesson Plans

 Geography Lessons

Online Museum Resources on Art

 

 Resources on Buddhism

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