pre-2011 high school ideas

[Anonymous]

A good resource for language arts, history, and social science teachers is "Travels of Marco Polo," of which there are many editions. One suitable for teachers is the older one in the Everyman Library, 1911 (1936 reprint), with an introduction by John Masefield; it has many fascinating footnotes and a good index, but small print.
Your students would benefit from reading excerpts describing the many customs of different peoples in asia. Caution, not all of them are true (or suitable!) but certainly entertaining and stimulating.
In later posts, I'll describe some of Marco's more intriguing observations.

magda

[Anonymous]

I teach students with MR. During world history I began to introduce the Asian culture through info you have given us and from info of the web. Most of my students are hispanic and seemed very confused about the culture I introduced. It seemed to me that the are some what sheltered from other cultures, so I believe this lesson will be interesting for them.

[Anonymous]

I found out that my RSP students have a problem with the notion of culture. It takes several lessons for them to understand the concept. -magda ferl

[Anonymous]

May-June is off track for me; that is in a way... I do teach some of the time and will use asian topics. I will keep you posted as we go along. -magda ferl

[Anonymous]

I have no experience teaching Asia-specific topics but am excited about using some ideas from the "Encounters" section in our seminar materials. When reading Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, we discuss marriage customs during Elizabethan times. Perhaps I can create a lesson in which students research Japanese marriage customs as well and groups can present various scenarios in response to questions posed in a love and marriage encounter from the two cultures. Student research can also be used to write compare and contrast essays.

[Anonymous]

I read the engaging comic strip stories about filial devotion in our seminar materials. My heart bled for the couple willing to bury their son alive so there would be one less mouth to feed and the grandmother could be saved from dying of starvation. Their reasoning: "We can have another child but not another mother." I may be able to use a similar format to give my Strategic Literacy students a lesson on Chinese philosophy, word meaning and structure of a short story. These stories all had characters, conflict, plot, a climax, and a resolution. Students can be asked to learn the parts of a short story and create dialogue reflecting their understanding of the phrase "filial devotion." (Related lessons could include journal topics about family loyalty and sacrifice, parts of speech, root words, and suffixes.)

[Anonymous]

I teach an Intro to Computers class, where I take my students from the earliest computers to what to expect in the future as well as learning various computer application programs. As part of the history of computers, we discuss the Abacus. Normally, I discuss it briefly how it is used and that it is 2-5,000 years old In future lessons, I plan on using a webquest (see below) to help them understand this Asian calculator.
I think it is important to understand how technology has changed over time. The fact that it took hundreds or thousands of years to reach a desktop computer is amazing. We went from a huge 30 ton computer in 1946 to a much more powerful computer that is on their desk now. Technology is moving even faster so it is even more important to understand the past.

Larry

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/indexa-b.html
[Edit by="lkrant on May 19, 4:32:21 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Hakka Folktales in Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs. Edited by Lou Tsu-k’uang in collaboration with Wolfram Eberhard. The Orient Cultural Service. 1974. Vol. 61.
The authors of Hakka Folktales view folktales as an expression of the “spirit of the people”. They further believe that tales reflect morals and other values of the society. The authors question the psychological approach that promulgates an interpretation of the unconscious meaning of folktales. These authors study and are more interested in what people openly express when they are asked about their ideas concerning tales.
The study is limited to one ethnic group in China, the Hakka of Taiwan, a minority of three to five million. There were some stereotypical perceptions regarding Hakka. As a minority Hakka were viewed as “backward” or more traditional than the other groups and perceived to be different from the other Chinese. However, the Hakka regarded themselves as the “true” Chinese, as immigrants from the central provinces of China (mainly Honan) who settled in Taiwan around the 12th century.
The collected stories were believed to be widely spread and known by a majority of Hakka. The authors view each teller of a story as a creative thinker who changes details in a given story thus viewing folklore as a living phenomenon. They observed that some storytellers began with most pleasing stories to the audience, and than moved to less common ones. Eberhard was interested in stories that expressed values of the common man, believing that the value system may differ from the professed “Confucian” value system.
The authors investigated the basic folklore questions, e.g. “Who is still telling folktales,” and “To whom are stories told,” and people’s perception of “What are good and what are bad stories.” They include a variety of genres such as myths, legends, historical and patriotic stories, filiality stories, ghost stories, fighting stories, animal tales, romantic stories, educational stories, and tales about customs and festivals.
The moral values expressed in the tales include: honor the gods and worship them; be a hero and love your country; be loyal, upright, honest and good; be filial toward your parents and in-laws; be loving, and strive for harmony and peace; work hard, be frugal and be careful.
This work presents a wealth of information for lesson plans. E.g. it will satisfy California standards in writing.
2.0 Writing Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)
2.2 Write responses to literature: b. Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate references to the text.

[Anonymous]

I was looking for some webquests for a new class and found these which may be useful. I like idea of crossing curriculum and using technology.

http://edtech.suhsd.k12.ca.us/inprogress/gjh/becomingjap/bejap

Do you know how your name is written in Japanese? After this WebQuest you'll know how! Through a group exploration you'll learn about Japanese culture, language, history, and geography.

http://webby.umeedu.maine.edu/coehd/Asia/student_page.html

For this project you will be traveling to China as a newspaper reporter. You will assume the identity of one of two reporters, Jimmy "Hot Dog" Williams or Carol "Sunshine" Clark. Whether you're Jimmy or Carol the assignment is the same, to write a series of newspaper articles about your adventures!

Larry

[Anonymous]

I am blown away by linked verse (I've been reading the section on Japanese Literature in our seminar binder). Linked verse is highly allusive and has so many rules! There's a limit on the number of poems in primary categories such as seasons, religion, and dwellings; there are limits on the repetition of words or ideas, and limits on thematic and lexical categories, among other things. I'd be lost without the accompanying explanations.

I would like to study this type of poetry further and perhaps use some samples in a poetry unit for my English classes. We'd probably segue into haiku poetry.

[Anonymous]

The Tso Chuan: Selections from China’s Oldest Narrative History. 1989. Translated by Burton Watson. Columbia U. Press.

The Tso chuan is China’s oldest work of narrative history covering the period from 722 to 468 B.C.E. The narratives center on political, diplomatic, and military affairs, but also contain information on economic and cultural developments.

In our seminar we discussed this period and learned that this was a time when more powerful feudal states were annexing their weaker neighbors and the uncertainty and bloodshed led to eventual unification. Also, this was the time of Confucius (511-479B.C.E.), one of the most influential figures in all of Chinese cultural history.

The Tso chuan is important for the illumination of the society in which Confucius and his disciples were active, as well as for the Confucian school of thought that emerged.
The Tso chuan also had a great influence on later Chinese literature and historiography and became one of the Confucian canons of a traditional education not only in China but also in Korea and Japan.

It is not clear of what was the original form of the the Tso chuan. The period of the narratives was a dark one, marked by political turmoil and attacks by one feudal state upon another. Because of the chaos encountered there are figures who rebel against the principles of ritual or propriety and who scorn other traditional virtues enjoined by the ancient texts. There are militarists who celebrate the glories of warfare, cynics who deny the value of morality in government, and fatalists who shift all responsibility for human failure to Heaven or the gods. Supernatural forces play little or no part in these texts.

With a teacher’s guidance, the Tso chuan is suitable reading for high school students.

[Anonymous]

Hi,
This July I will be taching a new class called Financial Planning (Personal Financial Management) to 11th and 12th grades. As part of the curriculum, I will be teaching interviewing, saving and investing, credit and much more. As I discuss various parts of these subjects, I plan on having the students compare and contrast various country's customs to learn about other people. In the interviewing section, we can discuss by showing pictures of how people dress and what they convey by dressing in that way. The pictures will take various cultural aspects of Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa to compare what is conveyed through dress. We can compare and contrast how Asian people have the highest savings rates and how credit is different around the world.
In these lessons, Asia will be part of the overall discussion of how Americans do things differently and how we can learn from all cultures including Asia. The standards involved reading and understanding various material and using computational skills.

Larry

[Anonymous]

I agree with the importance of understanding computers but what about people like me who are having a hard time understanding present computers.

[Anonymous]

girl, i'm with you regarding the computer thing! do not feel alone. perhaps we can help each other with our projects and then it will be much less stressful. evangeline

[Anonymous]

I introduced all my students to footbinding with great success. On Tuesday, a PD day, my 9th and 10th grade English classes completed a worksheet consisting of three questions about clothing we wear that might be considered uncomfortable or ugly in another culture; things people do to make themselves more attractive; and reasons people might wear restrictive clothing.

I then had them read a two-page personal narrative by a woman who had had her foot bound starting at age seven. By nine, she was betrothed to a neighbor’s son and the mother-in-law took over the binding ritual, inserting tiles in the binding to cause severe inflammation. She says her husband was pleased with the result, but at the time she wrote her essay, he had passed away, the family wealth had been dissipated, and she had to wander about looking for work. She writes:

“…. That is how I came down to my present circumstances. I envy the modern woman. If I too had been born just a decade or so later, all of this pain could have been avoided. The lot of the natural-footed woman and mine is like that of heaven and hell.”

Source: Howard S. Levy, Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom (Walton Rawls Publisher, 1966) Reprinted by permission in: Riley, Philip F., et al. The Global Experience: Readings in World History to 1500, vol. 1. (Prentice Hall, 1994)

I sent around photos of women with bound feet, a close up of a bare deformed bound foot, and an embroidered shoe. I then asked my students to write on topics such as the meaning of beauty, the influence of media on our perceptions of beauty, how much is too much (plastic surgery), or comments about the essay. My students were attentive and engaged and responded enthusiastically to class discussions. I read the essay to my Strategic Literacy students with the same results.

This was a very successful lesson and can easily be expanded with other projects, such as researching rituals around the world pertaining to beauty.

Useful websites: http://starbulletin.com/98/03/10/features/story1.html
http://www.autry-museum.org/learn/images/Tom_Shee_Bin_Lesson_Plan.pdf

[Author]

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