pre-2011 high school ideas

[Anonymous]

I know I am posting too much but I can't resist to comment on your lesson. It sounds fabulous and having students fully engaged in a lesson is always an accomplishment. Congratulations! Thank you for the share.

[Anonymous]

Thank you,
I am coming up with ideas but need help deciding if they are appropriate.
I have been searching the web to find info so I can guide my students on
the web. I want to find simple,simple facts and have them search for them
on a web page I created. That is as simple as I can make it, would that be
appropriate?

[Anonymous]

My students learn internet research as part of their curriculum. My project/lesson is looking up Chinese inventions on the internet, determining when they were invented and where. There are lots of webquest lessons which will give you some ideas. These are lessons created for students to do on the computer. You would need access to a computer lab, if all of the students need computers.

Larry

[Anonymous]

Magda, thanks for the high five. I wanted to mention that one of my students in my Language! class asked about the Great Wall of China after the lesson on footbinding. Because of his interest, I printed out a photo and an article about the Great Wall to share with the class the next day, and this student took the printouts home.

There was neural branching and linkage that day!

[Anonymous]

Our school librarian has just loaned me Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka. It has won the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award. I read some of the student reviews, all positive, describing Ailin Tao's struggle to refuse footbinding and seek an education and an independent voice for herself.

[Anonymous]

Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka is a wonderful book about a bright and headstrong girl named Ailin. Her mother and grandmother force her to start the footbinding process, but Ailin realizes that she’ll never be able to run outdoors and play or chase after the other children in the neighborhood and vows that she will never, never let them do it to her. She tears off the cloth strips and outruns the “amah” or nanny who hobbles after her in her bound feet. Her father, taking Ailin’s side, orders the ladies to stop their attempts. Ailin is relieved but Mrs. Liu, her fiancé’s mother, breaks the engagement to her son and Ailin’s family feels shamed.

Ailin’s view of footbinding is expressed in these words: “Now I finally understood why so many generations of mothers kept the custom of binding their daughters’ feet. They believed that their primary duty in raising a daughter was to have her marry well, and the girl was considered attractive and marriageable only if she had bound feet.” (p. 117)

Ailin’s father dies and her uncle takes charge of the family. One day, she is summoned to his study and is told that the family finances have diminished and she can no longer go to public school. She has only three choices for her future: become a nun, a concubine, or the wife of a tenant farmer. Read the book to find out how Ailin creates her own destiny.

This is an award winning book and recommended for elementary and middle school students, but I think that high school students would enjoy it as well.

[Anonymous]

I've been reading parts of a cookbook called The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking by Gaku Homma and find it very interesting. Homma grew up in northeastern Japan where entire villages were snowbound during the winter. The houses had at least two stories so that when the snow reached the top of the first floor door, the family could use the second story door to get in and out! Relief supplies used to be dropped by parachute by the Japanese army. He invites us to imagine how life must have been like two and three hundred years ago and to understand the necessity for developing food preservation techniques for survival through the long winters.

Homma was a curator for the Lake Ogawara Folk Art Museum and was sent to interview community elders by the museum. The focus of the book is on the country foods and country people of Japan.

Interesting to me was the origin of sukiyaki. Suki means spade (and things one likes) and yaki means cook, so cooking was done on a shovel!

The first half of the book is devoted to the history, customs, and festivals in Japan relating to food. The second half of the book has recipes and more history and anecdotes by the author. This book would be a useful resource when studying Japanese food, festivals, and customs.

[Anonymous]

hey larry!
just read your post regarding your integration of asian customs and attitudes regarding money and economics. sounds very interesting and a great way to expose the students. whenever the students learn about what their counterparts(teenager) are doing they seem even more curious and eager to learn. evangeline from whitman

[Anonymous]

what a great recommendation. i plan to get a hold of this as a permanent resource in my classroom. thanks evangeline

[Anonymous]

hey corey!
have you started your project yet? i, thus far, am unable to do web pages. i successfully loaded mozilla on the school computer but cant seem to get much further. did you attend the optional computer thing that clay ran? in any case, i may be calling. evangeline

[Anonymous]

HEY SCIENCE AND HISTORY TEACHERS! I WAS THINKING OF YOU! I posted this under web resources, but thought you might find it easier here:

So Kayrn and Amy won't be surprised that I went and googled sex and china. I found an article in Travel In China http://www.china.org.cn/english/TR-e/44069.htm. There apparently is an exhibit at Zhengzhou and Chinese sex secrets including such things as, "An exhibition of more than 350 pieces of relics depicting China's ancient sex culture opened Tuesday in Zhengzhou, capital city of central China's Henan Province.

The one-month-odd exhibition addresses 10 issues, including sexual adoration, marriage regulations, sexual oppression experienced by women, sexual entertainment, sexual health care and deviant sex. "

So health and sciemce teachers- check it out. the article only has basics about the exhibit, but one may be able to find pictures, articles, reviews afterwards by looking up museum and Zhengzhou, or if you're feeling a little rebellious (I decided to rein myself in and not say it). Obviously though, the exhibit is about more than just sexual practices, so you could surely find out something appropriate for your classroom.

DEAN

[Anonymous]

in my quest to do my project, i have thought of many ideas for others. since the chinese are hosting the 2008 olympics, they have been working extra hard to become the top in each of the sports. they wish to sweep with golds when they host. another thing this chinese guy told me was that the government of china had all the companies in beijing stop production so as to make the air as clean as possible. only in a communist country? i don't know but i was amused. how's that for some attention-getting facts? from here you can go anywhere in social studies...and math too

evangeline from whitman

[Anonymous]

hey corey

saw two korean gymnasts win the silver and bronze medal for all-around last night. Hamm, an american won gold. maybe if your kids could view a medal ceremony, that could be starting point for discussion. just an idea. i talked about it in my class, the students seemed to listen. evangeline from whitman

[Anonymous]

Hi Evangeline,
I have been using some different references to incorporate East Asia into my lessons lately. In my history of computers, I discussed an abacus and how an expert in its use was as fast as a computer. In describing how a modem works I used the analogy of speaking Chinese and how a translator would be required to communicate with the students. Recently, I used my website lesson to create a discussion regarding the Internet and China about censorship.

Larry Krant

[Anonymous]

I checked with our school librarian, Pauline Neilly, and a Chinese language teacher, Robert Liu, and made the following purchases for the Venice High School library: Journey to the West (DVD); World Heritage Sites in China; Cloud Weavers; Castle Towns: An Introduction to Tokugawa Japan; Haiku Moment: Seeing the World in a Grain of Sand; Japanese Migration and the Americas: An Introduction to the Study of Migration; The Historical and Cultural Importance of Rice; Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku; and Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands On Guide.

These items were purchased through ChinaBooks, SPICE, and Amazon and we look forward to incorporating them into our lessons about East Asia.

[Author]

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