pre-2011 middle school ideas

[Anonymous]

Having students create their own Chinese painting with calligraphy would be a good way to incorporate art into the lesson. I know often with 6th grade teachers have the students write their name in ancient Egyptian - this is the same concept but using chinese characters instead. They had a studio space at the Huntington Library with this idea in mind. Certain Chinese characters were posted for kids to choose from...landscape, mountain, animals, love, etc. and then pictures were given as well. The students can combine the two to create their own poetry/calligraphy scrolls.

[Anonymous]

Something to acquire: National Geographic Society's Picture Packs. They are terrific sets of transparencies that accompany the 6th grade Ancient World curriculum. There are sets for China, India, Africa, Early Man, Greece, Rome, and Middle East. If you can find some resource to purchase these please look into them. They are extremely helpful in reaching ESL students, make great warm ups, take offs, etc. They are better than power points in some ways because the students can put post its on the projections and even use them for backgrounds during act-it-outs.

[clay dube]

Zhoukoudian is the place outside Beijing where "Peking Man" was discovered 80 years ago. Recently additional excavations were undertaken. The cave, however, is now in danger of collapse:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/25/content_8321603.htm

Do your students find discussion of how such discoveries are made interesting? Does it help breath life into the subject to say something about how we know whatever it is that we know?

[Anonymous]

I've also used "learning stations" on where students read and undertake different aspects of Chinese culture...writing caligraphy is an excellent way to show students some aspects of Chinese culture

[Anonymous]

As I mentioned at the seminar on 11/21/09, the movie "2012" has some interesting
points.

When world governments realize that the earth's crust is shifting, they sell
tickets to billionaires and multimillionaires.

Top government officials
are automatically allowed to travel to - where else - China.
China has managed to build in rapid time, "arks" for the survivors
of the end of the world.
These "arks" are located in a location near China's border with Nepal, not far from
Mt. Everest.

I find it fascinating that of all of the places in the world this movie could have chose,
they chose China (probably because it was the only government who could build these
behemoths fast enough and cheap enough, and secretly enough within a mountain range.)

Then, with all of the other cheezy dialogue at the end, these arks sail off
to Africa which managed to escape the catastrophic events that the rest of the world
endured. The ending of the movie gives a whole new meaning to China in Africa.

Not worth your time unless you are very bored and want to see a few CGI scenes.

Cheryl Watson

[Anonymous]

I teach a Special Day Class and I integrate a lot of art into our curriculum. The students seem to learn a lesson more thoroughly if they can feel it or interpet through art. I recently did a lesson on Chinese calligraphy . The students loved it ! We used tempra paint instead of black ink, but I had good brushes for them to uses. They were enthralled!

[Anonymous]

I recently found a CD that teaches English to the Japanese tongue. My students (of whom many are ESL learners) found in so interesting to hear someone practice our vowels and phonemes with such a "strange "accent.

[Anonymous]

My students are very interested in the world of Anime, or Japenese animation. They seem to draw it over and over again. Anybody have any good websites or videos they can recommend for instruction ?

[Anonymous]

Like the debate we had during the seminar, I taught about 5 different belief systems, popular in China, using classroom discussions. I used the resources from the seminar, but in addition I used a powerpoint with a very brief summary of each belief system, as well as a prep worksheet, to help my students organize their ideas about the belief system they were assigned.

if you have any questions please email me [email protected].

[Anonymous]

here is the debate prep worksheet

[Anonymous]

China Vocab Flash

I combine images and definitions to teach vocab words to my students, here is a powerpoint game I call Vocab Flash. Students receive extra credit points whenever they guess the words correctly.

[Anonymous]

Japan Vocab Flash

here is a powerpoint presentation that I use to teach vocab words for Japan unit.
if you have any questions please email me [email protected].

[Anonymous]

Asia is at the forefront in many Middle School classroom discussions. In relation to economics, many students responded and asked questions about China and the economy when our president, Barack Obama went to visit China. They were amazed when the Chinese Politicians would not respond to him in reference to the balance of trade. In some ways it makes them angry, because there is such a lopsided balance of trade at this point with China, and their families are suffering from the recession. They wanted to blaim China for the problems that we are experiencing, and I had to explain to them that the problems were with bad loans, and that sent our country into a tailspin, not the balance of trade with China. I further had to exploain that china had invested in our loans also, and they were at risk as well.
My seventh graders are very interested in the travels of Marco Polo, and our Middle School History Teachers do a good job relating the wonders of China and the Orient to this discoverer, to the point that they do projects on China and the world trade of the period in which Marco Polo lived.
There is an abundance of books that I recommend for my Middle School Students that are either set in Asia, or are written by Asian Authors. The first one is The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck. This is a good book for honor students or avid readers. Kids that like to read should be given a chance to read this book in class, or at least through their literature studies overall. The best movie that I can recommend is HERO, which uses a great deal of martial arts sequences in its format. It also forces the students to think about what is happening in the story that makes these assassin characters do what they need to do. It is also a good background about Emperor Qin, and The Great Wall of China. As far as activities is concerned, the Korean Cultural Center, and other Asian Museums are good places for Middle School kids to visit. Even if they just want to get out of school for a day, they can't help but come back to school having learned something. I have never seen any student no matter how limited their resources are come back from one of those tours, and not retain and enjoy their experience or something.

[Anonymous]

Great debate prep worksheet.
It is very open ended and can be done in pairs for brainstorming as a pre writing activity.
This is a good start as students are more likely to do something if they are working with a friend.[Edit by="agalloway on Feb 24, 3:11:43 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

I have a similar experience with haiga artwork: (usually for academic vocabulary words) students do a nice visual then add a haiku or small poem defining the term. They are abkle to use a lot of color and their multiple intelligence so it rerally helps them learn.

[Author]

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