[Catalina Silvestre]

When I was in middle school I believe that I was made aware of foot binding.  Until this course I had not given it anymore-extreme thought.  Men and women as considered bound feet a sign of beauty.  The practice had to do with feet being pinned and wrapped together to obtain smaller feet in accordance with the aesthetic pleasure of the society.  In various societies there are expectations of beauty.  In western society this consist of body augmentation as well as simple things including wearing heels.  In China many women did not have a free choice due to the foot binding starting, as they were young girls.  I plan on using this subject content to have my students do a cause and effect activity where they identify what was happening and why they determined that this was necessary.  Students will receive both an information text as well as watch a short video on the subject.  The students will then place this information into a cause and effect graphic organizer.  To follow up I will have the students will research and write a summary paragraph using a template to help guide their writing about the topic.  I ultimately believe that this is a good subject to use because it is exciting and introduces the students to ideas form another part of the world.  My goal is to always make and create global learners that are aware of the world around them while building reading and listening comprehension skills.           

[Catalina Silvestre]

In the reading, “A visit to the United States during the Wilson and Harding administrations”. I was extremely interested in the breakdown of how Americans allocate their time.  This breakdown was extremely interesting to me in terms of how individual Americans are structured to use their time.  This is a good piece for refection as it makes me think about the various ways in which a person can shit their time to allocate it and use it in other areas to make greater progress in different areas.  This is an extremely great thought-provoking piece of writing.  I believe that I could use this literature selection in excerpt form to create a thought provoking conversation.  I would use this alongside of the self-generating questions strategies to form questions that would then be used to lead a Socratic discussion.  I believe that this can be used as a great motivational lesson to keep students motivated as well as aware of their use of time.        

[Catalina Silvestre]

Tanisha, you’ve given me some great ideas on how to incorporate the movie we've the workers into a workable unit for my students who participate in my reading intervention course.  I do think that I'm going to show my reading intervention students this documentary because it will be a great way to get them using the reading comprehension skills.  The film itself has captions in that would be very intriguing to see if the students are reading and making sense of those captions as they pop up on the screen.  I'm not sure that I will pay much attention to most of the documentary, as it could be a little bit over-the-top for them in terms of their academic level.  However, I do believe that there are exciting parts in this documentary that would spark the interest and attention of the students.  I like the idea of dividing the class up by job such as factory workers bankers’ insurance salesman.  Having the role-play by giving them unfair wages and working environments would definitely spark an argument from my students.  This can then be used to lead into our argumentative reading unit where students also look at the cause and effect of various situations to argue why things should change.

[Catalina Silvestre]

I agree with you that racism is a difficult subject to approach.  After listening to the lecture I was able to gain a little bit more insight on how other races outside of the African-American community deal with racism.  In undergrad I took a lot of cross-cultural classes such as Native American studies, Chicano studies as well as black studies courses.  The unfortunate thing is that they don't always teach you about the downside are they don't focus on it and/or going to great deaths are details about the racism that other cultures outside of the African American community, Chicano community, Mexican American community have faced.  I did however gain understanding as to how great political leaders had changes of heart in regards to racism and what racism meant to them.  On the flip side it also made me wonder did these individuals have a change of heart because of Financial and economical gain and reasons.  Sadly, in the various situations, where you do have to look at both sides to determine what one’s intentions truly are?  I like to make my students think more and depth about scenarios like this and ask the why question as well as play devils advocate.

[Catalina Silvestre]

The book, “Two Faces of Exclusion” by Lon Kurashige, discusses anti-Asian racism in the United States and denies racism and complicates it by showing the other impulses that offset the racism by allowing others to come into the U.S. known ass egalitarian.  Treating the Asian immigrants the same as European immigrants putting the same restrictions on immigrants that are excluded.  The argument led to two issues in regards to racial discrimination being the exclusion and naturalization allowing the ones that came before to become citizens.  Asians were not allowed until 1952 to become citizens.  They were allowed to come but not treated the same because they were considered aliens not eligible to citizenship, which gets around the fourteenth amendment.  By wording it in this way the fourteenth amendment could not be stricken down.  Interestingly enough the Africans, Native Americans, and others were able to receive nationalism or rights to nationalism.    

[Catalina Silvestre]

Number one on "Top Ten Things To Know About Korea in the 21st century, Deals with the idea of Korea not being small.  When looking at the side on the map looks can be deceiving.  I have always taken the map view at face value simply thought Korea was a small region.  Interestingly enough the population does not reflect on its size and demonstrates how the masses may be confused because of placement on maps in terms of size.  I the session we looked at how maps produced by certain companies and political entities even named the bodies of water differently.  The way things are presented are the way many ideas and beliefs about systems will be perceived until shown and/ or told otherwise.  I feel that these pieces of information have played a significant role in making me think deeper and outside the box, which will then be passed on to my students as I educate them further.  I plan on using the informational text to have he students’ work on summarizing skills as well as using it as a way for them to interact and gain knowledge about Korea.

 

[Catalina Silvestre]

n the short story “Cranes” I get an understanding of how the Korean War separated and caused diverse city amongst the people.  The characters in this piece seemed very moody and demonstrated a tone of distaste for one another.  While reading this piece I started to think about the various story elements.  My students were working on identifying story elements at the time.  It gave me an idea of putting together a presentation for the students to extend their work with story elements.  In the presentation I will explain the Elements of Literature using the short story “Cranes” as an example. The five elements I will go over with the students are Plot, Characterization, Setting, Point of View/Narrator/Voice, and Theme. This proved to be an excellent stretch text that also explained how two areas were divided because of war.  Interestingly enough in the Korean culture cranes symbolize good fortune and this short story does indeed show a display of good fortune when all hope is lost.

[Catalina Silvestre]

I believe that wartime diaries service a good type of literature that students can connect to show the relation in their connection to the narrator.  I have to get not use diaries as a style or type of literature with in my classroom to teach students how to comprehend and connect to the text.  I do believe that By the way you explain the heart warming present and tone of what you have read it will be beneficial to use within a classroom struggling readers.  Struggling readers tend to connect the best with literature that they can relate to and that is interesting to them.  You mentioned “I want to do my best to become a splendid citizen” is kind of maddening because this is a child!  This quote reminds me that there are so many opportunities where students can connect to the text.  These opportunities lead to great academic conversation as openers that relate to other academic content.  I plan on using excerpts from my class in the above-mentioned readings.  

[Catalina Silvestre]

In the article of “War and Aftermath in Japan” it is stated that, “The education ministry suppressed academic freedom and promoted patriotism.”   The quote above speaks notions about how the people in this region were controlled.   Education is a tool that can be used for good or bad.   The education ministry selected to teach information that would be valuable in shaping the mindset of the masses in this region so that they would do what was necessary when it came to politics.  It also shaped the way school delivered education and shaped what they thought and received in relation to participating in war.  It is important that students receive information as such to be aware of how the social system and economy can shape one’s existence within a society.   Based upon the belief system at any given time of the masses in a particular area one can be shaped to participate in something that they may not be participating in is informed otherwise or against what is being taught.

 

[Catalina Silvestre]

Due to me teaching a special subject content being read 180 for struggling readers I’m always trying to figure out interesting content to delivered to my students in the reading Tokugawa Order - Edo Japan, 1603-180.   Something that stood out to me was the Tokugawa social hierarchy chart.  This chart includes the three categories.   The first category being the core social statues, second category being the other social groups between statues, and the third category being the outcast.  I plan on using finished heart to compare the social hierarchies in the US versus the social hierarchies in Japan.  This type of real-world information can create an opportunity for students to think about the world which they come from versus were other people come from.  This chart in itself can provide an opportunity for strategic riding compare and contrast strategies to be used and allow an opportunity for students to express themselves in writing and demonstrate their writing capabilities.

 

[Catalina Silvestre]

 

 

In the article, the top ten things to know about Korea, I was not surprised by something that stood out to me. “Since the end of the Korean War, Koreans have stressed the importance of education, leading to an education mania that has resulted in a 98 percent literacy rate.  This is not surprising, as I’ve always known that Korea was more literate versus the students in the US.   Education seems to be more significant in this region then in the region that we live in.   This is been made evident by the programs that are available for teachers from the U.S. to travel over to different areas in that region to teach students.  The benefits of having students that are more literate means that the work force will be stronger and smarter.  Giving the people in this region higher technological advance.  For this reason the United States tends to be, what I consider ions behind in terms of technology and for that reason United States depends a lot on technology based items from this region. 

[Catalina Silvestre]

Jasmine, I also know very little about Asian history and culture.  The bars policy in Asia is something that I have always been curious about as well.  For whatever reason I have known about the restrictions That are placed upon the people In different parts of the region.  And now that I am participating in this seminar I'm finding that their are restrictions and age limitations Placed on when people get married.  This is being interesting in combination with the population restriction As a well as the Issues this region has with natural resources As I mentioned in the previous post.  All in all I would think that there would be a promotion For the population to wed At an older age rather than a earlier age to assure Marriage success.  Which in turn would possibly help the population Financially Creating a higher level of stability.  Interestingly enough as women we are then faced with the following questions such as when will you have children.  When it comes to that I believe there is maybe possibly a stigma among women who marry at in old age and have children and old age unlike in the United States.   In the United States women are like that to be more independent and not just simply child bearers they are part of the workforce and they contribute in major ways.  Women in the US of the highest growing group of entrepreneurs that contribute to the economy and major ways.  So I think that this has to do with cultural differences.

[Catalina Silvestre]

It was surprising to see the unjust behavior that the employers place upon the people. Even more so I was surprised that the people did not know that they and rights.  The purpose behind the film was to simply document for the future.  Yet, the film itself gained more attention than expected.  The employers were more interested in keeping the leverage with the communist rather than helping the people.  The downside is that, when there are issues at such in any place of the world the people of those communities do not always bind together to stand up for what is right.  If all workers participated in the strikes and stood up for their rights there would be a downpour of employers focusing on the survival of their companies and businesses.  There are times where people will only show sympathy, yet sympathy is not enough. Interestingly enough the world around us is experiencing turmoil.  The only way that we as a people and as humanitarians can grow toward what is simply right is by standing up and fighting for our neighbors.  Our economy is, as well as the rest of the major economies around the word, money driven and this theme continues to be prominent as we hold discussions in this seminar.      

 

 

[Catalina Silvestre]

There was a lot of wanting to control and maintain power over the lands.  The peace was all done in the best interest of maintaining the functionality of Japan.  During this time there was focus on warrior that had very meaningful and purposeful principals that also taught the warriors patience, obedience, and self-worth. Interestingly enough my colleagues at my school site teach about the archetype and the concept of “hero”.  One key element to introducing both is having students identify the qualities of a hero along with the challenges as it connects to the idea of the concept hero. I would use the “Principals of a Warrior” to analyze the makeup and composition of the warrior to help the students what they define a hero to be and the differences between both the hero and the warrior.  This being an interesting topic due to the fact that most students view heroes and warrior as one in the same when generally speaking.  I would also be interested in comparing the Hero’s Journey to the Warriors Journey. 

[Catalina Silvestre]

         As a lover of literature, I must say that I extremely enjoyed, "Lost Names" by Ricahard E. Kim.  Gaining an understanding of the history helped me to visualize the event within the reading.  The imagery set the town along with a display of a high level of pride within the characteristics of the various characters from this particular scene, from a Korean Boyhood.   Figurative language is something that I include in my teachings as the various parts of speech are often excluded from todays curriculum in a direct instruction type of way of teaching.  The “imagery” used within this text really sets the tone for the events that occur.  In addition to the imagery the relations to what Hispanics, African Americans, and other cultures have experienced, this reading shows how a group of people were also stripped of something that was dear to them, being their name.  Lost names, as many cultures have also experienced has been a topic when other countries and lands had been invaded and take over politically. There are so many groups, a diversely large amount of people, with what I understand “Lost Names” to represent.  I see myself using this to show the adversity one felt where being stripped of their name in order to fit with what the government wanted to do politically and to fit what worked for the rest of the world.  Resiliency through adversity is all that I could think of while reading this peace and this is extremely important to teach so that student can see that they connect with the rest of the world. 

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