Classroom Conservation of East Asian Culture

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Instructor: Tara Gabriel

Workshop: World Conservation Issues

Targeted Grade Level(s): 9th – 10th

Content Area(s) Covered: East Asian Culture

Anticipated Duration:  6-7 days of classroom instruction and discussion, 5 group workdays, 4 project presentation days

Rationale:

I am also taking a class on teaching about East Asia.  Through this class I have realized that our students learn all about European History and VERY little about East Asia.  I felt that by breaking the classes into work groups and by them working on project presentations to “teach” their classmates about very specific cultural traits throughout East Asia, they could learn to understand the culture and possible WANT to learn more.

Objectives:

  1. Students become more aware of East Asian culture. 
  2. Students better understand the similarities and differences between East Asian and European history and culture.

    Since most classes do not concentrate on East Asian culture and history as much as we do Europe and the Middle Ages and Renaissance, we will compare and contrast what we learn with that of Europe, to help the students to better understand the similarities and differences between the two.

Sunshine State Standards:

Resources/Materials Needed:

Books

Websites

Overview:

This nine weeks, my world history classes will be participating in a project to conserve East Asian Culture in the classroom.  Beginning on Monday, February 6, each class will break into groups of 2-5 people.  The students will be choosing their own groups.  Each Friday, until presentation day, (excluding February 17), the groups will have time in class to work on their projects.  This project DOES require some work to be done at home.

Each group is to prepare a presentation (for March 14, 15, 16, & 17) focusing on a specific aspect of a named East Asian cultural trait.  For example the students may learn about the Japanese Tea Ceremony, or about the Chinese Zodiac, Compare and Contrast Martial Arts from a specific area, pick a specific East Asian celebration (ex. Chinese New Year), etc.  The groups will work both in class and outside of the classroom to prepare this presentation.  The presentation must include the history of the custom and (hopefully) may include demonstrations of the custom.  The students will receive individual participation grades for each workday in class, a group grade for the presentation, and an individual grade given to them by the members their group.

In addition, the class will concentrate on Ch 12 of their text, “World History Patterns of Interaction”.  This chapter is on Empires in East Asia (600 AD – 1350 AD), and we will be concentrating on Section 4 “Feudal Powers in Japan.”  We will take several days of looking at primary sources that discuss the Bushido and the Samurai.  We will then compare and contrast The Bushido with the Code of Chivalry and the Samurai with the Knight.  There will be no “formal” assessment of this chapter.  The class participation as well as project presentations will serve as the grade to this lesson.

Procedures for Project:

Day One (works good on a Friday)

  1. Introduce students to the project (mentioned above). 
  2. Explain all of the criteria and what is expected.  Tell them that they will have the next 5 Friday’s to work on project in class.  Explain that they will receive a participation grade for the work done on those days.  In the last 20 minutes of class, have the students form their groups, and brainstorm on ideas and who will look up what information.  Tell them their subject is due the following Monday (or two or three days later).

Day Two

Give last 15-20 minutes of a class to allow students to brainstorm on how they would like to present their project.

Work days for project (I set aside Fridays as work days.)           

Classroom lesson: (I set aside 5 days before the project presentation dates for lesson on the Bushido.)

Day One

  1. Give a brief explanation of what the Bushido is. 
  2. Then have class take turns in reading A Samurai Instructs His Son by Hojo Shigetoki. 
  3. Have the students take 5-7 minutes to jot down the “do’s and the don’ts” that Shigetoki sets forth for his son. 
  4. Next discuss these “do’s and don’ts” by giving examples and having students put them into their own words. 
  5. The last 10 minutes, have students describe (on same paper) what they believe a Samurai is (from the reading). 
  6. Have students turn in their papers.

Day Two and Three

  1. Give the history of the Samurai and the Bushido using text, as well as http://home.att.net/~hofhine/Samurai.html, The Message of Master Gokurakuji  by Hojo Shigetoki, The Hagakure:  The Book of the Samurai by Tashiro Tsuramoto, and  Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe.

Day Four

  1. Using various writings and quotes from Hojo Shigetoki, Asakura Toshikage, Hojo Nagauji, Takeda Shingen, and Kato Kiyomasa, have students, expand on their description of the Samurai, adding what they feel are the main points in the Bushido (and why those points were made).

Day Five

  1. Discuss the descriptions of the Samurai and points from the Bushido. 
  2. Then, as a class, compare and contrast the Samurai with what we know about the Knight, and the Bushido with what we know about the Code of Chivarly. 
  3. If time allows, have students act out several points made in the Bushido as opposed to what Chivalry might require of a knight.

Informal/Formal Assessments:

Each student will receive 10 participations points each day spent, in class, on this project.  The presentation itself will be 15 – 20 minutes.  The grade received will be based on if the project gives us the history of the aspect of East Asian Culture they are working on, on the quality of the presentation, and on the individual assessment each member of the group gives each other.

Evaluation/Reflection:

  1. Getting the students to use their imagination to come up with fun and different ways to present their projects was a difficulty.
  2. Getting students to use their time wisely in class to prepare for the presentations was also a difficulty.
  3. Next time I will have logs where the students will record their progress to help to discourage last minute projects.
  4. I was impressed by the reaction given by some of my “less active” students.  It seems that those who did not usually get their work in were the ones who took this by the horns and ran with it.
  5. I also feel that this lesson has taught my how to better teach cooperatively, which made the end result much better.