Chinese Philosophers & Their Impact on Literature

Hello,
I was very impressed by the lessons you’ve created! What I liked about it the most was that it was very organized and very detailed in presentation. I like that you made an anticipatory set to assess prior knowledge. While I agree that word association and recollection of Chinese landmarks can definitely assess prior knowledge, perhaps you can think also use something that has a more direct/specific link to the topic of the day. Maybe you can pass around a number of quotes from Chinese philosophers such as Confucius (students won’t know who they’re by) and have them guess the meaning and rewrite them into their own words. Paraphrasing can be a great writing skill not just in English but in all subjects! I love the idea of a debate! When you said current issue, did you mean an issue from today (2011) or one that was “current” during the time period of the philosophers. It might be exciting to do both! I also really like how you’ve provided a very detailed Directions Sheet for the PowerPoint. One thing I learned very early on in my short teaching career is that it is very easy to assume that students will know what to do (especially the older ones, like your 12th graders) when you tell them to write an essay or create a PowerPoint. Although this generation is very technologically savvy, I know that there are still some students out there who do not know how to use PowerPoint or similar programs. Will you be giving a brief tutorial? How will you be selecting the groups? Will they be picking their own members or pre-selected? If you pick their member for them, you can ensure that at least 1-2 people in the group are familiar with the program and can them scaffold their peers. It is very helpful that you are telling them exactly what you want in the PowerPoint, almost outlining what is expected on each slide. I always do that when I assign PowerPoint assignments because I’ve learned, the more structure the better! I still always give them room for flexibility and creativity though, allowing them to go over a slide or two from the requirements. When I read that you were going to have them read the short story, I was going to suggest including questions to help them take notes, but I later found that you already did that. Your preparation and supplementary materials (Questions, graphic organizers, peer editing sheets) for this lesson definitely ensures that it will be a successful one!

The only other suggestion I can think of if you have time to extend this lesson a bit more is to conduct another debate after everything, but this time, have the students argue from a philosopher different from the original one they were assigned. This way, students can utilize the graphic organizer completed during the presentation and be accountable for the notes they took. Also, this exercises their ability to argue multiple perspectives. Hope this was useful in any way! Best of luck!

A thousand thanks for your very constructive feedback. I appreciate your taking the time to read through my lesson. I especially appreciate the idea of the quotes from Chinese philosophers and having students rewrite them into their own words. I think this will allow them to internalize the concepts to be covered more profoundly. As far as the debate is concerned I was thinking more about issues of today’s world such as gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, legalization of drugs, etc. I know these issues can be very controversial, but literature is controversial and my ultimate objective is to show students that literature is an avenue widely used by authors to critique society and to express their very personal views about these issues. In fact, the Chinese stories I’m planning to use actually deal with many of these difficult topics. Also, I just remembered that I actually have handouts to go with the MLA review, so I’m going to include them in the lesson plan, thank you very much for reminding me about those and about the fact that we cannot make assumptions about students’ previous knowledge – I’ve learned that the hard way. Now, concerning the group selection, I normally test the class at the beginning of the year to get an idea of the students who tend to cling together and to see who has strong leadership skills. In order to strengthen students’ interpersonal skills, I break those little groups by forcing students to work with others as I assign them team-leader positions and have them select their team members from the rest of the class. That normally works well as it gives students a sense of autonomy while I still have the control – the same goes with the topic selection, students get to choose from a list of topics I’ve prearranged. Like you, I too believe the more structure the better, that’s why we go through the writing process step by step and the same goes with word-processing documents or creating multi-media presentations. In fact, I rely on the support of our librarian for tutorials on how to create documentaries, movie trailers, etc. I love your suggestion of having students debate from a different perspective – I think that would work wonders, especially before they get to analyze their individual stories. I’ll try to figure out how to include that in the lesson. By the way, don’t give me the credit for the idea of the debates, I actually “borrowed” it from the debates we did in the South East Asia Seminar with Dr. Dube at the beginning of the course.
Once again, many thanks for your kind and dynamic observations and recommendations!!

Monica, I am very sorry for you to wait this long, somehow i couldn't find your name to review your lesson plan, but finally..
It is a very organized and structured lesson plan that I could imagine how all of your students could follow though without missing any instructions so that students will be on the right track. I love the way you use your graphic charts and guided worksheets to facilitate student learning, I am sure the outcomes will be as you expected. I thought your first warm-up activity to engage students' previous knowledge will be very effective to introduce China in class. It could be also interesting to toss some of Prof. Dube's PPT images so students will gain more academic background information on China, such as the Cultivation or Population Distribution Map showing 45/55 line to divide China or to show how long the history Chaina has by projecting personal effects of the period, for instance, a ceramic vase or shoes of 500BC. Additionally, if your students have already studied about Western Philosophy, I might add quick review of some comparison of Western and Eastern philosophers around the 500BC to show students the difference might be interesting. Western Philosophers were more into Physics, to compare with Eastern Philosophers were into Morals and Ethics, and you can have them think 'Why?'It was a great plan once again.
Hope you will have a great summer.

Thanks to Dr. Dube's invaluable feedback, here is the final and improved version of my lesson plan. A thousand thanks to Dr. Dube and those of you who took the time out of your very busy schedules to read through my lesson and make recommendations/suggestions to improve this. I and my students are forever grateful.