Please click here for the Application for the 2012-2013 China Exchange

Please click here for Curriculum and Credit information for the China Exchange

Steve Lantos, Coordinator

China Exchange Program

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Course Syllabus

COURSE:

CHINA EXCHANGE , Independent Studies in :

U.H. History (U.S.-China relations) or World History :

Chinese History :

Comparative Literature, American and Chinese

Chinese Language

Periods per week :                   Fall semester, 2 hrs/week

Spring semester, 15 hrs/week

I. Program Description:        8 Brookline High students and a teacher spend the spring semester of the school year at the Gao Xin School in XI’an, China. During the preceding fall semester, students study pre-modern Chinese history and culture in preparation for their four month stay and course of study in China. This syllabus outlines only the academic portion of a very broad and complex year of learning through cultural exchange and home stays in China.

II. Learning objectives (A statement of learning objectives is a statement of changes to take place in students) :

By the completion of this course, the successful student will have learned:

1. To understand and explain major events in pre-modern and modern Chinese history;
2. To identify and examine recurring motifs and values in modern Chinese literature;
3. To connect literature to its historical context;
4. To recognize major schools of Chinese thought (such as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism) and observe their manifestation in Chinese literature and daily life.
5. To appreciate and utilize different strategies for understanding and negotiating across cultures- in Chinese classrooms, in host families, in public places and forums.
6. To compare thoughtfully and compassionately political, ethical and social differences between China and the United States. To understand rather than judge.
7. To acquire a cross-cultural perspective in order to reflect on and reconsider assumptions they have carried, as Americans, about themselves and their place in the world.

III. Learning Experience (A learning experience is the interaction between the learner and the external conditions in the environment to which he/she can react):

In this course the students will:

1. Participate in small, focused group discussions based on class reading, journal entries and daily problem solving;
2. Write  in daily journals
3. Make oral presentations on segments of Chinese history; pre-modern and modern;
4. Study intensive Chinese language, spoken, written;
5. Study Chinese cultural tradition: mythology, philosophy, art, music
6. Engage in resourceful independent research which includes,

1. sifting through large amounts of material to locate key points,

2. finding sources within sources by reading the bibliographies and       footnotes in books, articles and essays.

3. using library catalogues to find books, periodicals and newspaper articles which span over old and new perspectives,

4. interviewing Americans and Chinese as a vital component of cross-cultural research, and to learn the value of oral histories ( Interviewing is strongly encouraged during the stay in China.

The following books are part of the library at Gao Xin school. It is encouraged that students immerse themselves in this literature to gain a wider understanding of the society they are immersed into.

Jung Chang               Wilde Swans (Three daughters in china’s changing society, gov.)

Ba Jin                         Family (capitalist family in 1920s)

Ha Jin                         Waiting "Lin Kong graduated from the military medical school toward the end of 1963 and came to Muji to work as a doctor..."

Additional readings from:

Jan Wong Parts of Red China Blue (my long march from Mao to now)

Ma Jian Parts of Red Dust ("Last year, in the spring of 1981, my work unit moved me from the staff dormitory block to a small house in Nanxiao Lane...") 

Ding Ling                   20^th century short stories

Lu Xin                        20^th century short stories“China’s Avant Gardists

Jonathan Spence

China in the World since 1644 (Primary Source 2009)

Gao XinJjian               Soul Mountain

Amy Tan                     The joy luck club

Maxine Hiong Kingstone        Woman Warrior

Adeline Yen Mah       Falling Leaves

Marc Salzman             Iron and Silk

Hessler Peter               River Town: Two years on the Yangtze

Dream of Red Chambers   Vol. 1&2

Gish Jen,                     Who’s Irish?

Zhang and Song,         Chinese Lives (oral stories)

Confucius                    The Analects (Penguin Edition)

La Tzu                         Tao Te Ching  (Penguin Edition)

Chuang-tzu’s               Inner Chapters

Buddhism in Translation

Edgar Snow                Red Star over China

Liang Heng                 Son of the Revolution

DeBary                        Sources of Chinese Tradition