“At the dawn of time the universe was a dark chaos, a black mass of nothingness. Heaven and earth were not separated, neither was night or day. The sun, the moon and the galaxies were all quite unformed. It is almost impossible for human beings to imagine a situation where nothing exists and to make this unimaginable time and place more real, some people thought of it as a large egg. In this dark, egg-like mass was born the first creature of the universe; he was called Pangu.” – from the myth of Pangu

1. Each Unit will contain secondary and primary sources as well as connecting literature of the period or about the period. Each Unit will have particular projects: hands-on, debate, posters, art.
2. Each Unit will have feature or documentary films of high quality and slide shows of the period (provided by Harvard-Primary Source web site.)
3. We will feature major dynasties in each Unit.

• Big Maps in Groups (population, physical, features, provinces, minorities, nat. resources, topographical)
• Readings on geography: impact on civilization and culture
• Timelines
• Early Beginnings: Neolithic Villages
• Shang /Zhou Dynasties
• Bronze Casting
• Oracle Bones and the Origins of Writing
• The Mandate of Heaven

Unit #2: Imperial China: the Qin Dynasty

• “The Mandate of Heaven”: Political Power Structur
e
• Qin Dynasty, Unification of China and establishment of class system
• Terra Cotta Warriors, Great Wall
• definition of a civilization

Research: In pairs students will create an annotated Timeline of the major dynasties, picking one to highlite in an oral report.

Unit #3: Confucius: A Civilization Built Upon A Philosophy

• Analects of Confucius
• How his ideas became the grounding of Chinese culture, political and family life for the centuries to come
• Debate on Confucius
• Formation of the Examination system and Civil Service

Unit #4: Class Structure in Imperial China

• Urban life in Chang’an (old capital)
• Rural Life of rice farmers
• Class Structure from Soldier to Emperor
• Court Life inside the Forbidden City, concubines and eunuchs
• Study of Song Scrolls depicting village and market life
• Comparison between China and USA in terms of class

Unit #5: Women’s Role in China

• Confucian Role – Traditional Gender Roles and reasons
• Women Warrior Tradition (Mulan and Empress Wu)
• Status and roles of women in family
• Foot binding
• Female Poets and Selected excerpts from Memoirs (Early and Current)
• Tang Dynasty (for contrast, the Tang Dynasty gave new freedom for women)

Unit #6: Research: The Cultural Riches:

In class we will read and discuss about a variety of topics: Buddhism, Landscape painting, Taoism, Pottery, Calligraphy.

Simultaneously students will do an extensive research report (one month) on one of the topics below, write a 6-8 page paper and teach a class to peers.

• Buddhism/Taoism, Folk Beliefs & Ancestor Worship
• architecture of various regions
• architecture of Forbidden City
• science and inventions
• painting
• calligraphy
• pottery
• clothing
• the royal court
• folk art
• propaganda art
• scrolls
• food
• medicine

Unit #7: The Silk Road

• economics, trade, dissemination of goods and ideas
• mapping of the Silk Road
• various cultures which became central to the Silk Road
• poetry and stories of the Silk Road
• Music of the Silk Road – Yo-Yo Ma

Unit #8: The Khan Family: Mongols on Horseback

• study of a nomadic culture
• housing, gender roles, food, education of the Mongols
• military strategy of Genghis Khan, et al.
• Mongol Invasion of China

Unit #9: Ming and Qin Dynasty

• European Trade: Encounters Leading to the Opium War
• Lord McCartney and the Emperor
• The City of Canton during European invasion
• Opium War
• The Last Emperor
• Outcome for Chinese – Disintegration of Dynastic Power Base

Unit #10: Seeds of Revolution

• Sun Yat-Sen
• Mao
• How China moved from Opium War to Chaos to Divergent Leadership to PRC

Unit #11: “A Revolution is Not a Dinner Party” – Mao

• Mao (70% vs. 30%)
• Roots of his Beliefs/Enactment of his Beliefs
• His Various Programs – pro’s and con’s
• His effects on the people and future of China

Unit #12: Post Modern China

• Tiananmen thru Great Economic Opening
• Law in Modern Times
• One Child Policy
• Communist Democracy?
• Human Rights
• Current Events and Trends

Films: we will be watching many excellent films and documentaries on Ancient and Modern China as well as slide and power point demonstrations. Students will keep notes in their small “slide and movie” notebook.

Field Trips: MFA, Metropolitan Museum in NYC, Chinese America Museum-NYC, Yin Yutang House in Peabody Essex Museum, Chinatown

We will practice and learn about the arts throughout the year. With each of these studies there will be a hands-on project (make a scroll, do a landscape painting, copy a Ming vase design, draw an emperor’s robe, write a myth).

• LSG: Literature Study Groups for analysis and discussion
• Reading Comprehension: Reading for clear understanding and building of comprehension skills (decoding, skimming, summarizing, notes, outlining).
• Independent Reading: Monthly independent reading done at home. This can be any book, short story collection, poetry. Presented to peers at school in an informal “letter to Peers” which reviews your reading.

Writing: Bi-weekly 2-3 page writing story, memoir, etc. New assignment will be explained on Monday. One week writing, second week editing and copying. First and second drafts will be due every Monday.

Vocabulary: Weekly memorization and practicing usage of new words drawn from texts we are currently reading.

• Roots and prefix work
.
• Analogy work.
• Dictionary work.

Grammar/Technical Writing Skills/Editing: Weekly period on these skills, using student’s own writing and Write Source.