The Enduring Legacy of Ancient China: Primary Source Lessons for Teachers and Students
Abstract |
This unit contains a CD-ROM. This extremely valuable collection of primary documents in organiazed around the topics of Creating a Framework, Enduring Traditions, Community Life, the Four Accomplishments, Human Ingenuity, Beyond the Borders.
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Year of Publication |
2006
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Number of Pages |
328
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Publisher |
Cheng and Tsui Company
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Citation Key |
bibcite_8240
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Rating |
Reviews
Please login to review this resourceThe Enduring Legacy of Ancient China: Primary Source Lessons for Teachers and Students curriculum review by Katie Sukenik
By Katie Sukenik
I am the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade resource teacher at Falk Laboratory School at The University of Pittsburgh.
This curriculum is recommended for use with 5th-9th graders, although I feel that all content could easily be used with the intermediate grades, and with some adaptations to the activities, be used for both younger elementary students and possibly older high school students.
As a recent graduate of Pitt’s MAT program and a teacher steeped in a constructivist educational environment, I give this curriculum book a high mark for the ease of use and high-quality lesson plans. This text includes well-structured and detailed lesson plans (but not too wordy or exhaustive) that require very little tweaking by the classroom teacher! Not only are the entire contents of the book sequenced well for a very comprehensive and engaging unit on China, but each individual lesson is laid out in a way that is consistent with the “Learning Cycle” approach to planning science and social studies classes. First, each lesson engages students in the lessons’ topic, then allows them to explore the topic with hands-on activities, and afterward students must explain and/or record the new information (You can use these components for assessment). I also love how the text “reminds” you of what prior knowledge students have presumably learned from previous lessons so that you can easily ground each lesson in something concrete and encourage students to make new connections to all that they have learned. All primary sources, supplementary materials and additional websites are provided for each activity to make planning super easy! The CD-rom includes high-quality discussion questions, ready-to-print handouts, color images and music to enhance each lesson. I love how this book has everything that you need to teach an entire unit on China in a single source!
When using this book, you should know that it includes 20 different “Lessons”, which seems like the perfect amount for a single unit. But each “Lesson” has about 5 to 7 different activities, some of which are structured discussions and some of which are more labor-intensive, like building a model, painting, or researching a specific topic. At the elementary level, you could easily spend 3-4 one-hour class periods on one of the more labor-intensive activites! So for me, I found that each “Lesson” was actually more like an entire unit planned out, which shows you how rich and saturated this curriculum is, especially for elementary school teachers!
I also found the book easy to build upon and adapt. I am going to use the “Inventions and Innovations” lesson as a base to expand into an entire 9-week unit integrating social studies and science. The groundwork is laid out for me, and the book also included ten additional websites about ancient Chinese inventions which makes expanding this particular lesson very simple. It also has boxed sections labeled “In the World Today” in some lessons which discuss interesting connections between the ancient Chinese world students are immersed in from this text and our modern world. This makes it easy for a teacher to bring up valid talking points with the students, even if he or she is not familiar with China and how ancient Chinese history is relevant to us in a modern world.
I highly recommend this to any elementary school or middle school teacher who teaches social studies, or wants to integrate a little social studies into language arts, science, or art classes!
Review of The Enduring Legacy of China
Review of The Enduring Legacy of Ancient China: Primary Source Lessons for Teachers and Students with Foreword by Michael Puett
As a teacher who has never taught about China before this book gets an excellent rating from me. It was published in 2006 by Primary Source, Inc. featuring a CD-Rom with primary sources, lessons and an outline map of China. It is well organized with a variety of topics with one featured in each chapter. Topics include geography, language, mythology, belief systems, festivals and inventions just to name a few. Each chapter includes background information for the teacher, an organizing idea, student objectives, key questions, vocabulary, primary sources and meaningful student activities. Each chapter also includes a side bar to related concepts in the world today and makes connections with things that have happened in other parts of the world. The primary sources provided on a CD-ROM are easy to use and invaluable as concrete visuals. An audio component allows you to listen to pieces of music and how to pronounce key names and terms in the lessons. Supplementary materials on the CD-ROM include maps of China, diagrams, images, timeline and additional vocabulary. Web Sites and further resources for students and teachers are given at the end of each chapter for those who want to delve further. This book is recommended for middle school and could be used as an entire unit. The chapters can also be used in isolation and can be modified for elementary students. I teach science and computer for a group of third grade students who are in the midst of a unit about China in social studies. I plan to use two chapters and their resources in my class when I teach about the geography of China and inventions from China. Many teacher authors are acknowledged in the beginning of the book as well as several experts from the field of Asian studies.
Due to the organization, this book makes it easy for a teacher new to Chinese studies to conduct a unit or just a few lessons about China with lots of practical, hands-on ideas, supplemental materials and especially important are the Primary Sources provided on the CD-ROM in the back of the book.