CHINA+ODYSSEY+SYLLABUS

**China Odyssey Mentor Seminar**
Fall Term 2008 Fridays 10-1, 2224 School of Education Bldg.

Instructors: E-mail: chansuiw@umich.edu Phone: 418-2920 Office: 2202 School of Education Office hours by appointment
 * Sui Wah Chan**

E-mail: stanz@umich.edu Phone: 763-5950 Office: 2202 School of Education Office hours Wednesdays 1-2 in 2202 School of Education, or by appointment
 * Jeff Stanzler** (Contact Jeff for all administrative questions)

COURSE PURPOSE

This seminar is intended to provide an opportunity for you to share your knowledge and experience as you seek to engage a diverse network of students in web-based discussions of social and cultural issues. It is also intended to provide a place where you can become acquainted with aspects of the history and culture of China, and the social practices and cultural mores observed by our travelers, Matthew and Sarah Baughman, in their explorations of China.

Earth Odysseys is a work-in-progress. Each term we ask university students to guide high school and middle school students through a process of reflective thought as they consider (and perhaps reconsider) their own cultural practices and viewpoints through looking at those of others. This will be a challenge for the students (as well it should be!) and supporting the students will require patience and understanding on your part, as well as hard work. It is also a process, like most good teaching, of trial and error. Perhaps the single most advantageous trait for an Odysseys Mentor to possess, or to cultivate, is a willingness to experiment with an idea and continually adjust your mentoring based on your interpretation of what happened (or what didn’t happen). We hope that in the process of doing this work you will further explore your own educational beliefs, and broaden your intellectual perspective. It has been said that a significant portion of what is labeled as teaching is actually learning. We welcome you to what we hope will be a challenging, enjoyable learning experience.

COURSE GRADING

This should be very simple. Virtually every mentor in the history of Earth Odysseys chose this class because of their enthusiasm for helping kids to learn about more about their world, to sharpen their thinking, and to feel more confident in their writing and in articulating their point-of-view. As a consequence of this intrinsic motivation, most mentors do top quality work. Still, you should know the criteria upon which your grade will be decided:

1) Diligence and the quality of thought as shown by your participation in, and preparation for seminar.

2) Staying current with course readings, and all written assignments.

3) The quality of your research paper and other class assignments.

4) Most Importantly...the quality and frequency of your on-line interactions with the students, and your demonstrated engagement with doing this mentoring work, and with your reflection on this work. You will have a key role in supporting the students as they seek to engage with ideas and to conduct a rich and respectful discourse. Your mentoring work constitutes the most important aspect of the course. The general rule is that you’re expected to spend 5 hours per week doing your online work (or other out-of-class assignments), and to be consistent in responding to the students, as well as completing reading and other course assignments. We expect that each of you will be making an **average of ten substantive postings per week** once the online discussions with the students begin in October.

//Grades will be determined based on the following://

Quality and consistency of online mentoring work (30%) Seminar participation & attendance (30%) Odyssey activity project (30%) Final reflection (10%)

REQUIRED TEXTS

“China: Its History and Culture" (4th ed) by W. Scott Morton and Charlton M. Lewis (McGraw Hill: New York, 2005)

Available at Shaman Drum, 315 S. State St. tel. 662-7407

READINGS, ASSIGNMENTS, ODYSSEY REPORTS & CLASS TOPICS (subject to change):

Introduction to China, Background on the Earth Odysseys Project.
 * September 5th**

//Readings to be discussed on September 12th:// Morton and Lewis, Chapters 1-4

History and Geography of China
 * September 12th**

//Readings to be discussed on September 19th:// Morton and Lewis, Chapters 5-6; Reports (and responses) from our Blog site.

Religion & Philosophy
 * September 19th**

Readings to be discussed on //September 26th:// Morton and Lewis, Chapters 7-8; Reports (and responses) from our Blog site.

Religion & Philosophy; Website and the Mentoring Process. //Online Project Begins on September 29th//
 * September 26th**

Readings to be discussed on October 3rd: Morton and Lewis, Chapters 9 & 10.

Chinese Language; Ming Dynasty; Contemporary Social Mores.
 * October 3rd**

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Our First Day (Matthew)


 * Weekly Assignment Begins:** Mentoring Journal (details in class)

Readings to be discussed on October 10th: Morton and Lewis, Chapters 11 & 12.

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// The Impervious Culture (Matthew) Saving Face (Sarah)

China enters “Modern Times”; Encounters with the West; Initial Reflections on the Mentoring Process.
 * October 10th**

Readings to be discussed on October 17th: “China Blue” Study Guide (on Ctools)

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Censored! (Sarah) Vietnam (Sarah)

"China Blue" (Part One); Continued Reflections on the Mentoring Process.
 * October 17th**

Assignment due: One page initial proposal for Research Paper.

Readings to be discussed on October 17th: Fallows & Schell Readings (CTools)

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Politics (Sarah) Communist China, Or Capitalist? (Matthew)

"China Blue" (Part Two); China and the West in Our Time; Continued Reflections on the Mentoring Process.
 * October 24th**

Readings to be discussed on October 31st: Morton and Lewis, Chapter 18.

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Personal Space (Sarah) Subway (Sarah)

Looking back at the Odyssey Reports; Life in China Today; Feedback on Initial Proposal for Research Paper.
 * October 31st**

Readings to be discussed on November 7th: Morton and Lewis, Chapter 13.

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Chinese New Year (Sarah) Food (Matthew)

Upheavals of the 20th Century; Research Paper Proposals.
 * November 7th**

Assignment due: Final Proposal for Research Paper—be prepared to briefly discuss your final proposal in class.

Readings to be discussed on November 14th: Morton and Lewis, Chapters 14 & 15.

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Adventures in Language: The Good Stuff (Sarah) Adventures in Language: The Hard Stuff (Sarah)

Communist China and the Cultural Revolution
 * November 14th**

Readings to be discussed on November 28th: Morton and Lewis, Chapter 16 & 17

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Trip to Suzhou and Beijing (Matthew) Beijing (Sarah)

//Thanksgiving Vacation//
 * November 21st:**

Health Care in Contemporary China; The Reform Era
 * November 28th:**

Readings to be discussed on December 5th: Morton and Lewis, Chapter 18.

//Odyssey Reports posted this week:// Health Care (Sarah) Can I Get A Latte With That Stretcher? (Sarah)

China Yesterday and Today; Final Reflections & Celebration
 * December 5th**

Assignment due: Research Paper

Odyssey Reports posted this week: Shopping and Bargaining (Matthew) Sitting at the Bund (Matthew)

//**Due on CTools by December 12th:**// Final Reflection Paper

ODYSSEY REPORTS

We expect that all of you will read all of the reports, and expect that you will participate in any and all online discussions. We will, however, have a schedule by which you will each be asked to briefly present, in class, about selected reports and the discussions that took place around those reports.

To find the reports before our Fall 2008 site opens, please go to: **http://kawa.soe.umich.edu/2007/fall/ody/main/**

Login: guest PW: guest

Go into RED or GREEN and click on REPORTS along the left. You’ll be able to see all of the reports (and all of the discussion that took place about the reports).

WEEKLY JOURNAL

We will ask you to keep a weekly online journal in which you alternately chronicle the process by which you conceive of, research, and put together your Odyssey activity, and share some of your experiences as a mentor. Here's the listing of journal topics and when we're expecting to see that particular journal:**

After Session #2 **(Project): Which report interested me as a focal point for my project, and why?**

After Session #3 **(Project): Define inquiry questions for developing activity--what do I want the students to be thinking about as a result of doing my activity? What do I need to learn more about so that I can create a good activity?**

After Session #4 **(Project): Come up with a rough plan for the inquiry and some thoughts about what you want to provide for the teachers, and what kinds of resources you'll need.**

After Session #5 **(Mentoring): Choose one of the responses you posted, and tell us the story behind it--what were the strengths and weaknesses of the posting, and where were the opportunities to deepen the conversation or to offer feedback on the written expression.**

After Session #6 **(Mentoring): Discuss your understanding of a student posting to which you were responding, what you felt was needed by way of a response, and why you thought so. You could also talk about what a particular student response evoked for you personally, or a choice you faced as you thought about responding, or a challenge you faced in thinking about or crafting your response.**

After Session #7: **(Project) Post your Project Statement, which includes a) your "driving question"--your succinct framing of the issue you want the kids to think about, and b) a succinct statement connecting your driving question to a specific report and C) your "scope of work," a brief summary of the specific pieces that will make up your completed activity).**

After Session #8 **(Mentoring): Looking back at the mentoring work so far, tell us about a learning moment you had. Perhaps it had to do with teaching and mentoring, perhaps it had to do with a cultural issue, or perhaps you learned something about yourself (either as a teacher or as a global citizen).**

After Session #9 **(Project): We'll be pairing you up to talk through your project with one another in class. This week's blog entry should be about that interaction...what kind of feedback did you get from your partner? What did you realize that you might want to add to or change about your project?**

After Session #10 **(Project): This week, we'd like for you to summarize the instructions/documentationthat you'll be giving to a future teacher who will use this activity. What are you telling her this teacher to think about, what kinds of questions are you suggesting that s/he ask, why are you providing her with the specific resources (readings, maps, URLs, etc.) that you're including?**

After Session #13, which takes place on Nov. 28 **(Mentoring): Walk us through a challenging interaction you had with a student. What were you thinking as you read the posting? Where did you see the teaching opportunity and how did you try to seize upon it (tell us about what you wrote to the student and why).

Your journals will be kept in your blog--we will have more specifics about this next week.

ODYSSEY ACTIVITY PROJECT**

Each of you will create an activity to be used by future Odyssey teachers and students. This activity must be linked to one of the Odyssey reports, and you will be charged with coming up with the activity idea, describing that activity so that a teacher can use it with her students, and assembling all of the other resources (readings, maps, web URLs, worksheets, discussion questions) that a teacher would need to do your activity, including your description of the activity, how it links to a particular Odyssey report, and what the larger idea(s) are that your activity is designed to frame for the students. This larger idea will be your **driving question**(s)--what do you most want the students to be thinking about or otherwise exploring as a consequence of doing your activity. //We will be asking you to write a series of entries in your online journal that take you through the various steps of pulling your project together, and we will also discuss the project in class.// This is a modified form of the I-Search paper, based on the work of Ken Macrorie (Macrorie, K. (1988). The I-Search Paper. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers).

Your **finished activity** is due by our class meeting on November 14th (on CTools) and should include the following elements:

1) An introductory (one-page) essay for the teachers and students that includes your driving question, how you derived it, why you feel it is important, and how you are connecting all of this to your activity.

2) Which report is your project linked to, how and why? e.g. “Subway”: Sarah’s report illustrated how people could be (or appear to be) so indifferent. I was interested in how social pressures impact our ability or our willingness to act in accordance with our beliefs, and under what circumstances people would (or wouldn’t) be willing to stand out from the crowd for the sake of their beliefs. I decided to create an activity around a variety of scenarios that students would be asked to respond to, and then to ask them to describe situations in which they were the ‘victim’ of a kind of social neglect…”

3) Detailed description of the activity A step-by step sequence of what will happen, from preparation to conclusion. This should include descriptions of discussions necessary before the activity, orientation to the activity, directions for both teacher and students, description of what will take place, questions you want the students to consider, possible connections to the student’s lives, and debriefing/post-activity discussion topics and prompts.

4) ”What does a teacher need?” This should include actual materials needed, discussion questions, a list of activity prompts a teacher could use, or debriefing questions. It should also include the readings or resources you would want to the kids to read (with annotated descriptions).

5) Complete list of references used.

In summary, we want you to give the teacher a finished activity including everything you think s/he will need to actually conduct your activity in their classroom. Your work will then become a part of our Odyssey teacher resources.

FINAL REFLECTION

At our final class on December 5th, we would like to reflect with you about your experience as a mentor…what you learned, what you think that the student’s learned, how the experience could be improved, etc. We ask that you prepare a written reflect on aspects of your mentoring experience in a 3-5 page reflection (double spaced, to be handed in no later than December 12th on our CTools site) that responds to these prompts:

A) Select a student posting that you feel was of particular merit and explain what it was about the posting that you found especially noteworthy. Think of yourself as offering guidance to a teacher who is asking you, "What skills might my students develop or enhance by virtue of participating in Odysseys?" Please include the text of the actual posting.

B) Talk about an insight you gained from your Odyssey experience about yourself as a teacher and/or a learner. Use this as an opportunity to tell us a story about your mentoring experience and how you made sense of it. If the experience is connected to a particular interaction, please include the text of that interaction.

C) Offer one piece of concrete advice for a future mentor….a strategy you’ve employed, or something you’ve figured out that you think they would find helpful, or something you wish you knew in September…and write about it. We’re augmenting our mentor handbook based on your suggestions.

WEB RESOURCES

There will be multiple occasions where you will need to have access to information about China. Here are some good sources—we will distribute others in class:

Asia for Educators http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/

Ask Asia http://www.askasia.org/

Education about Asia http://www.aasianst.org/eaa-toc.htm

Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ (Started at our School of Information, this is a splendid collection of links to resources...search for China, and off you go!!)

China Mirror http://www.chinamirror.org/ Login: chinamirror PW: chinaed