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HIS 374 / 574, REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN MODERN CHINA 

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENTS


The following series of specific assignments is to be completed in journal form and submitted for instructor evaluation on five separate occasions over the course of the semester on the dates indicated both in the course schedule and in the instructions below.  

Late submissions will not be accepted unless prior arrangements have been made with the instructor; evaluations of any such accepted late submissions will be negatively influenced by their tardiness.  

Your completed journal will be reviewed with the following criteria in mind:  

  • the intelligence with which the topics covered are addressed; 
  • the thoroughness with which the assignments are completed; 
  • the depth of insight expressed in your confrontation with the subjects considered; 
  • the thoughtfulness with which the assignments are approached.
Although effective written communication is essential, the journal WILL NOT be evaluated with respect to "correct" English and/or punctuation -- the ideas, in this instance, are the most important ingredient, not the form in which they are expressed.  

The result of this series of assignments is meant to be an informal JOURNAL, not a classroom exercise nor a series of answers to the specific questions posed below. Therefore don't merely "answer the questions" or "follow the directions" indicated; don't number your responses as if completing a "fill-in-the-blanks" exercise; don't try to complete the entire series of assignments at one sitting -- instead tell me (over the course of several occasions over the coming weeks) about what peaks your interest about China and Chinese history, initially, as you examine the material assigned for the course and as you listen to the opening series of lectures; then later in the quarter as the course progresses, consider how those interests change and evolve as you think about them over time and come to understand the subject matter more fully.  

In essence the assignments posed below are meant to focus your attention on a particular stimulus, a topic for your consideration; in each instance, the instructor is more interested in how that particular stimulus excites your interest in the broader subject matter, the history of modern China. The directions given and the questions asked, then, are merely meant to stimulate your thoughts about the topic or information source raised in the assignment. Your may choose to ignore these questions or directions entirely (in many cases they are very repetitious anyway!), as long as you write about what the assignment asks you to consider.  

This overall journal assignment grows out of a conviction that learning is an active (not a passive) process; that learning is remembering what interests you; and that learning is both goal oriented and concept centered.  

Therefore, to enable learning to occur, you, the student, must start with what you know, admit ignorance about what you don't know, identify interests growing out of that ignorance, then ask questions and seek to establish connections, building on current knowledge to achieve a new level of understanding.  

This series of assignments is designed to make you aware of the above process at work over the course of an entire semester of study. Initially the journal assignments are meant to give you the opportunity to describe your interests, to relate what you don't know to what you know already, to expand your interests, to refine and reinterpret them and ultimately to restate and formulate them into appropriate inquiry questions to guide your study of modern Chinese history. Later assignments are meant to probe changes that might have occurred in your thinking about China and modern Chinese history as you acquire more information and a deeper, more profound understanding concerning the subject matter of the course.  
  
Approach the writing of your journal with these criteria in mind and you should find the experience serves both to enlarge your interest in China and to focus your attention on specific topics and questions you will be able to delve into in greater detail over the weeks ahead, in the process making you more aware as well of maturation in thought processes produced over time.  

This site has been prepared by Lee A. Makela (l.makela@popmail.csuohio.edu) for the use of students at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, who are enrolled in HIS 374 / 574, REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN MODERN CHINA during the Fall Semester of the 1998 - 1999 Academic Year; please contact him with any comments.