JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO - A: 
  
In your journal, answer the following series of questions concerning your reactions to the list of topics to be covered in the course as listed in the syllabus and course schedule. This assignment (and those that follow) are designed -- 

• to expand the list of possible interests guiding your study of Japanese history and 
• to elicit questions you might use to provoke your inquiries into specific interest areas.
  
  
1. What topics noted in the syllabus or course schedule interest you most? List a minimum of three.
2. Which of the above topics would you most like to investigate further on your own?
3. What specifically would you like to find out about your chosen topic?
4. Formulate at least three specific inquiry questions (formulated as "why" and "how" questions in paragraph form) or thesis statements you might use to guide your exploration. Avoid simply asking "what" and "when" questions, thinking only in terms of assembling "the facts" about the topic you have chosen; instead consider deeper issues that demand assembling data in order to arrive at a substantive ANALYTICAL conclusion about the topic being considered.

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO - B: 
 
In your journal, answer the following series of questions concerning your reactions to the topics listed in the table of contents in the two texts being utilized in the course, Conrad Totman's Japan Before Perry and Andrew Gordon's A Modern History of Japan. As you ponder your responses, you might want to thumb through the books themselves, reading introductions, prefaces and epilogues, examining indexes and considering the subtopics covered in each chapter.  

1. List a minimum of six topics listed in the table of contents (or subtopics considered within specific chapters) in these two books which interest you at first glance (chose three from each).
2. Which two of the above topics would you most like to investigate further on your own?
3. What specifically would you like to find out about your chosen topics?
4. For each of the two above topics, formulate at least three specific thesis statements or inquiry questions you might use to guide your explorations.

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO - C: 
 
Examine Karen Brazell's translation of The Confessions of Lady Nijo, Donald Keene's translation of Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu, Natsume Soseki's Kokoro and Nagatsuki Takashi's The Soil: A Portrait of Rural Life in Meiji Japan. Why read such books in a history course?  What do you think these examples of literature can tell you about Japanese history? How might each add to your understanding of the evolution of Japanese civilization and culture?  What interests you about the possibilities inherent in such an undertaking? 
  
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO - D: 
 
In your journal, answer the following series of questions concerning your reactions to the topics discussed in the lecture on Touchstones for Understanding Japan in historical perspective. 

1. What subject matter discussed in the lecture interested you most?  List a minimum of three ideas or topics.
2. What one notion discussed in the lecture would you most like to find out about in your future investigations of Japanese civilization and culture?

How will the insights derived from this lecture influence your future approach to the study of Japanese history?