• This is not the only course in which you are enrolled. In fact it is assumed each student is typically taking a twelve semester hour course load, is employed twenty hours per week, and has significant social and family obligations beyond the university and academic community.
   
• Regular and consistent course attendance and participation is a basic core requirement. Students whose usual personal schedules preclude on-time arrivals and for whom regular departures must occur prior to the scheduled conclusion of class time are encouraged to find a more appropriately scheduled course.
   
• As a four credit course, each classroom hour is expected to be combined with three hours of preparatory reading, writing and reflection, requiring a commitment of twelve hours weekly (as part of an assumed total of thirty-six hours of weekly academic involvement for a fulltime student taking twelve credits per semester). 

• Unlike other courses you might have taken in the past, this course of study is not oriented towards the more-or-less passive acquisition and mastery of a set body of information as outlined by a specific text or in instructor-defined lecture materials.
    
  Instead the course of study opens a subject matter area -- the history, civilization and culture of Japan -- within the context of a "learning community".  
    
  In this setting students are expected to work actively to define personally-defined interests and to explore them adequately using the ways and means established by the course structure -- assigned reading, independent research, written quizzes and essays, written and oral discussion, formal lectures, video and film presentations, role-playing exercises. 

Students will not be expected nor required to march as part of a single group in lock step towards a predefined set of goals. Instead each will be asked to define personal learning objectives, to chart an independent course towards their achievement and to demonstrate mastery of the general subject matter of the course in a variety of ways to the satisfaction of the instructor. If you are unwilling -- or unable -- to undertake this self-motivated, independently-directed, individually - monitored, active approach to learning, you might be better off in an alternative course offering utilizing a more compatible and comfortable educational setting.

• As an upper division History Department offering, this course assumes students have taken advantage of their earlier fourteen years of schooling to acquire the essential academic skills needed to assure success
  
  Specifically these skills include an ability to read a variety of materials with comprehension and understanding, to write clear and accurate prose, to structure written and oral communication in an appropriately organized and documented fashion and to participate willingly and profitably in oral and written discussion. The course provides an opportunity to hone these skills but not to acquire them.
  
  If any of these essential skills are particularly weak, you must be prepared to devote extra time and effort to their remediation in order to accomplish fully what the course requires of you.

• Access to email and the world wide web -- as well as a basic level of computer literacy -- also is assumed.
  
  Most students already possess word processing skills (or know someone who does). Furthermore every enrolled student at CSU has an assigned email address (usually [given name initial].[family name] @ popmail.csuohio.edu); the restricted course materials portion of the web site also features an internal email system making possible direct contact with the instructor and fellow students enrolled in this course.
  
  On-campus labs, the university library and many other Cleveland area libraries have public access computers available with Internet connections. If you own (or have access to) a personal computer with a modem, you can gain free access to CSU computers by contacting the Office for Computer Facilities on the eleventh floor of Rhodes Tower.
    
  If, however, these facilities are inconvenient or inadequate to meet your own personal needs and/or schedule, please consider the impact these circumstances might have on your ability to meet course expectations and requirements and take steps accordingly.

• All upper division courses in the Department of History are mandated to assign a minimum of 1200 pages of reading material and to require significant work in the form of research essays, journals, examination responses and/or other forms of written communication.
  
• This specific course furthermore assumes an ability to undertake independent research on a subject of personal interest related to the specific content of the course.
  
  As a result you should be prepared (with the support and aid of the instructor as needed and required) to identify an appropriate subject matter, demonstrate the existence of sufficient specifically-applicable materials (books, articles, internet web sites) to justify your investigation, assemble a significantly varied supporting bibliography of consulted sources, and prepare an appropriately annotated analytical essay discussing the application of the descriptive results of your research effort to themes developed in the course itself.

As this set of assumptions and standards indicates, while this course of study does not demand or expect any prior knowledge of Japanese history, civilization or culture, it has been built on the premise that the student undertaking it is equipped adequately with the skills necessary both to acquire this knowledge base and to put it to the test of analysis and evaluation. If you meet this profile and are willing to commit yourself actively to the achievement of the stated course objectives, welcome aboard! If not, you might more profitably look elsewhere for the educational challenge you seek.

SYLLABUS: INTRODUCTION | ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS | OBJECTIVES |   REQUIREMENTS | EVALUATION CRITERIA