CONTEMPORARY JAPAN
IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
A SERIES OF JOURNAL ASSIGNMENTS
The
following series of four assignments is to be completed in journal form
and submitted for instructor evaluation on the specific dates assigned for
each individual portion.
Your completed journal will
be reviewed with the following criteria in mind:
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.
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
any one series of assignments at one sitting -- instead tell me (at various
intervals over the course of the coming semester) about what peaks your
interest about contemporary Japanese civilization and culture as you examine
the material assigned for the course and as you participate in the opening
series of lectures and discussions; then consider how those interests change
and evolve as you think about them over time.
In essence the assignments
posed below are meant to focus your attention on a particular stimulus,
a topic for your consideration; in each instance, I am more interested
in how that particular topic excites your interest in the broader subject
matter, contemporary Japanese civilization and culture. 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,
then, is designed 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
contemporary Japanese civilization and culture.
Approach the writing of your
journal with these criteria in mind and you should find the experience
serves you well.
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.
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JOURNAL
ASSIGNMENT ONE
This set of FOUR specific assignments is to be completed in journal form and submitted for instructor evaluation on Monday, January 24, 2000.
JOURNAL
ASSIGNMENT TWO
This series of assignments
is due for instructor consideration on Monday, February 7, 2000.
This series of assignments is due for instructor consideration on Friday, April 14, 2000. The assignments, however, should be completed as the course proceeds, not left until the last minute.
This assignment is due for instructor consideration on Wednesday, May 3, 2000.