JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT A: 

Critique the position adopted by the personality you portrayed in your specific CHINALINE Conference. Discuss the validity of his / her insights and note the biases (ideological, cultural, political) impacting on his / her experience and/or perspective on the events central to your particular conference. Examine his / her conclusions in light of the larger historical overview provided by the course. Place his / her observations in the larger debate with respect particularly to contrasting points of view. 

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT B: 

June 4, 2004, marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Incident at Tiananmen Square. The students involved in the Pro-Democracy Movement in 1989 had organized initially, they claimed, to mark the seventieth anniversary of the May 4th Incident (1919). Recently the Chinese government has attempted to focus attention on the 150th anniversary of the Opium War as a warning against the polluting effects of western influence on Chinese life and culture. Harrison Salisbury in his book entitled The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng claims both these Chinese leaders modeled themselves on past imperial figures. Both sides in the current political struggle continue to quote the Thought of Mao Tse-tung to justify their actions. 

Discuss these and other conscious uses of the past in modern Chinese life to justify contemporary political positions, actions and activities. What accounts for the attention paid these past events and movements in contemporary Chinese life? How do current needs fit into the interpretive bias with which these events are presented to the public? How important and valuable are such reinterpretations in swaying public opinion? How do the contemporary uses of history mirror or contrast with the uses of history in the traditional period? 

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT C: 

In the end, does history matter? Analyze how this course, in its consideration of the four subperiods (Imperial China, Republican China, Mao's China and China Since 1976) into which the modern history of China has been divided, ties together into a coherent record of evolutionary change over time. Discuss ways in which earlier Chinese history maintains a hold on the ways in which the Chinese view and interpret the present. 

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT D: 

As the last entry in your journal, review your journal entries to this point, select and list those interests which most peaked your curiosity initially, reflect on how this course helped satisfy those interests (and others that emerged as the course proceeded) and discuss how you yourself might go about learning more about these particular interests (or others) even after the course is completed. 

Evaluate the educational worth of the entire exercise: Was the assignment worth completing? Why/why not? Were the instructions and expectations for the assignment clear? What insights into the educational experience did you gain as a result of completing the assignment? How have your perceptions of the subject matter covered in the course changed? Has your level of interest in the subject of modern Chinese civilization and culture? If so, how? In what ways would you modify future such assignments?

Compare your experience of writing a personal journal with that of participating in the group-based Internet Discussions available on the course web site.  Which did you prefer?  Why?  What values (if any) did each have independent of the other? ...in tandem?  In what ways would you modify future such assignments?