HIS 272H,
CULTURAL INTERACTIONS: JAPAN

The following series of specific assignments is to be completed in journal form (the number of assignments completed to be determined by the individual student according to agreed upon course evaluation guidelines) and submitted for instructor evaluation on the date specified in the course schedule for each individual assignment.

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

• the degree to which the completed journal assignment reflects mastery of assigned reading and/or research tasks;
• 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.

These exercises has been designed to provide an informal forum within which to demonstrate your mastery of the course content -- paticularly, lecture and discussion materials, assigned readings and independent outside investigations of topics of personal interest -- as well as your ability to organize your thoughts effectively and convincingly.

As long as the above criteria are addressed, there is no required page length requirement for your journal submissions. If you can convince me that you have dealt with the assigned topic possibilities over a period of time (not in a single entry dated the night before the assignment is due) "intellegently", thoroughly, with insight and thoughtfully in a couple of pages, all the better; on the other hand, pages and pages of unrelated ramblings which fail to consider the suggested topics will earn no higher an evaluation. An average assignment might well run five or six pages and comprise a dated series of entries composed over a week or more indicative of the process at work in your research, reading, evaluation and/or analytical efforts.

Your submitted journal assignments may be recorded in a single bound set of dated, hand written entries or submitted assignment by assignment, either in handwritten or word-processed format.

Although effective written communication is essential, the journal WILL NOT be evaluated with respect to "correct" English and/or punctuation -- the ideas (and the organization thereof) , in this instance, are the most important ingredients, 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 pr topics suggested for your consideration. Therefore do not merely "answer the questions" or "follow the directions" indicated; do not number your responses as if completing a "fill-in-the-blanks" exercise; instead date each to show when they were written.

For example, with respect to the opening set of assignments for Journal Assignment One, do not try to complete the entire series of entries at one sitting -- instead tell me (in dated entries spaced over several days) about what peaks your interest about Japan and the general topic of "cultural interactions" as you examine the initial set of assigned readings and as you attend the opening series of classes attempting to define instructional and course evaluation formats.

Your goal throughout the coming semester is to convince the instructor that you have completed the assigned reading for the course, that you have mastered the content of the course lectures and that you have taken the initiative to follow up on your identified personal interests in the subject matter of the course. Your ability to organize your insights in an effective and convincing manner should also be demonstrated.

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 stimulus excites your interest in the broader subject matter, the mature of "cultural interactions" involving Japan. 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, as long as you write about what the assignment asks you to consider and organize your thoughts coherently and with adequate supporting examples and illustrations.

This overall journal assignment grows out of a conviction that learning is an active (not a passive) process; that learning involves 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, then present your insights in an organized, coherent and supported analysis.

Approach the writing of your journal with these criteria in mind and you should find the experience serves both to enlarge your interest in Japan and the topic of "cultural interactions" as a worthy subject of intellectual inquiry.

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE
(due Thursday, January 24, 2008)

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO
(due Tuesday, February 12, 2008)

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT THREE
(due Tuesday, March 4, 2008)

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FOUR
(due Thursday, March 27, 2008)

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FIVE
(due Tuesday, April 8, 2008)

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT SIX
(due Tuesday, April 8, 2008)