CONSIDER ALL FOUR SECTIONS (A THROUGH D) IN THIS INITIAL SET OF JOURNAL ASSIGNMENTS IN A SERIES OF ENTRIES WRITTEN OVER A PERIOD OF DAYS, not all at one sitting.   
  
Do not label or number these entries as if answering a set of questions; instead compose a connected series of (dated) personal observations around the suggested topics and issues raised in the assignments.

Please submit the entire series of entries to the instructor NO LATER THAN Tuesdy, February 1, 2005.

You may mail your assignment to the instructor, Lee A. Makela, Department of History, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio 44115 or (preferably) email me your comments, either imbedding them within the message itself or as a Microsoft WORD .doc attachment. 
  
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE - A:  
  
In your journal, answer each of the questions listed below. The intention of this exercise is threefold:

to help you identify general interests you already possess,

to give you the opportunity to relate these general interests to the study of East Asian civilizations and cultures and --

to give the instructor an opportunity to know you better.

Please feel free to go beyond the questions posed to describe more fully what already interests you in general terms and how these general interests might be used to stimulate your intellectual inquiry into Chinese and Japanese civilization and culture.  

1. If you were required to conduct a formal presentation on any topic, the one you felt you knew best (not necessarily related at all to East Asia), what would the title (and general content) of that presentation be?  Who would be in your ideal audience?
   
   
2. If you were given the opportunity to meet with a group of people to discuss a common shared interest, describe the group with which you would choose to interact and the topics you might discuss together.
   
   
3. If you could teach anything you wanted to, what would the subject be?
   
   
4. How would you spend your time if ever you were awake, alone and well fed but had finished what you had to do?
   
   
5. How might you relate any one (or more) of the interests you have identified above to the study of East Asian civilization and culture (the subject matter of the seminar)? Your response to this question might at first seem to require a bit of a stretch, but use your imagination!

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE - B:  
  
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 East Asian civilization and culture 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 likely choose to investigate further on your own? What specifically would you like to find out about your chosen topic(s)?
   
   
3. 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 ONE - C:  
  
In your journal, answer the following series of questions concerning your reactions to the various texts being utilized in the seminar. 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 various chapters.

1. List a minimum of six topics listed in the table of contents (or subtopics considered within specific chapters) in these books which interest you at first glance.
   
   
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 ONE - D:  
  
Discuss the personal learning objectives and goals that motivated you to enroll in this seminar series. How do you think this series of journal assignments and the other seminar assignments might help you during the course of the seminar to accomplish your own personally-designed set of learning goals and objectives? In other words, why are you here and what do you hope to accomplish, and how can the seminar best help you achieve these goals?