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Drama – Chinese students step up English skills
I asked a Chinese professor at the university if a foreigner has ever taught Western drama to college seniors. He said he had never heard of it. A check on Google reveals nothing. I believe I am the first, which is quite an honor. This may be the result of students clamoring for more than basic English and literature to further sharpen their skills.
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The Government-Issued Literature Textbook
I describe the government-issued anthology textbook for Chinese Students. It is good, but has the obvious deficiency of containing only snippets of the greater works. A story by Steinbeck, for example, has only one chapter. So this is just one reason why I began the semester with an allegorical novel about following your dreams.
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Will Chinese Students One Day Appreciate Thoreau?
With the fast pace of growth in China and its emphasis on modernism, I wonder if my students will one day come to appreciate Thoreau’s ideals, especially his love of nature and his concern for the environment.
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Understanding Thoreau
In this literature class I help Chinese university students decipher passages in Thoreau’s essay, “Reading,” pointing out that it may take multiple visits to his works — a journey over a span of years — to gain more understanding. I also answer a student’s question into why Thoreau thought reading the classics, preferably in the original Greek and Roman, was so important.
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Thoreau: His Life and Times
In this literature class I explore Thoreau by delving into his perspective on life and his motivation for choosing a spartan lifestyle, despite having a Harvard education. I am surprised by the brilliance of one Chinese student’s penetrating question about Thoreau — one that I had never heard before. The whole class works on an answer!
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Drama Week 1: Suspended Disbelief
This is the first day of drama class. I enter the classroom posing as a doctor, wearing a white lab coat, surgical cap and stethoscope around my neck– all borrowed from a medical student at the university. For this mini-drama, I carry my Medical Terminology textbook and introduce myself as “Doctor Matt”.