PrefaceThis unit is designed for Chinese 10th grade students to develop their awareness of being cosmopolitan. The first part of this unit is asking the students to seek the similarities and differences of cultures between China and America through a writing workshop. Based on the process of learning the similarities and differences, students will be guided to learn how to treat similar and different cultures with a cosmopolitan outlook.
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Similarities and DifferencesChina is one of the world's four ancient civilizations, while the United States only has more than 200 years of history. However, there are still some similarities of cultures between two countries. Additionally, as Chinese students have to learn English since they were very young, 10th grade students can communicate with foreigners frequently and are more or less familiar with American culture. This is also the reason why I ask the students to seek the similarities and differences of cultural traditions between China and America.
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New MediaUndoubtedly, this is a rapidly changing world and the development of new media has been the main force of accelerating the trend of globalization in human society in recent decades. Thus, I hope to connect social media with teaching: on the one hand, to develop students’ awareness of being cosmopolitan by experiencing the cultural similarities and differences on their own through the communication with people from different countries. On the other hand, it is an effective way to arouse students’ interest and enthusiasm in learning since they can discuss with different individuals, can get more reading materials and find more audiences for their articles. In order to deep their understanding of cosmopolitanism and globalization, reading materials and videos would be useful.
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Writing WorkshopWith regard to the writing class, writing depends on a series of complex processes including group discussion, brainstorming, gathering various materials, analysis, peer review, and so on forth. Moreover, writing is also a process of thinking and rethinking, so I hope the students can deeply think about this issue through the process of writing. Taking that an alive and vital writing workshop can help students develop their writing effectively into consideration, I decide to create a writing workshop.
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