JAPN 302: History of Japan
This course further develops advanced level Japanese through building and expanding knowledge of Japanese history as a dynamic, interrelated system and employs a variety of processes to identify, analyze and evaluate cultural themes, values and ideas. Students will demonstrate ability to accurately comprehend ideas across a range of historical content. Taught in Japanese.
Reflective Narrative
History of Japan is a culture course but also a course that stresses the mastery of our Japanese language skills. It is taught all in Japanese and the text as well as the workbook are completely in Japanese. For the duration of this class and any homework time, I am completely immersed in Japanese. I was able to practice my on-sight reading skills in Japanese, refamiliarize with kanji I had learned before and also find new words/kanji that are useful for expressing more advanced thought in Japanese. The history aspect of this class gave me a deeper understanding of many historical events that I already knew about and also showed me a great deal of historical events that I had topical knowledge of but took the information for granted. This course is taught entirely in Japanese, including questions for clarification to the teacher. Many concepts that were difficult to understand were explained in more simple Japanese as an attempt to maintain the immersion in Japanese language. I found this very useful because it forced my brain to imagine and learn concepts only in Japanese. Students in this class participated in discussion groups as well as leading chapter readings or comprehension questions. We had kanji quizzes each week, a midterm and a final. In addition to these assessments, we completed a final project chosen from a topic in the textbook, then we expanded the topic into an oral presentation with a powerpoint.
Example:
Final Presentation: Haiku Powerpoint
Final: Haiku Outline
Reflective Narrative
History of Japan is a culture course but also a course that stresses the mastery of our Japanese language skills. It is taught all in Japanese and the text as well as the workbook are completely in Japanese. For the duration of this class and any homework time, I am completely immersed in Japanese. I was able to practice my on-sight reading skills in Japanese, refamiliarize with kanji I had learned before and also find new words/kanji that are useful for expressing more advanced thought in Japanese. The history aspect of this class gave me a deeper understanding of many historical events that I already knew about and also showed me a great deal of historical events that I had topical knowledge of but took the information for granted. This course is taught entirely in Japanese, including questions for clarification to the teacher. Many concepts that were difficult to understand were explained in more simple Japanese as an attempt to maintain the immersion in Japanese language. I found this very useful because it forced my brain to imagine and learn concepts only in Japanese. Students in this class participated in discussion groups as well as leading chapter readings or comprehension questions. We had kanji quizzes each week, a midterm and a final. In addition to these assessments, we completed a final project chosen from a topic in the textbook, then we expanded the topic into an oral presentation with a powerpoint.
Example:
Final Presentation: Haiku Powerpoint
Final: Haiku Outline