Submitted by Xu Zhang

Objectives:

Content:
Students will:

• Understand the layout of Beijing's urban landscape in history (SiHeYuan, HuTong, and Cheng);
• Talk about the modern public landscape in China and preservation of the past;
• Talk about modern sculptures and mural paintings as a form of public art in Beijing.

Cultural:
Students will:

• Understand the construction philosophy of SiHeYuan, HuTong, and Cheng;
• Understand the influences of other cultures on Beijing's modern landscape;
• Understand the combined influence of the traditional Chinese and Western world-view on Beijing's present-day public arts.

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will:

• Use the following words and phrases: see attachment, Word List Lesson 4, List 1
• Use the following sentence structures: see attachment, Grammar List Lesson 4, List 1

1. Measure structures: number +measure words +an entity
2. Sentence pattern
3. "Have" sentence
4. Word formation
5. (Review) comparison structure

Language: Content Compatible
Students will:

• Use the academic style of Chinese used by Chinese students in a content class.

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:

Time Frame:

1.5 hours

Materials Needed:

• Pictures and drawings of the city landscape
• Reading passages

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Context:
By now the students have learned the geography and history of the city, had a knowledge of some of the unique Chinese perspectives through cultural comparisons, and practiced on a number of Chinese words, phrases, and sentence patterns.

Pre-task: Review activity.
Teacher puts on the board/through the overhead a picture of the ancient city of Beijing and asks students to volunteer the answers to the following question. (1) What are the characteristics of the old city of Beijing, seen from the picture and based on what you learned in the last lesson? (2) What unique philosophies are underlying beneath the design of the old city? Since the students have learned this in the last lesson, this activity should be very short and effective to refresh their memories.

Task: Examine the inside of the old city.
Set-up: The students are given some pictures of SiHeYuan (and HuTong) and some pictures taken from houses in the students' own city in the U.S. They are to discuss the following questions in pairs: (1) what characteristics do houses (and neighborhoods) in U.S. cities have? (2) What characteristics do these SiHeYuan (and neighborhoods) have? (3) Compare these U.S. and traditional Chinese houses and make a list of the differences. After the pair work, each pair is to join another to compare their list and discuss on any differences. They are to keep their list and find out whether what they have found coincide with facts in the passages that they are to read.

During task:
Jigsaw reading in comparison with the students' discussion results and to learn more. The students are divided into two equal-number groups. Students in group A read passage A (SiHeYuan), and those in group B read passage B (HuTong (the neighborhood of SiHeYuan)). Group A will answer the following questions:

(1) Why are traditional houses in Beijing called SiHeYuan?
(2) How many types of SiHeYuan are there in terms of size? What are they?
(3) What has influenced the design of SiHeYuan?
(4) Who are the people living in SiHeYuan?

Students in group B will answer the following questions:

(1) What is the author's worry when speaking of HuTong?
(2) According to the author, what is the origin of the name "HuTong"?
(3) What is the relationship between HuTong and wells?
(4) In the article, is "some scholars (you de xue zhe) the same person as "the writer (bi zhe)"?

All students are to write down very briefly the answers to each question. After the students have read and answered the questions, students are to form pairs with one from group A and the other from group B. They are to:

(1) tell each other what they have just read from their perspective passages.
(2) Make a guess of the relationship between SiHeYuan and HuTong.
(3) Compare what they have got from the article with the results from their previous discussion, find out anything they think is the most interesting.After the pair work, the teacher discusses the answers with the whole class. Teacher calls on as many pairs as time permits, and each pair is to answer one of the questions. Teacher can also have those who read passage A answer the questions for passage B to check the effectiveness of the students' communication. This whole activity should be done in Chinese. At the end of this activity, the teacher collects the students' answer sheet for after class evaluation.

Post-task:
Understand the modern public landscape of the city. The students are given pictures (and drawings) of the modern landscape of the city -- buildings, streets, sculptures, highways, etc. of various kinds. Firstly they are to sort out these pictures in pairs according to styles into different categories. Secondly they are to discuss why they categorize them the way they do by thinking about the cultural origins and/or underlying philosophies of the styles, and write them down on a piece of paper. [Possible answers are: traditional Chinese Daoism and mythology for the traditional Chinese architecture, collectivism, order, Soviet influence, Western (American) influence, etc.]. After the pair work, each pair is to join another, compare their answers and discuss on any differences they may have. They are also to choose a representative to speak for their groups. Then the teacher selects as may representatives as possible to share their responses with the whole class. Everybody else is free to add, challenge, or offer a unique perspective. After the discussion, the teacher collects the students' answer sheet for evaluation.

This activity can also be done to students at a lower level by making them group the pictures and match the cultural origins given by the teachers with the pictures. For students of more advanced level, they may be asked to write a report in class by using the "fast-writing" technique, and have their peers review it for them before they turn in the compositions to the teacher.

The students are also asked to write their own reflections on what they learned so far in this course as a homework assignment.

Cultural Extensions: The students are encouraged to visit various web sites to find out the cultural characteristics of traditional/classic Chinese royal gardens and write a report on it. They may also compare this to the architectural styles of modern Chinese public gardens.

Assessment:

Embedded in the tasks. The teacher asks the students to keep everything they have done as they will be creating a portfolio for performance analysis.

References and Resources:

Pictures:
Please see my Photo Album. Open the link and click on "Urban Public Landscape".
More photos can be found in the attachment.

SiHeYuan:
http://www.oldbj.com/bjhutong/siheyuan/siheyuan00011.htm
http://www.oldbj.com/bjhutong/siheyuan/siheyuan00012.htm

HuTong:
http://www.oldbj.com/bjhutong/bjhutong/hutong0001.htm

Pictures of Beijing with both old and new:
http://www.oldbj.com/bjlife/dindonseebj/dindonseebj4.htm
http://www.oldbj.com/bjlife/dindonseebj/dindonseebj10.htm

Pictures of Beijing's HuTong:
http://www.oldbj.com/bjhutong/bjhutong.htm
The pictures can be found together with the various articles at this address.

Young, J.T. (1999). Contemporary public art in China: A photographic tour. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press.
Teachers are encouraged to find the book and make use of its pictures.

Marlene
Audio files on Urban public landscape: on folder "new_bj_urbanPublicLandscape"
Including 6 audio files: "bj_monolog_UPlandscape", and "bj_urbanPublicLandscape" 1-5, and a word doc "Description Urban Public Landsc"

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

Word List Lesson 4.PDF (list 1)
Grammar List Lesson 4.PDF (List 1)
beijinglibrary.jpg
Housing.jpg
Housing2.jpg
Leisure5.jpg
Leisure6.jpg
Leisure7.jpg
Newbuild.jpg
newbuild2.jpg
newhousing.jpg
Oldnew.jpg
Oldnew2.jpg
Oldnew3.jpg
Oldnew4.jpg
Oldnew5.jpg
Oldnew6.jpg
restaurant.jpg
restaurant2.jpg
supermarket.jpg
bike1.jpg
bike2.jpg

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota