Helpful hints for the summer assignment:
The book There WILL be unfamiliar words in this book. Some will be in Chinese, some in English. For the English ones, get a good dictionary and keep it within arm’s reach as you read. When you find an “unknown word,” drop everything and look it up! With the Chinese words, it’s a little tougher. It’s really hard to remember stuff about names you can’t pronounce or artifacts that you can’t picture. You should get online and do some research as you read. See the list of China Websites for help with this. You’ll do much better reading when you can hear and picture things in your head. Yeah, I know it takes time, but that’s the breaks. Real learning requires some effort. Whenever you come across something unfamiliar, look it up!
Spelling As you research online, you’ll notice that some words are spelled differently. That’s OK. There are several different systems for changing Chinese characters into English letters. For example, Mao Tse-tung and Mao Zedong are the same person. (Say them out loud & it helps.) However, be careful and check out the dates/facts to make sure it is the same person. For example, Emperor Wu and Empress Wu are not the same person and Empress Fu is someone else again. You’d know that if you looked at the dates of their lives and the facts about them. Emperor Wu didn’t like Buddhism and Empress Wu did. Facts like that will help you decide if you’ve got the right person. They lived in different years too.
Dates That brings us to another problem. Sometimes dates disagree. Sometimes they are approximate. Different historians think different things.
Different historians thinking different things As you know, two people can often be confronted with the same information and yet make very different inferences. (“It was your fault!” “No it was your fault!” You get the idea.) Historians are NOTORIOUS for this. As you read this book, Dr. Roberts tries to include BOTH SIDES of the argument. He’ll say things like “Marxist historians say…” and then “Western historians say…” His intention there is to present all sides of the argument and then you’re supposed to make up your own mind. You might need more research to do that, or you might just be OK with the idea that the jury’s still out on that one. Not everything in history is clear-cut and already decided. Get used to that idea, because it won’t be going away.
The questions First, if you don’t understand a question, email and ask! OK, get a dictionary and look up the words first, but then email and ask. Second, these aren’t the kind of questions you can just look up the answers and copy down the rest of the sentence after the boldface word. You are supposed to read the whole section, THINK ABOUT IT, and then answer IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Some teachers will even MARK IT WRONG if you just copy out of the book. Use your own brain! I know it’s summer, but sheesh! You’ll need that brain for WHAP, so it might as well start working out now.
Definitions Each chapter has some words you’ll need to define as part of the questions assignment. Sometimes Dr. Roberts just assumes you know what they mean in his book. Sometimes he explains, but more often than not you’ll need to look in a dictionary or online for more info on these words. Again, be sure to write your answers in YOUR OWN WORDS.
Still confused? Email your instructor for help! Also, if you want to talk about the book with other students and maybe even teachers, we’ve created a online discussion list that you can sign up for at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pldwhap
Only Dunbar students will be allowed to sign up, so you don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself in front of the world’s foremost authority on the Qin Dynasty or anything like that. It’s just us PLD people and we’re all friends, right?! Email Mrs. Williams at mpw@qx.net if you are having trouble signing up for the group. h