Using Tale of Genji in the Classroom

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  • November 10, 2007 at 9:42 am #5709
    Rob_Hugo@PortNW
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    I found Professor Miyake's presentation very interesting and was trying to think of ways to use it in my classroom. I think using a manga version of Genji would certainly be more accessible to middle school students, but I think a lot was lost in that version. The story was a little sparse, especially compared to the complete version. Any suggestions?

    Also, as Professor Miyake was talking about how people were expected to extemporaneously create poetry, I at first thought it was odd, but then I realized that young people do it all the time now, only it's called "freestyling." I think my students could definitely relate to that!

    November 13, 2007 at 10:11 am #34266
    Anonymous
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    I do agree that using Manga in the classroom would be another way to encourage students to
    become creative writers. You can also use manga to help english learners to better understand what is onomatopeia. I think that they will enjoy coming up with different sounds that would be portrayed by the scene drawn in the picture.

    November 16, 2007 at 4:34 am #34267
    Anonymous
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    I really appreciated all the resources that were passed around about The Tale of Genji. I definitely need the cartoon film version. Since it is a 7th grade standard for World History I am always looking for new ways to explain it's importance. It's obvious that having a woman write a novel and have it accepted during the Middle Ages is remarkable. Beyond that, I discussed the topic with my fellow 7th grade history teachers and found that our students have a hard time understanding the idea of "court" and courtiers as something different than a legal court with which they are more familiar. Preparing storyboards is a very valuable technique in getting students to process history "stories". History is after all a "story well told". We recently prepared the story of Pope Gregory forcing Henry the IV to stand in the snow for three days to beg forgiveness. Soon we will be using story boards to tell the story of Mohammed and the beginnings of Islam. I will definitely be able to use the story of Genji to talk about the life of the court and the art and literature that typically emerges from groups when groups have transcended survival issues. There seems to be a trend in history that great civilizations produce great art and great literature when they have the time and money for great art and literature. What interest me about 'The Tale of Genji" and Manga today is that there is a distinct women's history that is very unique to Japan and is highly respected.

    December 10, 2007 at 5:19 am #34268
    Anonymous
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    After Ray's presentation on Saturday and his comment about Genji being one of the only books specifically mentioned in the standards, I started thinking about how a teacher would incorporate the novel into their class. I teach 4th grade, and so, even the most mild versions are a little to risque for my students, but I did think back to some of the excerpts that we've read in class. We're in the middle of a study of figurative language. My students have learned about similie, metaphor, idioms, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia. Today we talked about starting a huge tree map of all the figurative language and have them write down quotes from the stories we're reading as a class or that they're reading independently. They'd be able to write the qoute on a postit and categorize it by figure of speech. Genji has such rich language, that I could see using parts of it to teach figurative language, theme, or other literary structures. Maybe students don't read the racy parts, or you only give them so much background, but you copy the paragraphs or parts that teach literary techniques.

    I was also thinking you could give them a paragraph from the story, without giving them background, and ask them to write the story leading up to that part, or to pick from where that paragraph left off.

    December 10, 2007 at 8:59 am #34269
    Anonymous
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    "I was also thinking you could give them a paragraph from the story, without giving them background, and ask them to write the story leading up to that part, or to pick from where that paragraph left off."

    I tried this with the students last week, and it turned out surprisingly well. I cut the story off at the most exciting part, and then had the kids write the rest. Then we read what really happened, and there were a handful of students who guessed the ending correctly. Other students insisted that their endings were better!

    December 17, 2007 at 11:38 am #34270
    Anonymous
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    I wonder how this story may be historically connected to the position of women in older Japanese society where women were dominant and occupied a position of leadership and ownership. I saw it as a most unfortunate result that the Japanese threw, literally, their ancient matriarchal practice out into the ocean and adopted the Western (British) social structure without any critical analysis of what they were getting and they were leaving behind. I believe it was overly short-sighted for the japanese to so conduct themselves in as much as they were led by the yearning to be in a position of physical dominance as opposed to cultural and social integrity, stability, and propriety. We are now beginning to experience the negative impacts of such disastrous catapulting of a social morality as shown by the development of ultra-individualism, loss of identity, high rate of suicide and rebellious reactions engaged in by university students at major universities in Japan.

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