An Orchid in Bloom

[Gerlinde Goschi]

I’ll be able  to use the stories by You Jin in many of my lessons.  I love the positive messages within the stories as young students as well as older ones are able to relate to these.  I would bring the morals of stories like An Orchid in Bloom during carpet time in my class.  For example, in this story, the teacher goes out of her way to help Lan Hua,a girl who uses vulgar language in class and breaks the rules.  This is a very common situation for many teachers. Lan Hua’s teacher goes out of her way to put her in a leadership position. This causes a transformation in Lan Hua and she doesn’t use vulgar language or breaks the rules anymore.  Instead of reading a story,I would retell An Orchid in Bloom to my younger students and ask them what they learned?