Message from kschumacher

[Anonymous]

I think I will show clips of The Joy Luck Club in my 7th grade Language Arts class. After reading the excerpt by Amy Tan in our Literature Book, I think it would be nice for the students to see, instead of simply read about, the Tan's amazing symbolism and themes of holding onto the past and harboring hope for the future.

The movie does a great job of capturing this symbolism, these themes, and the struggles and triumphs of being Chinese American. As a movie for my classroom, however, I am worried about the messages being lost in the confusion. Even if I were to show the whole movie (which I'm not) I would be afraid students would have trouble keeping the characters straight; this problems worsens knowing that I will simply be showing an excerpt. Therefore, I have decided to do some preteaching, where I will tell students about the main characters they will be coming across. We will create a graphic organizer of the major characters that students can refer to as they are watching. It will contain the following: four grandmothers, mothers, and daughters; a two sisters, and an American half-sister, June.