Unit Abstract:

Using Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and supplemental primary source documents, students will become acquainted with Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism and how these factors influence Chinese worldview and lifestyle. As students read the novel, they will witness how generational differences and the influence of American ideals create family conflicts for the novel’s major characters. Students will demonstrate their final understandings of the novel’s central conflicts and themes by creating a collage or multi-media art piece that represents the cultural conflicts and progression toward majority within Jing mei, the novel’s protagonist.