Short thread: Finished my Modern China survey syllabus: I am not posting it publicly but will share w/anyone gearing up to teach such a class remotely fall quarter or starting in Jan, if you DM me and provide an email or email me, some of the language or format may be useful

I always hate syllabus preparation, finding it hard to strike a balance between providing students w/enough clear info to make an informed decision about taking it & know what to expect AND preserving space for calling audibles, improvising, as I feel classes always should evolve

In this case, the process is more complex than ever, though, given that I am teaching a class on China from 1800 to 1949, which will deal with sensitive subjects (as many basic topics in the Qing era are) & students will take it from all over--and it won't be in real time...

For the class, I'm going to mix a lot of different sorts of presentations, short recorded (no visuals) low tech Q&As with other specialists, some clips of documentary films, some of @tsmullaney's skilfully produced short YouTube clips, some ragged videos I'll do...

I am aware that I can be more experimental due to seniority, but do feel some degree of experimentation is what sets a class that is being offered remotely apart from an online from inception class; not feeling there's a safe way to have discussion sessions is the major challenge

The one ambitious thing I hope to try, which might not work, is: record an alternative narration for some short doc clips, have students watch footage listening to me, then rewatch listening to the original, then let me know via writing or 1 to 1 conversation what they thought

Ending this thread (might do another mid-quarter)--it's a real challenge to even imagine how a class focusing on debates over interpreting China's past can work at this moment; why my thread on my other class (a seminar on historical storytelling) was more coherent & confident

Final note, after saying the thread was over; I don't usually assign a book I wrote or edited by am using The Illustrated History of Modern China for this; one plus is that I will record conversations with some of the wonderful authors of book chapter to play for the class