Little Astronaut
A newborn rests her head
On the Earth of mother.
Everything else
Is outer space.
--J. Hope Stein
Embedded Files
Week 3
Class Ground Rules
Read all the assignments before class.
Keep yourself on mute unless called on.
Raise your hands electronically.
Focus your comments only on the question at hand rather than straying to other parts of the story.
Refrain from offering a review of the whole story or jumping to the end.
Try to support your comments by referring to details from the text.
Listen to and respond to others with respect.
READ (at least twice): Amy Tan - "Two Kinds," (from The Joy Luck Club, 1989, G.P. Putnam's Sons). PDF posted below.
A mother tries to make her daughter become a piano prodigy.
Think About:
The mother's aspirations for her daughter and what motivates them.
The daughter's changing feelings about becoming a prodigy.
The talent show and its repercussions.
The mother and adult daughter's interaction about the piano.
LISTEN to a short video about Tiger Moms
Click on the top right corner of the story to expand.
Amy Tan - Two Kinds.pdfPurely Optional - Listen to Amy Tan discuss The Joy Luck Club
Stills from the movie The Joy Luck Club
Purely Optional - Listen to Schumann's Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented
photo: Michael Short
Amy Tan Biography
Amy Tan Biography
Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a succession of twelve homes by the time she graduated from high school. At age 15, she lost her older brother and father to brain tumors. After this tragedy, her mother, fearing a curse, impulsively took Amy and her younger brother to Europe to see the world. After several missteps, the three wanderers settled in Montreux, Switzerland, where Amy fell in love, nearly eloped, played an unwitting role in the drug bust of friends, and still managed to graduate from high school one year early. Read more...
Link to Week 3 class recording: https://brandeis.zoom.us/rec/play/KSpBqXC6dwLu5d90MtqdtZAlSVFASIW5QUTr4hblfbry12tfIgNRzeJnhRlsUlAFQDAYKzWHypVfhDLt.9ROq8GI6dpjPDEiJ
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