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Middle School Chinese Department: Rendering the Memories —Grade 8 Native Chinese Activities

June 13, 2022

In June, with the warbler flying, summer quietly arrived, and another group of students ushered in their graduation moment. With the theme of “Rendering the Memories,” the eighth grade Chinese mother tongue teaching group launched a new themed activity for this special time. The activity was geared to enable the eighth grade graduates to better review the past three years at the end of their middle school life and relive those cherished memory fragments full of joys and sorrows, so they can better say goodbye to this precious time.

The activity was divided into different modules, and through the various content of the retrospective, we let students better recall the joy and beauty of the middle school life, face, accept and embrace those ups and downs.

Songs of Youth: Modern Poetry Creation

The first part of the activity involved the creation of modern poetry under the theme “Song of Youth.” In this section, students were free to choose the materials and the fragments that impressed them and present those in verse form. When the students in Grade 8 were introspecting about the past, they all had many words to express: some were sad, some were happy and satisfied, but most of them were nostalgic and grateful for the people, places, and things of this period. In the creation of their poems, the students not only applied various writing skills but also made people feel the rhythmic beauty of these enchanting hymns. More importantly, they tried to recall different contents so that students could convey complex emotions in the most sincere words, making each song a well preserved memory. Through a series of readings, the students completed the song of youth, and these beautiful moments were forever remembered and sealed.

Glory Days: Coming-of-Age Milestones

In addition to expressing their feelings about the past years based on words, the splicing of memory images was also one of the ways they recorded their moments. To enable the students to return to these moments when they turn over these papers in the future, the second part of the activity was to record the unforgettable deeds on the way to growing up around the theme of “Glory Days.” There were many warm and touching “firsts” in some of the students’ works, such as the first class performance at the art festival, the first isolation of the whole class under pandemic requirements, the first “building relocation,” and the first time they joined the school club and won a competition... These simple but extraordinary things together composed the students’ own “glorious days.”

Two Generations: Letters and Replies

If the life during the middle school years were compared to a wonderful journey, then the family must be the most loyal companion and the best witness of this journey. In the third part of the activity, the students were asked to recall the most important love given by their families in the three years. In order to make the students feel the importance of family companionship, they completed a letter and expressed their gratitude to their families in the form of dialogue. In this process, some students chose to write to their mothers; grateful for their care. Some wrote to their fathers, thanking them for the guidance to find their future. In addition to writing to their parents, some students also wrote letters of gratitude to the teachers who support and help them. Based on this activity, students gained better insight into the details that they might have overlooked in the past and gained new growth in gratitude.

Great People: Their Portraits

“Is there anyone in the past three years who are so amazing that you can’t forget?” To this question, many students answered yes. To better record these influential campus figures, the last part of the activity was entitled “Great Men,” with delicate words to depict the figures. In this part, students chose their friends, teachers, and those familiar figures on campus. They introduced these lovely people in their own words. Through sincere description, as well as a beautiful portrait with a warm smile, three years of middle school life were endowed with a different facade.

Last but not least, the teacher of the G8 Native Chinese Group asked the students to integrate their works, added “preface” and “postscript” to reveal their intentions and thoughts before and after the creation, and completed the production of the book “Rendering the Memories.” As the old saying goes, “What gets rare in life is a happy reunion,” and it’s expected the students of grade 8 can better bid farewell to the past three years while retaining their most beautiful youthful memories.

Written by｜Zhao Shuyi

Pictures by｜G8 Native Chinese Teachers and Students

Edited by｜Huang Shiyuan, Kristjan Butler