Reading Diary: Zhen Hun/Guardian Vol 1 by Priest

I don't remember how far my circle here has spread, but just in case one of you isn't familiar with the Chinese drama Guardian, here is a synopsis of the novel on which the show was based, from Seven Seas, which is publishing the English translations of the novel:

Zhao Yunlan heads up a covert division of the Ministry of Public Security that deals with the strange and unusual, blurring the line between the mortal realm and the Netherworld. His cocky, casual attitude conceals both a sharp mind and an arsenal of mystical tools and arcane knowledge.


While investigating a gruesome death at a local university, Zhao Yunlan crosses paths with the reserved Professor Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan is immediately intrigued by Shen Wei’s good looks and intense gaze, and the attraction between them is immediate and powerful, even as Shen Wei tries to keep his distance. Shen Wei and his secrets are a puzzle Zhao Yunlan feels compelled to solve as mysterious circumstances throw them together, and their connection becomes impossible to deny.

I am waaaaaaaay behind the crowd with this book. I didn't read any fan translations, and I waited to get the physical copy of this translation (as well as needing to find the brain space in the midst of stress from work and being sick for like two months). But I really loved the novel! It's VERY different from the drama. And look, as much as I love the drama (it was my introduction to Chinese media), I can admit -- the show is pretty bad. It suffered from a low budget and crazy rewrites to appease Chinese censors. But what the drama did have was ELECTRIC performances by Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu in the roles of Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. I liked having these two in mind as I read.

The novel is well-written and has a nice pacing. I do miss some of the POV shifts the drama gave us. We spend very little time with Guo Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi, for example. The drama gives them life which makes them a fun secondary ship. I do think the novel gives us less of the electricity between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, at least in volume one. Those two did so much with simple glances in the series. They very much understood the assignment and brought novel subtext to the surface.

Ultimately, I have to see the novel and the drama the way I look at the novel versus the movie version Howl's Moving Castle. They are very different experiences of the story. And I am really looking forward to volume two.

Teaching Diary 28: "The Cheese Touch"

One thing I am constantly looking for tips on how to improve is calling on students during discussions. I learned about "wait time" as an undergrad, but that deals with students who are reluctant to speak in class. What I find challenging is making sure all students have the opportunity to speak when there are two or three students who are always eager to share. I appreciate those students -- I was one of those students! -- because wait time is excruciating and I have limited time to get on with things.

I try to balance the need to teach kids how to share and speak with the understanding that speaking up can be terrifying. For this reason, I rarely do "popcorn" reading -- kids read aloud and choose the next student who will read. I will use my Magical Popsicle Sticks often -- I write the students' names on popsicle sticks, put the sticks in a cup, and pull out sticks at random. However, I often build in a reward component (stickers or a draw from the prize bag) and I have a "phone a friend" option. I don't think any of my students from the last decade or so has actually seen Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? but they get the gist. They can ask someone for help.

My latest idea is inflicting The Cheese Touch on students. If you're not familiar with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the cheese touch is a playground curse, akin to being It in a game of tag. It is not something kids want. Once in a while, if I feel things have gotten too calm, I will tap someone on the shoulder, tell them they have the Cheese Touch, cross my fingers, and step back as the chaos spreads. I applied this method to sharing and class discussions partly to acknowledge that many students don't actually want to share, so we can call it a curse. The other reason is that I had some stickers that were wedges of cheese.

What I did was I took two cheese stickers and put them on articles I was going to hand out to the class. For this unit, students would read articles and then take notes related to the unit theme. For this most recent article, I told the kiddos that whoever ended up with the Cheese Touch would have to share at the beginning of the next class. Cue groans and sighs. But I think it worked well. The two students who ended up with the Cheese Touch are fairly shy, and this prepared them ahead of time, letting them know specifically that they would be sharing ONE thing. Now, I know this could cause some anxiety. I plan to mix in the Cheese Touch with a variety of other options because kids DO need to practice being able to speak up (and practice speaking English). And one of the kiddos stricken with the Cheese Touch didn't finish his homework, so we practiced Wait Time while he scanned his article. But I think that continuing this method can train the students to prepare ahead of time.

I introduced a variation today by passing out a variety of animal stickers and then calling on people who had yellow stickers or kitty stickers. It was less successful, but this is mostly because we rushed through the assignment to get to the discussion. And in the end, everyone got a sticker, which is always nice. I plan to refine this method and add it to my repertoire of discussion tools.