Reading Strategy Integration:

Original Lesson: Taught by Mr. Solinski at Marquette Senior

Cultural Geography

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------China’s One-Child Policy.

Objective: Teach facts of China’s one-child policy and have students formulate an ethical opinion about the policy in regards to several varying perceived benefits and several criticisms

PowerPoint: Run down of basic principles of One child policy and statistics:

·         Family Planning Policy

·         Implemented in 1979

·         250-400 million births have been prevented

·         Controversy

·                                  76% of Chinese population support the policy 

·         Exemptions

o   Nearly 64% of the population is exempt, most exemptions allow for a second child.

o   Rural couples

o   Ethnic minorities

o   Parents without siblings

·                         Son Preference

o   117:100  male to female ratio 

o   National Population and Family Planning Commission: “There will be 30 million more men than women in 2020”
Watch 2 videos of OCP

·                         Read and reflect

o   Read two articles

o   Write a reflection with your small groups.

Assessment
   The students will discuss the OCP with their groups, specifically they will call attention to the controversial issues in the articles that child had read. They will then compile a list of Pros and Cons. After they have had enough time to start building their lists, the students compile a list as a whole class, which the teacher can guide.

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Lesson Plan: Revised.

China’s One-Child Policy.

Objective: Teach facts of China’s one-child policy and have students formulate an ethical opinion about the policy in regards to several varying perceived benefits and several criticisms

PowerPoint: Run down of basic principles of One child policy and statistics:

·         Family Planning Policy

·         Implemented in 1979

·         250-400 million births have been prevented

·         Controversy

·                                  76% of Chinese population support the policy 

·         Exemptions

o   Nearly 64% of the population is exempt, most exemptions allow for a second child.

o   Rural couples

o   Ethnic minorities

o   Parents without siblings

·                         Son Preference

o   117:100  male to female ratio 

o   National Population and Family Planning Commission: “There will be 30 million more men than women in 2020”
Watch 2 videos of OCP 
      Hand out the anticipation guide. Point out to the students that the items on the guide are in sequential order. Also, model how to use the 'note' section at the bottom. provide an example of what would be an appropriate note to jot down.

·                         Read and reflect

o   Read two articles
          The teacher will hand out sticky notes to each student. The teacher will then explain and    model the entire process to the class.

o   Write a reflection with your small groups.

Assessment
   The students will discuss the OCP with their groups, specifically they will call attention to the controversial issues in the articles that child had read. They will then compile a list of Pros and Cons. After they have had enough time to start building their lists, the students compile a list as a whole class, which the teacher can guide.

This lesson was fairly well received by that students. That is to say, many of them were engaged in the videos that were shown, but when they were asked to read the articles, they were less engaged. Their attention could have been directed with the implication of reading strategies to parallel the texts of varying media. Most of the students seemed to find the topic intriguing because in terms of cultural relativism, the students were very shocked by the information presented.  


To enhance this lesson, I decided to put together an anticipation guide for the students to refer to while watching the videos of One-Child Policy. The strategy provides a brief background of the information for the students in order to peak interest in the material. The work sheet allows students to follow along while they read and confirm or deny the statement written on the worksheet. This allows students to maintain interest while they read and enabling them to comprehend and apply the reading.

Source: Fisher, D., Brozo, W. G., Frey, N., & Ivey, G. (2001). 50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy. Boston: Pearson.

One-Child Policy Anticipation Guide:

1)    In January 6, 2000, who was born in Beijing?_________

2)    What happened to the rural family who refused to give up their second child?___________

3)    Why did they want a second child?___________

4)    Did the Jung family in Beijing have a second child?_____________

a.     If so, how were they punished_____________

5)    What happened to the seond child of yooshu lin_____________

6)    How many children are born each day in China?______________

a.     What is the Male:Femal ratio?______________

7)    Does the Chinese government find the OCP to be a success?___________

8)    How many fewer children are in China today in the wake of the One-Child policy_____________

9)    How many people in China live on under $2 a day?__________________

10)                       How bad (numerically) is the gender imbalance in the most extreme areas of China?

Notes:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For the articles that the students were asked to read, their understanding of the text would have been enhanced with the Sticky Note Strategy while they are reading. The sticky note strategy is an easy and efficient means for the reader to evaluate the progress of their comprehension during a reading strategy. The student will begin reading, and as a student has a question or thought while reading they jot down their note and place it in their article where the thought originated.

Source- Robb, L. (2009). Reading Strategy Lessons for Science and Social Studies. New York: Scholastic.

Articles for Students to Read after watching videos:

China Sticking With One-Child Policy

By JIM YARDLEY

Published: March 11, 2008

BEIJING — China’s top population official said the country’s one-child-per-couple family planning policy would not change for at least another decade. The announcement refutes speculation that officials were contemplating adjustments to compensate for mounting demographic pressures.

The official, Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said China would not make any major changes to the overall family planning policy until roughly a decade from now, when an anticipated surge in births is expected to end.

“The current family planning policy, formed as a result of gradual changes in the past two decades, has proved compatible with national conditions,” Mr. Zhang said in a front-page interview published Monday in China Daily, the country’s official English-language newspaper.

“So it has to be kept unchanged at this time to ensure stable and balanced population growth.”

Mr. Zhang said that 200 million people would enter childbearing age during the next decade and that prematurely abandoning the one-child policy could add unwanted volatility to the birthrate.

“Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now,” he said. “It would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development.”

China, with more than 1.3 billion people, is the world’s most populous nation. For nearly three decades, it has enforced one of the world’s strictest family planning policies. Most urban couples are limited to a single child, while farmers are often allowed to have two. Critics say the policy is coercive and has led to numerous abuses, including forced abortions, which continue in some areas.

National family planning officials have tried to reduce the abuses, but local officials are still evaluated partly on how well they meet population goals. Supporters of the policy say it has kept population growth from reaching unsustainable levels. Government officials often say the policy has prevented roughly 400 million births, though some independent scholars and scientists cite a figure of around 250 million.

Today, China has a rapidly aging society that demographers warn could present significant problems. Already, the work force is defying the popular impression that the labor supply is endless. Factories have reported shortages of young workers in recent years. At the same time, the one-child policy is considered a contributing factor to a gender imbalance that has raised concerns that there may be too few women in the future.

Officials have tinkered with the policy over the years, but have resisted any sweeping changes. Speculation arose in recent weeks that some sort of deeper change might be coming. Last month, Zhao Baige, a vice minister in the national family planning commission, prompted a spate of news reports when she was quoted as saying that China was studying how it could move away from the one-child policy.

“We want incrementally to have this change,” Ms. Zhao said, according to Reuters. “I cannot answer at what time or how, but this has become a big issue among decision makers.”

A day later, a strong denial was issued in the state-run Beijing News under the headline, “News of abandoning the one-child policy is inconsistent with the facts.”

But the uncertainty quickly deepened. Wu Jianmin, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body to the national legislature, suggested at a news conference that changes were being considered.

“The one-child policy was the only choice we had, given the conditions when we initiated the policy,” Mr. Wu said.

“When designing a policy,” he noted, “we need to take into consideration the reality. So as things develop, there might be some changes to the policy, and relevant departments are considering this.”

Mr. Zhang’s comments on Monday in China Daily seemed to put an end to any debate over timing. He told the newspaper that quickly abandoning the policy would create many new problems.

China Daily reported that the population was growing by up to 17 million people a year.

 China will outlaw selective abortions

BEIJING — China is planning to make selective abortions of female fetuses illegal as a way to close the widening gap between the number of boys and girls in the country, the official Xinhua News Agency said.  “The government takes it as an urgent task to correct the gender imbalance of newborns,” Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, was quoted as saying Thursday by Xinhua.

Traditionally, sons have been more valued as a way for the family name to continue and as a means for parents to be cared for as they get older.

Government figures show that 119 boys are born in China for every 100 girls — a gap blamed largely on parents who abort baby girls to try again for a boy under the country’s one-child policy.

Zhang said the commission would begin drafting revisions to the criminal law “to effectively ban fetus gender detection and selective abortion other than for legitimate medical purposes.”

The central government hopes to even out the imbalance by 2010, Xinhua said.

Tougher enforcement of current rules 
Currently, family planning laws ban selective abortion, but Xinhua said criminalizing the act would make it more of a deterrent. The report did not specify how offenders would be punished.

Authorities have investigated 3,605 selective abortion cases in the past two years, Xinhua said, citing government figures.

The United States has criticized Beijing’s strict controls over birth, saying the regulations that limit most urban couples to one child encouraged forced abortions.

Under the Chinese policy, parents who violate the regulations can be fined, lose their jobs or undergo forced sterilization.

But China has rejected the complaints and said the regulations are necessary for the country’s economic health.

On Thursday, China welcomed its 1.3 billionth citizen — a baby boy — in a blaze of publicity that also focused on the 30-year-old one-child policy.

Without the policy, the government said, China would have at least 200 million more mouths to feed, straining its resources.

Xinhua said China had also in recent years helped fight discrimination against girls by launching a national program to exempt them from paying school fees.

“Families with just one daughter enjoy housing, employment, education and welfare privileges,” Xinhua said.

Under strong U.S. pressure, Beijing in 2002 enacted a national law aimed at standardizing birth-control policies and reducing corruption and coercion.

The U.S. government has also withheld money from the U.N. Population Fund for the past three years because the agency supports the Beijing government’s family planning program.

  

Family planning has effectively checked the trend of over-rapid population growth.

In the 15 years from the founding of the People's Republic to 1964, China's population increased from 500 million to 700 million, and on average 7.5 years were needed for the population to increase by 100 million. The 1964-74 period was one of high-speed growth where China's population increased from 700 million to 900 million in ten years, and the time needed for the population to increase by 100 million was shortened to five years. In 1973, China began to promote family planning throughout the country. China's population increased from 900 million to 1.2 billion in the period from 1973 to February 1995, and the time needed for the population to increase by 100 million was again lengthened to around seven years. China has been through the third post-1949 peak period of births from the beginning of the 1990s, the community of women in their prime of fertility (aged 20 to 29) has exceeded 100 million each year on average, and such a huge child-bearing community has a great birth potential still. But, because China's current population and family planning programmes and policies have won understanding and support from the people, the fertility level of the population has steadily reduced and the trend of overrapid population growth has been effectively checked along with the country's economic and social development. Compared with 1970, in 1994 the birth rate dropped from 33.43 per thousand to 17.7 per thousand; the natural growth rate, from 25.83 per thousand to 11.21 per thousand; and the total fertility rate of women, from 5.81 to around 2. Now, China's urban population has basically accomplished the change-over to the population reproduction pattern characterized by low birth rate, low death rate and low growth; and the rural population is currently in this process of change-over. According to statistics supplied by the United Nations, China's population growth rate has already been markedly lower than the average level of other developing countries. According to calculation by experts, if China had not implemented family planning but had all along kept the birth rate at the level of the early 1970s, its population would possibly have passed the 1.5 billion mark by now. Over the past two decades and more, China's promotion of family planning has created a population environment conducive to reform and opening to the outside world and socioeconomic development as well as the population conditions for safeguarding the survival and development of Chin

China considers ending one-child policy

China could scrap its one-child policy, a senior family planning official said today, acknowledging concerns about its effects in creating an ageing society and gender gap.

The controversial rules, which restrict most urban families to a single child and rural households to two, were introduced in the 1970s in a bid to bring the country's vast population – the world's largest – from soaring out of control and outstripping limited resources.

But today the vice-minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission said officials were carrying out detailed examination of the environmental, social and other implications of changing the law.

Asked if they were planning to axe the one-child policy, Zhao Baige told reporters in Beijing that there was a "very serious process" of study.

"I cannot answer at what time or how [we will decide], but this has really become a big issue among decision makers," she said.

"We want to have a transition from control to a slowdown [relaxation], incrementally. The attitude is to do the studies, to consider it responsibly."

Although the population has yet to peak – it is expected to rise from 1.3 billion now to 1.5 billion in 2033 - the birth rate has dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Rising prosperity in recent years has also helped to change attitudes. Zhao said 60% of young women now say they want a maximum of two children.

While there is no prospect of controls being thrown out overnight, changes could be rolled out region-by-region, or introduced for particular kinds of households.

Concessions already exist allowing people in their second marriage to have another baby if their spouse has none, and permitting couples without any siblings to have two children.

But officials are nervous of announcing potential changes in the rules lest people pre-empt them. Discussions about relaxations of the law in 1983 are believed to have led to the birth of an extra 30 million babies that year.

Zhao also acknowledged the problems posed by the longstanding cultural preference for boys and warned that in future the use of ultrasound to predict the sex of a child – and terminate female fetuses – could become "a big issue" for China.

It already has 118 male births for every 100 female; way above the global "normal" ratio of between 103 and 107 boys for every 100 girls.

The government is rolling out a scheme to encourage families to value girls by introducing special social and economic benefits for them.

It is developing an increasingly sophisticated set of policies around population control, focusing not just on the total number of citizens but also issues such as age distribution. It is also attempting to address the underlying causes of excess births and the preference for males, and to promote its policies more effectively.

"In the 70s it was always the same language – 'One child is best'. Now it is about giving information on contraception," said Zhao.

The enforcement system is far less punitive than in the 80s and early 90s, but families that exceed the official limits face fines or "compensation fees". These can be punitive for poorer families – which can face the confiscation of property if they fail to pay - but almost insignificant for the wealthy.

That has spawned resentment that a good income can even affect a household's ability to have children.

The commission also said that, in a case that became an international cause célèbre, two officials had been detained for three to six months, and one official sacked, after women in Shandong province were forced to have abortions and sterilisations. According to some reports, up to 7,000 women were affected.

However, Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist who tried to launch legal actions on behalf of the victims, is still imprisoned.

  

Aging Population

 

DOES China have enough people? The question might seem absurd. The country has long been famous both for having the world’s largest population and for having taken draconian measures to restrain its growth. Though many people, Chinese and outsiders alike, have looked aghast at the brutal and coercive excesses of the one-child policy, there has also often been a grudging acknowledgment that China needed to do something to keep its vast numbers in check.

But new census figures bolster claims made in the past few years that China is suffering from a demographic problem of a different sort: too low a birth rate. The latest numbers, released on April 28th and based on the nationwide census conducted last year, show a total population for mainland China of 1.34 billion. They also reveal a steep decline in the average annual population growth rate, down to 0.57% in 2000-10, half the rate of 1.07% in the previous decade. The data imply that the total fertility rate, which is the number of children a woman of child-bearing age can expect to have, on average, during her lifetime, may now be just 1.4, far below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, which eventually leads to the population stabilizing.

Slower growth is matched by a dramatic ageing of the population. People above the age of 60 now represent 13.3% of the total, up from 10.3% in 2000 (see chart). In the same period, those under the age of 14 declined from 23% to 17%. A continuation of these trends will place ever greater burdens on the working young who must support their elderly kin, as well as on government-run pension and health-care systems. China’s great “demographic dividend” (a rising share of working-age adults) is almost over.

 Victims of China's one-child policy find hope

30 Jul 2000

FIVE young girls, found starving and close to death amid the rubbish tips of Beijing, have been given a new life thanks to the love and compassion of a poor couple in the Chinese capital.

The girls were abandoned as babies - victims of China's one-child policy coupled with a traditional preference for sons. Each had been dumped to die by parents who either wanted their only child to be a boy or did not want the burden of a disfigured or disabled infant.

They were saved by Lao Ye and his wife Chen Rong, who are bringing up the girls as their daughters. The couple, who have two sons of their own, were able to get round the one-child policy because of lax supervision by authorities in slum and migrant-dominated suburbs.

Yet while they have saved the lives of the five babies they found, thousands more die after being dumped. Many abandoned children are sent to orphanages where the mortality rate is often high. China has been relaxing its strict one-child policy is recent years but many people, particularly in urban areas, are still at risk of penalties if they have a second child.

This can pressure poorer mothers into abandoning unwanted babies; ultra-sound scan and abortion of female fetuses is not uncommon among the more affluent classes. The country's former family planning minister, Peng Peiyun, has called for something to be done about the babies left to die, government officials continue to ignore the scandal.

  

One-Child Policy, China Crime Rise Linked by Study

November 19, 2007

Communist China's one-child policy is to blame for as much as 38% of the recent rapid rise in crime in that country, a new research report finds.

An associate professor of economics at Columbia University, Lena Edlund, has found that a 1% increase in the ratio of males to females equates to an increase in violent and property crime of as much as 6%, "suggesting that male sex ratios may account for 28% to 38% of the rise in crime." Ms. Edlund, who studied crime rates in China between 1988 and 2004, discussed her findings at a conference earlier this month at New York University.

China's crime rate nearly doubled between 1992 and 2004. Meanwhile, the number of males has increased as the one-child policy has led more families to keep only boys. As of 2004, there were 1.19 males for every female in China, compared with just 1.04 males for every female in 1970, before the one-child policy was instituted. Theorists have long held that when males begin to outnumber females in a community, criminal behavior is likely to increase. Establishing a causal connection between the two has been difficult, however, and Ms. Edlund's research may be one of the first to illustrate such a link.


Reflection: Reading strategies don't have to be a time consumer. An anticipation guide does not add any time to the lesson. It merely refines the attention of the student while they are reading, or in the case of this lesson, while they are watching a video. Also, with the sticky notes strategy, time is saved. When the students are trying to recall information from their texts or trying to recall what questions they had while they were reading, they can easily find the source of that information, and what they were thinking the first time they read the text, which will help a student find a deeper meaning from the text.