The Journey to the West: Volume I

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Presentation: The Cultural Impact of The Journey to the West”

In this activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of the cultural impact of The Journey to the West by creating a presentation tracing its influence on a particular work or form of cultural expression.

The Journey to the West has been adapted into films, plays, comics, television series, dances, and operas. It has been translated numerous times, is alluded to in hundreds of works, and has influenced manga, anime, and video games. In this activity, you will choose one cultural impact of The Journey to the West and create a presentation to share with your classmates.

Research and Gather Material

• Do some general research on the cultural impact of The Journey to the West. (You are not limited to any particular culture for this activity.)
• Choose either a specific work or a specific form of cultural expression to focus on.
• Do in-depth research on your area of focus. Be sure to keep track of sources for all borrowed material: Text, images, sounds, data, and so on.

Create a Presentation

• Create a presentation of 7 to 10 slides, using text and images to convey how The Journey to the West has impacted the work or form of cultural expression you have chosen.
• Include evidence of specific features of The Journey to the West—characters, events, language, and so on—that link this text to the impact you are presenting.
• Cite your sources in a format appropriate to a visual presentation.

Teaching Suggestion: Students are often uncertain about whether crowd-sourced encyclopedias such as Wikipedia are legitimate sources for academic assignments. If you think your students may be confused on this point, you might explain that a source like Wikipedia can be a great springboard for making decisions about what topic to research in more depth. Then, as they research a particular work or form of cultural expression, they can turn to the kinds of sources that are considered reputable in academics. If your students have not previously created presentations in your class, you may want to offer guidelines about appropriate images and the form of citation you would prefer. Presentations can be shared in class or posted to a class website. If students will view one another’s work online, you can increase audience accountability by asking students to complete a simple peer review form for each presentation they view.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students with visual impairments may not be able to complete this activity as written. You might ask these students to write an essay in lieu of a visual presentation.