Hippocampus Religion Class Seems Too Clunky but Thinkfinity's a Winner

We're reading The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan in about six weeks. We usually look at Confuciansm how it is corrupted by Neo-Confucianism. We study Neo-Confucian sayings as a clue about the attitudes towards women that are embodied in those religions in Chinese Culture. "A woman king is like a hen crowing."

I gave the Hippocampus site a look, and noticed a religion site. Chinese religions. A lecture on "Confucius Say..."--maybe we could add this to the mix. When I tried it myselt, the quality seemed amaturish. The sound quality was low--you had to strain to pick up voices that went in and out. So, I decided, not for my kids.

Hippocampus doesn't have English lessons listed yet, nor did I see any history lessons that might help with Shakespeare or WWI or the Romantics in England. So, it seems that it's not a good fit for me.

A few weeks ago, I checked out Thinkfinity by trying out lessons for a book in the planning stages, All Quiet on the Western Front. I incorporated their lesson on irony at the end of the book into my plan. Students will use a modified version of it to write their own original ironic endings. More fun than an essay about irony.