RH.9-10.9. Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.
(Source:http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf)

Use Karen S. Kingsbury’s translation of “Sealed Off” in Chang’s collection of short stories Love in a Fallen City.

Warm-Up Activity (15 minutes)
Give students 10 minutes to do a silent journal entry on the following prompt:
A “microcosm” is “a community, place or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics or features of something much larger.” How could a New York City bus or subway car be a microcosm of New York? Or of the United States?

Have students do a “think-pair-share,” where they share their written responses with a student sitting next to them. Then, invite students to share with the whole class.

Introduction (5 minutes)
Introduce the story as a piece of literature that uses a tramcar as a microcosm of Shanghai in the 1940s. Contextualize the story by telling a little about Eileen Chang’s biography:

• Born in 1920, in the May 4th Era.
• Her great-grandfather was Li Hongchang—a Qing dynasty general and statesman who helped suppress the Taiping Rebellion and was an early leader of the self-strengthening movement.
• Chang’s mother was western-leaning and modern, and her father was an abusive opium addict. At one point, he confined her in his apartment for six months and denied her medical treatment when she was sick.
• Chang went to college in Hong Kong. She lived in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War and became a very popular published writer. She fled to the United States in 1955. Her writing enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in mainland China in the 1990s.

Group Reconstruction of a Text (5 minutes)
Call on students to summarize what happened in the story and to add to each others’ stories. This is a good way to refresh their memories and for students who didn’t read to get the main idea.

Group Read-Aloud (5 minutes)
Have students read a section of the book aloud. A different student can read each paragraph and pass it to the next person. A good passage to read aloud would be starting on p. 241 with “Cuiyuan took abuse at school, and she took abuse at home,” and ending on p. 243 with “Her body was like squeezed-out toothpaste; no shape at all.”

1. If the tramcar is a microcosm of Shanghai, then what do we know about Shanghai in the 1940s from this story? What do we know about China?
2. What makes this a modern story?
3. What do you make of Eileen Chang’s statement on p. 247 “They were in love”? Were they really? Did love mean the same thing to Cuiyuan and Zhongzhen?

Whole-Group Closing Discussion (10 minutes)
Discuss the questions as a whole group and help students clarify misunderstandings. Call on specific students who made insightful comments in small groups to share their thoughts with the whole class.

Exit Journal Entry (5 minutes)
“Choose one of the questions from the group discussion, and write a written response in your journal. This is how you will remember what you discussed, and how I will assess you.”