The Woman Warrior and My Freshman English

The Woman Warrior and My Freshman English

This paper depicts the unique experience of teaching Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior in a Freshman English class at a university in Taiwan. The instructor originally thought that her students would love Kingston's "No Name Woman" and "White Tigers." Nevertheless, her students' responses turned out to be rather contrary to what she had expected. Lots of them did not like Kingston's works and even suggested that they should be removed from the syllabus. However, the instructor discovered that their dislike of Kingston's works helped to turn her usually quiet Taiwanese students into outspoken “Frank Chins" who criticized Kingston for her lack of authenticity. Since the ultimate goals of the Freshman English class are to improve students' English proficiency, and to encourage them to form their own critical responses, the instructor believed that the capability of Kingston's works to elicit critical responses from her Taiwanese students was not unsatisfactory.