Spring Grass: A “Performed Culture” Approach to Advanced Mandarin is a set of advanced Chinese learning materials based on Chinese writer Qiu Shanshan’s novel Spring Grass and a 33-episode TV series of the same name, which aims to improve learners’ oral and written communication skills.

There are 28 units in this textbook, and each unit has 5 sections, including listening, speaking, reading, writing in various languages and cultural activities. This design is mainly aimed at an advanced Chinese course of about 30 weeks in a school year, with 5 sections in a unit for 5 class hours.

The first 14 units of study focus on listening and speaking, with an emphasis on developing students’ oral narrative skills. Teaching materials are mainly based on TV dramas, supplemented by novels. The focus of the last 14 units gradually changes from spoken to written language. Novel is the main source for students to obtain the plot of the story. Reading ability and written narrative ability are the focuses of this stage.

The five sections in each unit correspond to five learning sessions, including: (1) questions and answers between the teacher and students for TV drama plots or novel chapters; (2) retelling activities based on story plots from the perspective of different characters; (3) in-depth discussions of literary techniques used in the novel and other topics; (4) discussions of cultural topics led by students; (5) writing tasks in different literary styles.

In addition, in the last 14 units which focus on developing students’ written narrative skills, the textbook also adds the sixth activity: adaptation and performance of the television version of Spring Grass. Through these well-designed teaching activities, this textbook aims to help learners to continuously optimize the learning process and master the learning strategies for reading the original Chinese novels.