For this week, I chose to read the graphic novel Maus. I learned about this book years ago during a history class, and have been interested in reading it ever since, due to a combination of a love for graphic novels and curiosity about this format for such a serious topic. I would use this book to connect students to what is going on in the world right now (the community aspect would be the global community) with the refugee crisis. At the end of the book, I would ask the students how they would react if they discovered a refugee family wanted to move into the house or apartment next to them. Would they welcome them? Would they be afraid? What if the child of the family went to the school? What if they experienced prejudice from their classmates? In the end, I would likely have the students write a letter to this refugee family, finding a way to explain their fears or excitement at them coming to live next door.
For this chapter, I chose to do some research on celadon, to better understand how it fit historically into Korean and Chinese market systems. It appears that, true to the novel, Korean celadon was prized in Imperial China as much as Chinese celadon. The techniques really were different enough to justify specifying where the pottery comes from. It turns out that a specific province of Korea was famous for inventing a technique that was not known in China, and therefore made these pieces of pottery highly valuable to Chinese royals. There is more information on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website . I also researched Korean expressions of respect, which were slightly discussed in this chapter and throughout the book, and many of those mentioned are still in practice to this day. For example, bowing is still a common form of respect, though shaking hands has also become more popular with the proliferation of Western culture. Eye contact between an inferior and superior is consi...
I have to find you the poem that my mentee used with I think this book. I was observing her when she rolled it out, and she had an audio of the poet speaking it....I wish I could remember the name here. I will make a note to look for it, and get back to you. She connected it to the refugee crisis too....she might have had a wordless book to go along with it.
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