Red Scarf Girl and the Cultural Revolution

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed reading your review of this book. I recently read some articles about this time period in China and how families were torn apart because of their allegiance to different thoughts, beliefs and leaders. One gentleman I read about turned his own mother over to the authorities and she was killed. He thought he was doing the right thing and honoring and supporting a government that he believed in. All these years later, he still feels great guilt for his actions but has resolved in his mind that his mother understands and has forgiven him- As a mother I believe she has too. I think this is a story for 6th graders to hear and I am interested in how you incorporated it into your classroom and what lesson plans you presented. I teach high school special education (I know you know that) and I think this is a book and story that my students would like and benefit from.
edited by tvancuren on 6/14/2016

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

The Red Scarf Girl by Ji­Li Jiang, is a novel that I’ve taught in my guided reading high level reading groups. I was teaching 6th grade at the time. This is a memoir written during the time of the Cultural Revolution when Chairman Mao came into power. It begins in the year 1966 when she was 12 years old. Ji­Li was one of the smartest students in her class, she was happy, her family was thriving and she was convinced she was going to have a great future in the Communist party. That year however is the year that Chairman Mao decided to start the Cultural Revolution. That was the point when everything began to fall apart. Ji­Li at first was on board with punishing the townspeople, at the hands of these committee members. At one point even her Aunt was being punished daily. When they began to go after her family she began to realize that this was not going to be good. Her family because of its past had been targeted as enemies or “Landlords”. They confiscated the things they owned and put her Father in prison. He was an actor and worked in the theater. At that point she began to realize that her family may not make it through this time. During this time she was assigned to work in the rice fields and then requested to work in the factories instead while still being required to go to school to be indoctrinated. After her friends persuaded her she switched back to the brutal work of the fields. Her mother and Grandmother needed to be taken care of. Still, she was talked to about ditching her family and becoming politically active by her friends and the people around her.After fainting one day in the fields she was called in and began to be questioned by the government concerning the theater where her Father worked. Her family even considered putting her younger sister up for adoption. Even when the author sat down to write this memoir she still did not hate Chairman Mao. They had all been brainwashed. A short time later another small group came in and the control of theater changed. All her family was released. They were together again, but their status held them back from doing much. She became a teacher and eventually moved to America. This is a great book to teach the Cultural Revolution.

[Anonymous]

I wanted to add a resource to this thread as opposed to starting another thread. I highly recommend that teachers subscribe to Education About Asia, a magazine published by the Association for Asian Studies. The most recent issue is titled, " Asia in AP, IB, and Undergraduate Honors Courses." The magazine is chalk full of ideas and curriculum for the classroom. There are also additional online goodies that come with the magazine subscription. This issue has an article and lesson ideas for ancient Chinese science and the teaching of physics.

[Author]

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