Session #5 - March 16 (morning), Jennifer Jung-Kim

[Dan Thalkar]

Professor Jung-Kim provided us with a ton of great resources, but there are a few that I'm particularly excited about. DBQs are great opportunities for students to develop their textual analysis skills while also learning about different perspectives and cultures. As such, the DBQ resources are good to have on hand and can be worked into different units of study. 

I also enjoyed the "Shakespeare's Sister" article. This is a great addition to any study of women's rights throughout history, and is particularly timely for March. 

Lastly, the Korea creation myth provided is short and clear. Creation myths are always fascinating glimpses into what cultures value and believe to be true about themselves. Using this in a unit comparing creation myths, and then asking students to write their own, would also be an activity allowing for strong connections, engagement, and rigor. 

[Dennis O'Connell]

I appreciated getting to know more about the history of the Korean peninsula and the Kingdoms which jostled for power over time.  Like many of the other educators, I especially grabbed onto the idea of doing Sijo poetry.  I think it would be interesting to learn more about Japan and Korea, then compare and contrast Haiku poetry to Sijo poetry.  I could ask students to write one of each style of poetry, and then have them write an opinion piece on which structure they preferred.  Additionally from this session, I liked the idea of teaching my students some Korean characters from the internet.  Perhaps they could learn some Japanese characters also so we can add these to our two types of poetry.  Hey...while we are at it, perhaps we better find an example of Chinese poetry.  Any ideas on a "style" that comes from China?

[Scott Craig]

This session and all the resources given were fantastic. The document that listed the various resources is invaluable in finding primary source materials to teach about Korea. I love that it contains a variety of resources, not just printed text but videos, etc. I really enjoyed that Professor Jung-Kim really focused on ways we can incorporate the material into teaching our students. The poetry activity was fun and educational. 

[Ricardo Reyes]

Professor Jung-Kim's inclusion and discussion on Kichung Kim's article, Ho Nansorhon and "Shakespeare's Sister"  deliberated over Virginia Woolf's seminal essay of feminist literary criticism in her key work, A Room of One's Own. Kichung Kim extends Woolf's 1929 essay on the educational, social, and financial disadvantages women have faced throughout history on the topic of women and fiction. The  K. Kim article draws parallels with V. Woolf's fictional characterization of Shakespeare's sister and her 16th century existence which contains scarcity of facts regarding the life and work of individual women living in the sixteenth century, be it England or Korea. Even into the first part of the 20th century, a woman must have "money and a room of one's own if she is to write fiction." As Woolf writes a woman living in the sixteenth-century England "could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband." Woolf conjectures in her essay "what would have happened, had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister called Judith." Woolf surmises that the conditions and odds were deadset against a woman pursuing a stitch of creative writing. K. Kim compares and contrasts living conditions for women in sixteenth-century Korea--a society rigidly patriarchal and hierarchical--which appears to have been similar to those of the same time period for English women. K Kim asserts despite all the obstacles placed in the path of a woman's pursuit of learning and literature, a number of women not only became learned but also produced significant works in both the Korean alphabet and the Chinese classical language. Of these extraordinary, even "odd or eccentric," women who went against the norms was more due to their status as privileged due to either birth or circumstances. A learned environment was a common theme in a  household of scholars who were allowed to learn alongside their borthers. K. Kim draws upon the most important of these women, Ho Nansorhon (1563-1589). She was the sister of two prominent literary men of the period. V. Woolf built the case that Shakespeare's fictional sister would  have been unable to get anywhere in the London theatrical world despite her innate poetic gifts and burning ambition. K. Kim asserts that Ho Nansorhon would have nonetheless paralleld Shakespeare's sister Ho Nansorhon would have been unable to overcome, to borrow Woolf's words, the tragedy of a "woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century." Nansorhon's life had been lit up with literary accomplishment's , it was also darkened by the tragedy of a poetically gifted woman born in the wrong time and the wrong place. Her short life of 26 years was able to produce meritous poems. It came to mind that two 17th century women, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, of New Spain and Artemisia Gentileschi of Florence, Italy encountered harsh treatment in striving to pursue their creative and intellectual talents. Examining these three women would be a tremendous exercise for a world history class in the trials and tribulations of their exceptional life stories and bodies of work. 

 

[Tiffany Chang]

I usually teach the elements of a story using fairy tales, and I use Cinderella as a main example. It would be interesting to see how students can compare and contrast Cinderella stories of different cultures.

I appreciated the Sijo aspect of the lecture. Since we use Time For Kids magazines to keep up with current events, I might ask them to come up with their own Sijo to summarize what they read. Here was mine from the lecture:

In just two weeks left, Spring vacation will commence 

Ready to leave the contaminated classroom of germs, smelly children, and ungraded papers 

The break is near until a jury duty notice comes in the mail. 

 

Since the 5th grade curriculum involves the U.S. colonies, I would ask the students to compare how religion affected the 13 colonies and how Buddhism/Catholocism influenced Korea. 

 

 

[Linda Gonzales Diaz]

 The resources provided for this week's readings are excellent! I especially love the poetry slam and the many different maps and color photographs that accompany the readings. I think that I might print these out and laminate them for longevity for use in the classroom. 

However, by far my favorite reading was that of Ho Nansorhon, the poet born in the 16th century.  It is both, a fascinating and heartbreaking story of the reality of the time for women. This tale depicts a bittersweet story of another woman being born with the right gifts and talents but in the wrong century. I found it refreshing that her story even made it into the history of 16th century Korea.  I think the credit for that goes to her loving older  brother who mentored her and loved her dearly. He supported her literary gifts and mentored her despite it being frowned upon by the male dominated society of the time. She was born into a wealthy family and she was loved and cared for. My interpretation of the reading is that she was accepted by her family in spite of her love of literature which was contrary to the beliefs an customs of the time. After marrying and having children, she began losing the protection she was offered while living in her family home. It seems clear to me that she married some average bureacrat wannabe with no real upward mobility, because according to the text he never climbed the wrungs of the bureacratic system he was employed by.  His mediocrity was made even more pronounced by his wife's natural and effortless literary superiority. This made her a target of her husband and her in-laws. Plus, her children died while they were young, preventing her from fulfilling her wifely duty of raising an heir for her husband. I can only imagine the level of frustration and lack of fulfillment she felt not only as a wife and mother but as a person.  The same coping mechanism she used during her times of sorrow was the same activity that was frowned upon. Still, it didn't stop her from setting her emotions to poetry. Like any successful woman within her field having to deal with haters, she was no different.  During her time, while she was alive and long after, there have been many instances of men trying to discredit her literary accomplishments simply because they cannot stand for being upstaged by a woman making him look bad just by existing and being herself (My Feminism is showing). Unfortunately, so many of her poetry was lost throughout time and at the moment of her death. Many of her poems were destroyed when she was put to rest. Very few remain today, still they tell the story of a talented woman trying to get through life and the sorrows and tragedies it brings. Her poems are vividly descriptive, beautiful and somber.

Here are some links that tell a little more about her life and her poems, check them out:

http://www.columbia.edu/~sek2114/content/intro.html

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2880246

https://spectrallyre.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/nansorhon-ho-white-orchid-poet-of-sighs/

 

[Christine Moguel]

This is yet another example for the type of art form that was so defining about east asian culture- that we can discover with our students, poetry.  I already mentioned a lesson I was going to enage my students in with regards to poetry.  Sijo style, becasue is extra simplified format and structure might be an easier task for some of my students that have lower expressive abilities.  My students amaze me in that they might say very little one to two words relating to a specific topic, however, they are extremely poignant word choices pertaining to the topic at hand.  I think this style of poetry will suit these students.  They have the ability to express themselves in many areas using few words.  This is brilliant!

[Christine Moguel]

Lucky numebr ten.     Extremely interesting findings Brenda.  Very clearly delineated injunctions/rules/mandates.  

[Christine Moguel]

COming from an art history background, I looked this portion of the lecture.  Teaching a lesson on comparing and contrasting artifacts - that possibly look similar in materials used (clay), motifs painted (geometric designs and some figures) and daily uses for ( cooking, collecting water) with other ancient cultures in the different continents.  You can then move on to compare and contrast what we use TODAY in these same areas (cooking, collecting water etc).  Making a timeline of when these ancient artifacts were dated is also a great cross curriculum idea for a lesson that can help students learn history, Math, Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts.  Yay!

[Kim Leng]

Wow!  I’m very impressed with the Peabody Essex Museum’s A Teacher’s Sourcebook for Korean Art & Culture.  In just 35 pages, it managed to pack so much information that is very organized, educational, and visually pleasing. Korea has had two dynasties that are both over 400 years.  The Goryeo for 474 years and the Joseon for 518 years! I had no idea that Korea is the 15^th most spoken languages in the world! And now with the explosion of Kpop, I wonder if more people will learn to speak the language. 

One of my favorite sections in the sourcebook is  “Symbolism-Embodied Wishes and Hopes.”  I love the idea that so much can be said in using a set of images with connected meanings.  For example, peonies symbolizes “wealth, honor, happiness, fertility, martial bliss, spring.”  There’s an image of a bridal robe on page ten filled with many images and peonies are one of the flowers represented.

I think students will enjoy looking at some Korean art with a focus on looking for images that symbolizes something else altogether. 

[Kim Leng]

I collaborated with an English teacher on the sijo.  We used this website as reference: http://sejongculturalsociety.org/writing/current/sijo.php.  We introduced the form for poetry month and broke down the three lines as shown here: http://sejongculturalsociety.org/writing/current/resources/sijo_guide.php.

We read Yun Seondo’s sijo and then read some student winning entries from previous years: http://sejongculturalsociety.org/writing/past/2018/winnerssijo.php.

Example: excerpt from "Song of my five friends"

Yun Seondo (1587-1671)

You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine. (2-6-4-4)

The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade. (2-4-4-6)

Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask? (2-5, 5-3)

It helped tremendously for students to read previous students’ examples. I noticed that they initially struggled with how to start the sijo...especially trying to get the exact syllables.  It's helpful for them to just write their ideas down and cut out the syllables later.  We required that they all write a sijo, but the submission to the contest was optional.

[Salbador Gonzalez]

I enoyed being introduced to korean poetry in the form of sijo poems. I will have students get in groups and choose a sport, action or movie they can break down and explain in a sijo poem while also describing the words in the poem with body movements, gestures or body signs. Although I did enjoy learning about the history of Korea and the differences it has with Japan and China, my favorite part was learning about how to create a sijo poem and being able to teach it immediately to my students. It was great to learn about all the Korean art available through the resources that break down what the animals, colors and symbols overall mean. Simple to read and share to students to use as a resource in understanding Korean culture from religion and symbolism. 

[Heidi Kwalk]

 I was delighted to learn about sijo--Korean traditional form of poem--from Professor Jung-Kim. I taught my students about this form of poetry. I used some poems that won the competition on the website as samples. ( http://sejongculturalsociety.org/writing/current/resources/sijo_links.php ) I also needed to do a mini-lesson about what a "twist" in the last line might look like in a poem. They happily worked hard, especially after seeing the monetary prizes for the winners. Unfortunately, there is one category for grade 12 and under, which meant my students had to compete with the high schoolers. No winners from class this year but I intend to continue teaching my students about this poem. Students are familiar with haiku but sijo lent more challenge for the students and provided fun while working to write in a "twist" in the last line. 

[Amy Chen]

In a building tall over the campus

A class is held in an air conditioned classroom

Many educators are typing and writing away

Gaining ideas to bring back to their schools

The clock ticks on toward lunch time

Ideas become ponderings about food

 

[Heidi Kwalk]

Another good example of  "twist" in the last line! I hope you don't mind me using this as a model for the mini lesson on "twist." My students really enjoyed working on the "twist" part of sijo. 

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