Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea

[Lucelia]

Personal responses:
This book is based during World War II when Japan conquered Korea and forced Korean people assimilate to their culture. They were basically prisoners who couldn’t speak their own language. Koreans were even forced to change their names to Japanese names or face the consequence of being jailed. It was a story of a family that lived through the conquering and how they had to assimilate and were losing their own culture and customs.

Classroom applications: This book can be used for reading as a whole class to learn more about World War II from a historic perspective of what Korean people went through after they were conquered by Japan. I have come to realize that there are quite a few book we are reading in this class that connect somehow to the time period of World War II. This realization made me think that if there is a theme in Reading say for example World War II, students can actually read different books that deal with WWII and use different mediums to see what actually happened during WWII. Each book has its own perspective of what happened. Since we did not live during this time period, it is hard to get the whole picture of this era with only one book. This is why reading different books (perspectives) can help us see a bigger and more complete picture. We can compare and contrast books and show how one book counteract another book while in the process learning to be critical analysis. Of course the educator can also bring in other forms of mediums like documents, videos, music, poems, and letters if possible.

[Melissa]

Lucelia,

I agree with your point. A number of the books we are reading detail the suffering of people from occupied nations during WW II. The books I was assigned to read in school about the Holocaust concentrated on the genocide of the Jewish people. I feel that my knowledge of the historical period has been enriched by learning about the suffering of populations occupied countries. I'm not sure I ever knew Japan occupied Korea in WW II. The book is very well-written. I enjoyed reading it even though it was about a harrowing subject.