Persepolis+by+Kwong+Wing+Yan

ED/EN 3051B Teaching English in the Intermediate Senior Division Choosing Texts for Teaching – Part A Student name: Kwong Wing Yan Rachel Student Number: 212210

Book title: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Author: Marjane Satrapi

__Synopsis__ “Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” was written by Marjane Satrapi, it is a graphic novel about the author’s childhood at the time of Islamic Revolution in Iran. The graphic is not only a memoir of the author’s childhood life, but it contains the moral and mental development of the author in her early life, so it could also be regarded as a Bildungsroman.

Marjane was the granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors and the graphic novel focuses on the psychological development and struggles about the cultural understanding. Since her parents brought up Marjane with Western culture at home, that made her feel confused with the Iranian culture and customs. This stroke her to have realization of the conflicts of the two cultures and she knew she had to suffer to understand in her adolescence.

__What grade level/course I would teach the text__ There is no doubt that it would be more suitable to teach the text in senior grades because the graphic novel contains various issues which requires students to have sufficient prior knowledge and skills to understand the text, especially for the students in Hong Kong. First of all, most of them are not familiar with the political situation in the Middle East, so it is critical for students have basic knowledge on the historical and cultural background of the novel. Second, since the novel focuses on the psychological growth of Marjane, students need to be psychologically prepared themselves to understand the hardship that the protagonist faced with. Therefore, I choose to teach the text on Grade 11 students.

Although it is a graphical novel, it is suitable to be used in teaching reading and writing in English lesson. The use of graphical novel can motivate students to be more involved because students could grasp the ideas more easily with the aid of the graphics and it is new to students in traditional English teaching classroom context. Also, students in Hong Kong are not very familiar with the genre of memoir or Bildingsroman, the use of the text provides chances for students to know more. The text could be taught with other course called “Liberal Studies”. In the high school curriculum, Liberal Studies is one of the core subjects. According to the Education Bureau (retrieved from this link: http://334.edb.hkedcity.net/doc/eng/ls_final_e_070508.pdf), Liberal Studies aims at enhancing students’ understanding about various perspectives on perennial and contemporary issues in different contexts and to be critical thinkers. Therefore, the studying of the text would help students to achieve these goals.

__The main ideas/issues/teaching points in the text__ In “Persephosis: The Story of a Childhood”, there are lots of issues and themes such as social, topical, cultural and textual themes that students need to learn in the text. Students can apply social and cultural knowledge in Liberal Studies and they can also learn topical and textual issues by applying English language knowledge. Also, students are able to apply their critical thinking and analytical skills, which suits the strands of goals in English curriculum; and they can try to link what Marjane faced with and think about her identity problems in her childhood.

(a) Social themes - Political reforms and revolutions in Islamic Revolution - How people’s life affected under the social differentiation

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(b) Cultural themes <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- How Marjane struggled between the Iranian culture and American culture <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- How people’s relationships affected by Iranian culture

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(c) Topical themes <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- The factors and effects of Islamic Revolution <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- The historical background of Islamic Revolution and Iranian culture

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(d) Textual themes <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Genre (memoir and Bildungromans) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Narrative (Marjanes as the first person to tell the story of her childhood) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Interpretation of the text by combining the text and visual aids (as a graphic novel)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__The issues/challenges confronted when teaching the text__ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">First and foremost, as most of the Hong Kong students are not very familiar with the Iranian culture and history, it is essential to provide students with sufficient prior knowledge before reading the graphic novel. In order to solve the problem, I would first give students some handouts about brief introduction about the history and basic information of Islamic Revolution; and I would also play some video clips of Islamic Revolution to help students to imagine the situation that Marjane faced with in her childhood. With the prior knowledge, students are then be able to understand the values and attitudes of Iranian culture and politic situation in the graphic novel.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Second, students usually read graphic novels in spare time for leisure, but they may not truly understand the themes and issues in the text. In order to let students know how to interpret the story from the visual aids in the graphic novel, I would play some selected scenes from the animated film of the graphic novel. This can also help to arouse students’ interests in reading it. Third, another important issue is Marjane’s psychological struggles about her identities in gender roles and culture; it is critical to have discussions with students to know their thoughts. It is possible to remind them the similar situation that Hong Kong people faced in the past. Because of the influence of British colonialism, Hong Kong people had identity problems after the handover in 1997; they were confused about their culture. Therefore, having discussions with students is vital.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__The possible assignment/activity I could use__ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">By reading the graphic novel, students can learn the issues and themes in Liberal Studies, students can also apply English language skills by having the activities in class. In the three-year senior secondary curriculum set by the Education Bureau (retrieved from this link: http://334.edb.hkedcity.net/doc/eng/eng_lang_final.pdf), students should learn with greater connection between English Language and other subjects; they should also [|learn English] in three strands namely interpersonal, knowledge and experience. Students are expected to learn English with nine generic skills and values and attitudes with other skills.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The following activity is organized to achieved the above-mentioned goals. After watching the video clips of Islamic Revolution and Iranian culture, I would explain some scenes of the graphic novel and demonstrate to students how to interpret the text. In the activity, students have to work in groups of four to five. They are given the selected scenes from the graphic novel; they need to interpret the story and they are required to write a short narrative about the given texts. After that, they have to present to the whole class and they can choose to present in the form of drama or oral presentation.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the activity, students have chance to achieve learning with interpersonal strand since they can express their views and thoughts in the discussions with the teacher and peers, they can also accomplish the work in collaborative way, this enables them to practice social skills. For the knowledge strand, students are able to have more exposure to Iranian culture and history and have a better understanding about a child’s moral growth. For experience strands, students are able to develop their narrative with authentic learning and respond to the issues and themes in the graphic novel. Throughout the activities, students can practice their critical thinking and analytical skills by interpretation and making inferences from the text and imagine the protagonist’s feelings and attitudes.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The use of the graphic novel clearly indicates the practicality of teaching in connecting various subjects and fostering cross-curricular collaboration. Such combination enables students to have comprehensive learning in the activities. It is also clear that students can practice and acquire English language knowledge in the activity, students can practice listening, reading, speaking and writing skills together with the knowledge of Liberal Studies. In a word, it is essential for teachers to have adequate support and resources to carry out teaching with cross-curricular collaboration.