Week 11: South Korea under dictatorship

Submit a blog post that is a 5-15 report. Your “Reading Journal” comprises the texts you read for Week 9, and anything you are reading for your Pressbooks Chapter project.

Remember to also add any tasks that are on your to-do list (not those scheduled for the whole class, but for you individually, e.g. sorting out a blog-related issue), and any open questions or issues you want to flag up for follow-up with me. These weekly reports are extremely useful for me to get an insight in how you’re working, what you make of the course and the materials, and how I can best support your learning and adjust the course.

TIP: for anything you’re not comfortable putting in a blog where others can read it, you can just drop me a message on discord OR post anonymously on the Padlet!

Time estimate: 2-3hrs to prepare, 75mins meeting.

• Baker, Edward J. “Kim Dae-jung’s Role in the Democratization of Korea.” Education about Asia 19:1 (Spring 2014)
  • Available online (or download as PDF there)
  • Provides a good overview of the historical developments from 1960 onwards.
  • Task: Create a timeline of events: can you keep track of the government’s and opposition’s movements? Can you identify the periods when restrictions on civil liberties are worse, and when there is some reason for optimism?
• Kim, Hyun Sook, Hyung-Ju Ko, Ryan Estrada, and Kim, Hyun Sook. Banned Book Club. Chicago, IL: Iron Circus Comics, 2020.
  • PDF excerpt (no OCR)
  • Question: How can the genre of the graphic novel be useful for the study of history? What do you learn here that you did not learn from the other text?

Optional extras (if you have time and are interested)

• “Banned Book Club”: Interview with Ryan Estrada. Korea File (podcast), episode 95, Aug. 2020.
  • Link to webpage
  • Interview with one of the authors of the Banned Book Club graphic novel.
• “Donald Baker – The Religious Landscape in Korea.” Korea Now (podcast), episode 72, May 12, 2020.
  • Link to webpage
  • At 46’30”, Prof. Baker begins to give his firsthand account of the Kwangju uprising, and he talks about the role religion plays in the resistance against the dictators.

Time estimate: 30-45mins (a generous estimate I think)

Below you find links to four blog posts from your fellow students. If one of the websites is your own, or it is twice the same person’s, refresh the page, and you should get new sites. [Updated links coming on Tuesday.]

• Post 1: 
• Post 2:   
• Post 3: 
• Post 4: 

Leave feedback, questions, thoughts, insights about the contents of the posts of your fellow students, using Hypothes.is group HST259. You can ask for clarifications, point out similarities and differences with the material you covered, or with your interpretation. This should encourage you to nose around in the other materials you did not read in the first round.

Use the “Architect’s Model” of giving feedback, and engage with concrete issues. Go beyond “Yeah, I agree,” “I like” or “I think the same”, and instead explain why you have that reaction, or if you disagree, you can try to persuade the original poster of your idea or interpretation.

Remember that Hypothes.is allows for hyperlinks, e.g. to materials that support your argument, or you can include pictures (memes! [yes, there she is again]), videos etc. that help the original poster to learn more.

TIP: It’s all random, and it’s all good, so if you return to this page after commenting, you will see four different posts. As long as your comments are on four different posts in total, you’re fine! OR you can right-click and ask your browser to open the link in a new tab/window.

Time estimate: 75 mins for the meeting

We will sort out the sequence for our chapters and the different “Parts”, so be there to defend your chapter’s location in the Table of Contents! (This will likely involve sticky notes, but other suggestions are welcome)

Current textbook is available at https://open.muhlenberg.pub/koreanhistory/, if you want to imagine where your chapter will fit.

WHAT: 500-800 words, using two of the prompts listed below

WHY: You can compare with your previous reflection, and see if you followed up on what you identified as strengths, or areas to work on, and how that translates into improved insights and performance or confidence in the course or other areas. You can also check in on your goals for the second half of the semester (see individually shared Google Docs from the mid-term check-in)

HOW: Write as a blog post (category hst259), or share with me as a Google doc with commenting access.

MORE DETAILS:

We’re into the final third of the semester (believe it or not), so time to stop and take stock once again! The main task of the reflections is to think about your work and learning in the course from a higher level perspective than the immediate course contents and “nose to the grindstone” approach we have in the week-to-week rhythm with course content and work on individual projects.

Here are some questions and prompts to get you thinking about your learning and thinking, i.e.: they are “meta-cognitive” (from the ancient Greek, meaning “about/above your knowledge/thinking”, not just made up by a certain social media company!). Illustrate with concrete examples (e.g. “in week X when we discussed Y” or “in X’s blog post I noticed”). Then draw out the bigger picture conclusions. Engage with at least 2 of the following prompts:

• “When I look back at the start of the semester, and what I felt, knew and did then, and I compare to what I know, feel and do now in this course, I ….” [fill out as appropriate]
• “Am I doing what is necessary to get beyond the surface meaning of the course materials or what I encounter in my project materials, and able to communicate effectively my ideas about complex historical ideas? What can I do to still improve in my approach to sources (primary and secondary), and to become a better historian?” (Trust me, there is is always room for improvement, even for professionals after a decades-long career.)
• This course does not have exams, but uses a projects-based approach and sharing your learning with your fellow students instead. How does that format help or hinder you to explore new knowledge and demonstrate what you learned? What are you learning about yourself as a student through this process?
• What are skills, techniques or insights and perspectives you learned in this course so far (contents or otherwise) that you feel you can apply in other courses, or even outside college?

Best-before date changed to Tuesday to accommodate for Easter break

Submit a blog post that is a 5-15 report. Your “Reading Journal” comprises the texts you read for Wednesday’s class, and anything you may already have read in addition, e.g. for your Pressbooks Chapter project.

Details to follow soon! (but we will have a workshop on Wednesday and history content on Friday that week)