Is Beloved by Toni Morrison an acceptable book for Korean Middle School Students?

This has been a question I've been pondering for the last couple days and I've come to a conclusion: if it is approached with maturity; it is.

I think the Korean students can relate, especially since Korea has suffered so many hardships in their history i.e. Japan, China, US etc. The people have suffered and the country as suffered and I think this is what gives Korea its strength: its perserverance and strength.

Morrison's book is also filled with an unspent rage and I feel there is a bit of that in Korea and I feel they have a strong case for it. This rage is the fruition of competition, class disparity, and the obvious corruption in society. In class last night, one of my students told me that he questioned his teacher about one of his test questions that was marked wrong. The student felt the question was misworded and his peers in the class felt similary, but were too scared to bring it to the teacher's attention.

For this student's efforts, he was beraided and hit; his paper went from the equivalent of a B to an F.

Is this fair? Is this right? I don't think so.

I hope none of these students come back as ghosts to haunt the schools.

Dan

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