I am the subway by Kim Hyo-eun

 

Text: I am the subway by Kim Hyo-eun

Learning Intention: To consider lives lived other than my own Enquiry Question: How are our lives connected?

Success Criteria: I know I live in a community / I know there are many different people in my community / I know there are things that we have in common and things that are different.

Starter: Look at the cover of the book and consider the title; who do you think is narrating this story, how can the subway be talking to us? What does personification mean? If we are personifying the subway, what do you think the subway sees every day? What things stay the same for the subway and what changes?

Main: Read the opening of, “I am the subway” and discuss -       Where is the story setting? Where is Seoul? -       How does the subway introduce themself? -       Why do they say ba-dum, ba-dum Read the rest of the story and when you have finished, talk about it. Discuss: -       What things are the same every day for the subway, what are different? -       How do you think the subway gets to know the different people on the train? -       How are the passengers similar, different? -       What feelings are represented in the story? E.g. “Na-yoon’s feelings are as heavy as her bag.”; “I’m not sure what’s next, who will I become?” -       Lee Do-Young says, “He chose this name so my heart would be filled with bright shining things, even if this couldn’t be seen on the outside.”- what can we learn about people from this line? -       The blurb on the back cover says about the subway, “Between sunrise and sunset, it welcomes and farewells people, and holds them – along with their joys, hopes, fears and memories – in its embrace” what does this mean? How can a subway train have an embrace?

Role play / activity: Put the children in to small groups and give them copies of the dialogue in ltalics for one of the characters. Each group explore what they know/ don’t know about each character from the speech they give in the book. What can we infer about each person? Build a character description showing everything you can – family, work, home, life past & present, hopes / fears. There are six characters: Mr Wanju, Granny, Mr Jae-sung, Mr Gu, Na-yoon, Lee Do-Young. The aim is to be able to compare and contrast the lives of different people on the train. After ten minutes ask children to pass their dialogue sheets to another table so that everyone has a new character to explore. Ask children to repeat the activity using the new character and this time contrast the two lives; how are they similar/ different, what do they have in common? Are there things the characters could talk about or ways they could help each other? You could repeat the activity up to 6 times, creating a huge mind map showing different characters interweaving lives through each other.

Activity: children create a new character for the train. Use the same format as the dialogue we are given in the boot to write a speech for your chosen character- who are they? What are they doing on the train, where are they going, what life do they lead? Or Children draw the tube and illustrate/ label a number of passengers. Using arrows/ labels, write one or two facts about each character and their life. Use the book as inspiration.

Plenary:  “The unique lives of strangers you might never meet again are all around you, every time you take the train.” – why did the author choose to end the book with these words? What are they reminding us about the people who live in our community today? The author explains, “I became an adult, found the path I would walk and went down it… I saw the things I wanted to see, passed by what was otherwise, pretending I couldn’t see it. Then all of a sudden, I saw the people on the path.” What is the author speaking about here? What can we learn from them? What can we learn from this book? Is this book related to No Outsiders?