Shadow Wings

Submitted by Tommy Liu on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 00:00
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Shadow Wings is a book about the friendship between a young boy and a shadow. Chinese author Tong Xixi leads the readers through many adventures in a world where shadows can fly, laugh, and cry. In the end, the boy learns that these shadows are in fact children who where killed by Japanese soldiers in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. 

This book is longer than those we have used in the program in the past. We gave it to the fourth grade class because they already have one year's experience in our program. We practice basic reading techniques such as identifying main characters and predicting the storyline. Since this is a longer book, most of the reading is done at home, and class time is more focused on group discussions. 
 
After students completed reading the book, we found two village survivors of the Japanese invasion for the students to interview. Teachers taught them how to do a basic interview and they brainstormed questions that they were most interested in: Did you see any guns? What about tanks? Were you scared when the Japanese soldiers came? Was anyone in the village hurt during that time?
 
Students used the information they got from the interviews and wrote their own short stories or drew pictures.