Human Acts

Human Acts by Han Kang is a poignant exploration of the tragic Gwangju Uprising in South Korea in 1980. Through a polyvocal narrative spanning 23 years, Kang immerses readers in the brutality of this historical event and its psychological aftermath. The novel’s structure and style invite questions about the role academic, artistic, and personal narratives play in reconciling the past while fully acknowledging the great personal cost survivors must endure to share their stories.

As a work in translation, Human Acts offers students a perspective of history that shapes the cultural fabric of 21st century Korea. Should you wish to lead students through a new historicism approach, a catalogue of resources are provided below. The resources for this unit are best suited for students in grades 12 or higher (16+) due to the graphic subject matter of the novel and the complexity of its narrative style.

This unit on Human Acts by Han Kang is designed to focus on holistic, analysis and evaluation of the work. The activities focus on developing…

• a detailed knowledge and understanding of the work.
• an interpretation of ideas and issues raised throughout the work with a focus on culture, beliefs, politics, power, justice, art, and the imagination.
• an understanding of the role context may play in appreciating a work.
• an detailed understanding of post-modern narrative features, including metafiction, polyphony, stream of consciousness, typography, and second person narration
• an understanding of symbolism, contextualized as an artistic movement.

The resources in this unit include:

• A detailed activity portfolio, oraganized by chapter.
• Essay exam practice (in the style of the IB Paper 2)
• A sample literary essay outline
• Sample student essays, with and without marking annotations
• An activity to review the whole novel, in preparation for an exam.

Teaching Resources (PDF)

Teaching Resources (Word)

A Note about the Resources

Contextual Resources
The contextual resources help students develop a new historicism approach and for IB teachers could support a study of Human Acts in the “Time and Space” Area of Exploration. Engaging with contextual resources also helps students develop their literacy skills with informational texts.

Activity Portfolio
The teaching of this unit is structured by chapter. Depending on the length and pace of the class, each chapter should take 1-2 lessons to cover. Some chapter activities involve reading supplementary readings or watching a video to develop an undersatnding of a particular literary technique.

Essays
The essay questions have been modeled after past IB Paper 2 exams and focus on either a concept or a literary feature. The conceptual questions are particularly challenging for students as they are often complex and require the student to narrow the question. The practice essay questions, outlines, and sample student responses are designed to help students learn how to work with conceptual questions by narrowing their focus while ensuring they fulfill the requirements of writing a literary essay.

While the IB Paper 2 is a comparative essay, it can be helpful to develop these skills using a single text before moving onto the skills of writing a comparative essay. Should you wish to assess this task, a modified IB Paper 2 rubric (removing the line regarding compariative evaluation in criterion A) or a slightly modified IB HL essay rubric can be used to assess the essay (replacing “topic chosen” with “question chosen” for criterion A).

Whole Text Review
This resource helps students review for an essay exam by concisely synthesizing the events of each chapter, pulling key extracts, and identifying key features. This synthesis and prioritization task is effective in helping students encode key details from the text into their long-term memory as they compartamentalize events and process stylistic patterns across the work.

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