Folding Beijing

[Midori Sanchez]

I teach a unit on Survival and currently teach The Hunger Games as one of the ways to discuss this focus. After seeing "Folding Beijing" I can see my students using this in literature groups to discuss a continued outlook on a dystopian planet. The Hunger Games and Folding Beijing both emphasize the class system: the more you have to borrow to get food, your name is added to the tesserae (the pool of names who are "eligible" for the reaping based on how many times you have borrowed) which means that the disadvantaged districts become the focus of "fun" for the rich people living in the capitol and how long you are able to be awake on the planet based on what class (which you cannot change from) you belong to. However, based on the language I noticed in the novel I will have to either only use exerpts, tread carefully or possibly edit out the words for my classes since I teach 9th grade. (There is usage of the F word on page 3, for example!)