Author: Kajal Vora
Kajal’s #teachread work can be found on Facebook.
Categories: YA Lit, Social Media, Character Analysis
Tags: Facebook, American Born Chinese, identity

Seeing Characters: Jin Wang

This project allowed me to explore American Born Chinese in a completely new and rewarding way. After reading the novel, the visual nature of the text really stuck out to me. The graphics in American Born Chinese help to weave the stories together in a way that would not be possible with only prose. It has been really educational and fun to interact with those graphics and the plot of the novel through the platform of Facebook.

Using Facebook forced me to really think deeply about the most important events in the novel. I wanted to make sure that my Facebook friends would know about the majority of Jin’s journey and at the same time did not want to overwhelm them with status updates and pictures. I posted about his move, his experience with girls and making friends, his transformation, and his cousin’s visit – all events that shape his personality and identity.

The most interesting aspect of this project was definitely when Jin started to interact with Arthur Spirit from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian as soon below:

Jin Wang Went on my first date tonight…there were a few awkward moments, but I think that she likes me!
Like · November 5, 2011

I have read the Part-Time Indian before, but did not realize the similarities between the characters until I “saw” them communicating with each other. Both Jin and Arthur represent the minority in their schools and both are trying to figure out their sense of self-worth. Both are also exploring the dating world with alternating levels of success and failure. Having the characters support each other and offer each other advice made these two novels come alive. Not only did this project help me to better understand the protagonists in the two novels, but it is a great way to educate our students on the major discourses in YA novels.