What tools are used by North Korea to exert control over those who live within the regime? Consider these points as you formulate a response:

• How is surveillance and trade used to control the North Korean population?
• In what way does the North Korean regime use propaganda as a form of control?
• How is the caste system used to control citizens?
• What other forms of punishment or rewards are used to control North Korea’s population?
• What makes depriving a population of the understanding of The Meaning of Freedom such a powerful means of controlling them?

Teaching Suggestion: It may be beneficial for students to work in small groups to analyze one question per group in relation to the text. Students can then share their findings for their assigned questions with the whole group.

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Human Rights”

In this activity, students will analyze different aspects of human rights violations based on text details.

Park describes in detail the financial, emotional, and physical abuse she experiences in her journey to freedom. Select one basic human right you believe every person should have and identify the ways in the novel in which that human right was not met in North Korea and China.