Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Bangtan Hermana Notes: Museums as Performance Venue
In the Blood Sweat & Tears MV during the WINGS era, the
setting feels like a museum. Classical artworks appear throughout the video as
references to paintings about Icarus and the fall of angels, The Pieta, and
other pieces that evoke temptation, beauty, and the cost of desire.
Those images mirror the themes of the era itself, inspired
by Hermann Hesse’s Demian: innocence lost, the pull of temptation, the painful
but necessary process of becoming.
Years later, Joon performs songs from Indigo inside Dia
Beacon, a museum known for minimalist and conceptual art. The setting felt
quiet and contemplative, almost like a conversation between music, philosophy,
and visual art.
And now BTS performed at the Guggenheim, one of the most
recognizable museums of modern art.
For me, these are not just visually striking locations.
Museums are spaces built for memory. They exist so that art
can outlive its moment, its creators, even its time. Seeing BTS place their
music in these spaces feels intentional. As if to say: pop music, too, can
belong to the long conversation of art.
This is the depth of BTS that keeps me listening.💜
Apobangpo! Purple and true!
Friday, March 27, 2026
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Monday, March 23, 2026
Friday, March 20, 2026
Monday, March 16, 2026
Step by Step with Teacher Zee: The Five Moves I Use to Teach Reading Comprehension: Identifying the Main Idea
In my reading sessions, I follow a simple but intentional sequence that helps students move from decoding words to understanding ideas. This approach is influenced by research-based literacy frameworks such as Scarborough’s Reading Rope and explicit teaching. The goal is to make the thinking process of reading visible. Many students can read the words on a page, but they need support in learning how to interpret, organize, and express the ideas they encounter in a text.
1. Unlock the Purpose of the Text.
Before reading, we pause to unpack key words in the title or in the questions that guide the text. For example, when we encountered the title Why Humans Tell Stories, we discussed what the word why asks us to do. We identified that why signals a search for a reason or purpose. Together we rewrote the title as The Purpose of Storytelling. This small step prepares students to read with a conceptual focus rather than simply scanning for information.
2. Read and Notice Ideas.
Students read the text more than once—first quietly, then aloud. During reading, they are encouraged to notice what stands out, what surprises them, or what questions come to mind. This stage slows down the reading process and encourages active thinking. Instead of rushing through the passage, students begin to interact with the text and recognize that reading is a dialogue between the reader and the ideas on the page.
3. Paraphrase the Paragraph.
After reading, the student explains the paragraph in their own words. At this stage, it is perfectly acceptable if the response closely follows the original text. This is called paraphrasing. Paraphrasing helps students confirm that they understand the information in the paragraph. It is an important bridge between simply reading words and actually grasping meaning.
4. Identify the Main Idea.
Once the student understands the paragraph, we move to a higher level of thinking. We ask: What is the larger idea behind these details? This step helps students move from specific examples to a broader concept. For instance, details about hunting, nature, and ancestors can be summarized into the idea that stories helped people preserve knowledge across generations. Learning to identify the main idea teaches students how to generalize and organize information.
Finally, we revise the student’s response together. We improve the sentence so that it clearly expresses the idea of the paragraph and connects to the overall theme of the text. This collaborative revision helps students see how academic sentences are constructed. Over time, they become more confident in expressing complex ideas in clear and precise language.
Through this sequence—unlocking vocabulary, reading, paraphrasing, identifying the main idea, and revising—students practice listening, reasoning, summarizing, and writing in a single session. Reading comprehension becomes not just an activity of answering questions but a process of thinking deeply about ideas. My hope is that students begin to see reading as a way of understanding the world and expressing their own insights about it.
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Friday, March 13, 2026
Bangtan Hermana Notes: A Season of Building Culture and Remembrance
Watching the Arirang teaser again through a media literacy lens, I noticed how the Edison wax cylinder and gramophone function as a narrative frame. When the recording is played, BTS are visually transported into another moment in time.
In that sense, the storytelling reminds me of a Möbius strip: we traverse the same historical path, but each passage changes our perspective. The archive remains, yet every generation hears and understands it differently. There is a message of remembrance in this case, on how important lessons of history must be taken to
account.
For ARMY, this narrative move also feels familiar. BTS have long used directional objects and Möbius strip imagery in their lore, where past, present, and future fold into one another. Seen this way, the wax cylinder does more than play a song, it opens a loop in time. Where music is the bridge, there is love that endures.
Apobangpo! Purple and true! 
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Bangtan Hermana Notes: The Silver Spoon Charm on RM's Chain
“Bapsae” (Silver Spoon) from the The Most Beautiful Moment in Life era is one of BTS’s sharpest social commentaries. The choreography is another thing entirely. Not complaining about that.
In Korean folklore, the baepsae is the crow-tit, a small bird often compared to the stork. There is a proverb that says: if the crow-tit tries to walk like the stork, it will tear its legs.
The message behind that proverb is harsh but familiar: people from humble beginnings should not try to compete with those born into privilege: the so-called “silver spoon” class.
BTS flipped that proverb on its head.
In Baepsae, they called out generational inequality and the frustration of young people told to work harder while the race was already rigged. They sang about the crow-tit refusing to imitate the stork. Instead, it runs in its own way.
Now fast forward to today.
This is BTS post-enlistment. A free homecoming concert is upon us. Seven artists returning to the stage. And Namjoon appears with a silver spoon charm.
It is poetic justice.
Years ago, “silver spoon” symbolized the privilege they were told they did not have. But BTS never tried to become the storks. They built their own path, at their own pace, through their own art.
So seeing that symbol now feels like a quiet subversion. The crow-tit did not lose the race. It changed the race entirely.
This is the story of Bangtan Sonyeondan.
And now they come home as artists holding the silver spoon on their own terms.
Apobangpo! Purple and true!
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Monday, March 9, 2026
Bangtan Hermana Notes: Under RM's Umbrella
So seeing him now holding an umbrella feels like a subtle shift in that narrative. Before, he stood in the rain. Now, he walks with an umbrella under the sun. The canopy casting a shadow on his face.
I have observed how, in Korean visual culture, umbrellas often appear in moments of protection, waiting, or reunion. K-drama scenes frequently use them to signal that someone is standing with you through the storm and a companion in warm sunny days. It is a quiet image of care and persistence.
The setting matters too. Gyeongbokgung, the great palace of the Joseon dynasty, stands behind him. It is a monument to history, destruction, and restoration. Namjoon is not facing the palace. His gaze is forward. History stands at his back while he looks ahead. As leader of BTS, this juxtaposition is indicative of the resumption of his role post-enlistment.
He looks pensive and resolute.
Even the small details echo earlier chapters. The chain at his waist carries the silver spoon charm many ARMY noticed as a callback to Baepsae, the song that challenged the idea that some are born to run while others must stay in place. The crow-tit kept running anyway.
Rain. Pain. Endurance.
Perhaps the umbrella simply says this: the storm was real, but it did not stop the journey. And now the road continues.
BTS and ARMY have climbed the hill and crossed the passage of the solo era. This is Arirang. This is our love song. We never walk alone.
Apobangpo! Purple and true!
#BTSHomecoming #BTS_ARIRANG
Sunday, March 8, 2026
Saturday, March 7, 2026
Author Visit: At the University of Batangas, Lipa
The highlight of my Author Visit in the University of Batangas was my interaction with 600 plus high school students. It was a huge audience which made pre-writing activities challenging, but we pulled through. I gave students thinking prompts that center on local knowledge and history, especially stories of folk people in Lipa. What they gave back were modern stories about food, geography and community relations. The teachers and librarians, headed by Madame May Corong and Ms. Angel Aldovino, will send over works of students for me to read. I hope we could get at least 30% of written output.
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