Introduction

Unbroken is a literary non-fiction book written by Laura Hillenbrand. It fully illustrates an incredible true story of Louie Zamperini, an Olympian who turned into a bombardier for the Second World War in 1941. The author describes each event vividly and impressively by using non-repetitive words (Check my Lesson 4 notepage). Unbroken focuses on Louie’s strength, resilience, and confidence throughout his unimaginable survival story.

The author describes each event vividly and clearly by using non-repetitive words (Check my notes from Lesson 4).

This book begins with Louie’s spoiled childhood where Louie did not act like the other 4 years old kids. However, soon when he discovered his talent in running, he got rid of his toxic personality and started flourishing his career by joining Berlin Olympics in 1936, catching many eyes from the crowd, including Adlof Hitler.

However, Louie’s dream of further success in his career ended due to the outbreak of the Second World war in 1941. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and became a bombardier. During the Second World War, he endured both physical and emotional pain that no one could ever think of. He lost his crew mates day by day, got tortured, almost got bitten by sharks, and battling starvation. He had to undergo numerous obstacles to end his journey.

Despite those obstacles, Louie never lost hope and dream. He remained resilient and determined to survive, reminding his memories of family and friend from deep inside his heart.

Finally in 1945, the war ended. However Louie lived a life where he never expected, far away from his dream. He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and various hardships followed by the war. But Louie, once again stood up and learned how to accept and forgive faiths.

For our current unit, “Stranger than a Fiction,” we took a mini-lesson every class with a novel titled “Hidden Figures.” With those skills I learned at school, I was able to enjoy it deeply.

These are my notes from Lesson 3, 9, 8, 7:

I took this note when I first started reading it. I mainly focused on connecting events in Louie’s childhood and the time before he joined the U.S. Army. I made sure that there was a color code for convenience.
<It makes the overall design look detailed and better, too>

I made connections between various categories from the book that are important. I progressively added more evidence as I read more. Also, I added additional notes from Lesson 9 to understand the book further.

This note shows how the author illustrates the situation. As I mentioned in the introduction, she did not make the event sound dull; instead, she made a mood for each situation with picturable expressions, like “gurgled blood” and “lonely little island.”

This note is about Cause & Effect. I not only wrote about the factual effects of causes, but I also made some inferences based on a quote.

Central idea

This is the initial-initial  central idea I made when I had only read until P. 46. It is obviously undeveloped and unrelated to what I made after reading the whole book.

This is my initial central idea for my summative assessment. I had a basic framework for my summative but needed strong evidence.

My summative assessment paper

It has a fully developed central idea and four meaningful quotes. The evidence is heavily focused on the keyword “opportunities.”

Conclusion


I highly recommend this book to people who have not read many historical books because I think “overcoming the pain and bad memories” stories are now too cliché. If you have already read tons of books related to that, you might feel bored in the end. Anyway, it was a great book that lingered for three days after I finished it. <<Promise me, you will suddenly find yourself holding your tears while you read>>

If you don’t like reading but want to know about Louie Zamperini, I recommend watching a movie instead!

Thank you for reading my blog!