Two Views of Japanese Internment

This blog post is part of a series of posts written by my middle level/secondary social studies education students at Wichita State University. This post was written by Curtis Redus (@C_Note119 on Twitter).

December 7th, 1941 will always be, as President Roosevelt stated, a day that will live in infamy and rightfully so.  But it led to another less famous day that should also be held in infamy:  February 19th, 1942. 

One of the most important things in any history class is openness and honesty even if it might be uncomfortable.  Just as we must recognize that no historical figure, no matter how popular, is as grand or deific as we often portray them in lectures and textbooks.  We must also realize that even a nation that has done such great things as helping defeat Hitler can also be capable of terrible missteps.  I can't exactly pinpoint when I came to this core belief.  I suppose it was some point during my college studies.  While studying WWII I learned about FDR's order which called for the relocation of more than 100,000 immigrants of Japanese descent, executive order 9066.  I was shocked, but less so by the act than the fact that this was the first time I had heard about it.  After all, even 15 years ago, we as a nation, were far removed from the event and I find it unlikely that the textbooks were so heavily edited that the event was omitted completely.  As I thought back on it I am not sure if my teachers avoided the subject because it was uncomfortable for them or if they felt that we weren't mature enough to discuss the information.  The former could almost be forgiven but the latter is what I suspect was the case. 

As the old adage goes, "history is written by the winner".  While the events of the past don’t change, our interpretation does.  In this lesson students get to see the event from multiple perspectives.  It started out as a bell ringer but I think it could easily be expanded into a full or even multiple days of investigation.

Students tend to be quite perceptive especially when it comes to injustice and unfair treatment.  Much of this probably stems from the fact that they are growing up, often in situations they have little control over, where they have little input in the decisions their families make that directly affect their lives.  In consideration of this aptitude the lesson fit quite nicely in the middle of our World War II unit just after finishing a DBQ that asked: Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?  I feel like at this point students had a good feel for at least some of the anger that the American people felt after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and that they may be able to grasp the perspective of the government.  It was also helpful that we had already discussed Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. This provided them good basis for the rationale of the Nazis and helped students make some connections.

Lesson Plan

Since this is a bell ringer my first goal was to draw the students back to the ideas of Pearl Harbor; the shock and the anger.  Then ask the students how they know who they can trust in a situation like this?

I played the United State Government Video explaining their rationale behind Executive Order 9066.  This video is just over nine minutes so while it is playing write the following questions on the board and then have the students respond after the video:

·         What is your impression of the video?

·         How do the camps seem to you? What do they make you think of?

Although you could play just one, I then played two interviews with George Takei and Pat Morita about their childhood experiences in the Japanese internment camps.  While these videos are playing write the following questions on the board and then have the students respond to the video(s):

·         How does this video differ from the government's video?

·         Who's point of view do you find to be more believable?

·         How would you feel if you were George or Pat?  How would you react if you were in their situations?

Most students have a healthy skepticism when it comes to authority so they had little trouble responding to the first video.  Most of them felt like it was disingenuous at best and downright dishonest in most cases.  After the last two clips I could sense the shock among the class and after fielding a handful of questions I fell back to any good history teacher's old standby response:  "That's a really good question that you should research and let us know what you find."  Ultimately the goal was to have students not only question the information with which they are presented but to realize they can seek out different perspectives on a topic to get a more well-rounded understanding.  And based on their responses I feel like we met that goal.

Note:  After teaching this lesson I came across this awesome lesson from Matt Moore that might make for a good expansion for this topic: http://teachingbeyondthetextbook.wordpress.com/

Engaging Students in Historical Thinking About the WWI Home Front With a Touch of Kindergarten

This blog post is part of a series of posts written by my middle level/secondary social studies education students at Wichita State University. This post was written by Nathanael Harvey (@NathanaelHarvey on Twitter).

Travel with me back in time, can you recall those time-dimmed memories of Kindergarten? Where almost every day you would rotate from center to center, learning about all kinds of wonderful things before you laid down to quietly take a refreshing nap, from which you might awaken with your smiling teacher standing over you offering animal crackers and apple juice? I remember those times of energy and learning very fondly, and I remember how much I learned in a short time via rotating centers. So when I was looking for a unique way to introduce the efforts on the U.S. home front during WWI to my high school students, it was to the idea of rotating centers I turned.

As I read, researched, and prepped for this lesson, I realized how little students have in common with this topic. Despising the thought of teaching something irrelevant unnecessarily, I adjusted the theme of the lesson in my students’ direction, (which seems obvious, but so many teachers miss this step.) Here is the rough layout of what the lesson became (15 minutes for each center rotation, in our 80 minute blocks):

For bellwork, students answered this question in their daily work journals: “If America went to war tomorrow, what would you do to contribute to the war effort?” This question asks students, at a deep level, to question what would be helpful and what they might be able to do to interact in the larger national interest.

Center A. Students viewed a Powerpoint of War Bonds and Food Rationing Posters that I selected.  Students wrote a paragraph on the provided worksheet explaining whether or not they would buy war bonds, ration or plant a Victory Garden based on the posters they have examined, and why. This task asks students to place themselves in a position to consider how they would handle a historical situation, identifying with historical figures and their experiences. For students who had not heard of war bonds before, a friend passed on this period explanation by the great Charlie Chaplin (here).



Center B. Students examined and analyzed a set of laminated Propaganda Posters I selected, from various countries, vilifying or praising their respective selves or enemies. Students were asked to look for hidden meaning or symbolism in the posters they viewed, and then create their own propaganda poster with crayons, pencils and markers.

 

Center C. Students viewed two videos that my techie/videographer brother added on to with some acting from me found here and answered a few questions from it on their worksheet.

Center D. Students examined a set of three scenarios for US war production I created. After reading all three as a group, students will have to decide which of the three is best for the country, which might not be the best solution for the whole world. One of these three will be the actual way the US decided to act, the other two, imaginary. All three scenarios described a holistic policy that included details of union workers, women workers, war production and how to pay for the war. I created the two alternate scenarios to be very skewed, one toward plans outlined at the time by Socialists and the other, outlined by the much more Conservative and Capitalist wing of the U.S. government of the time. Students overwhelmingly picked the Socialist scenario, followed by the actual scenario. The extreme Capitalist scenario received very little support by any of my students.

 To wrap up the lesson, students described the actions of average Americans during the war, and why they think those people would do those things in support of the war. Students may also respond with what they might do in a similar situation or a “what if” scenario. 

After teaching this lesson to all four of my Honors US History I classes, I reflected on the lesson and what I needed to change. Aside from some procedural matters like making sure the students knew what they needed and what to take with them as they rotated, the lesson went very well. As I graded and read students’ responses on their worksheets, 90% of them were very deep and thoughtful, far deeper than the typical worksheet most teachers give out. Instead of students finding short answers by scanning the pages of their textbooks, they were asked to read, watch, listen and discuss, interacting in depth with the material in a variety of ways to learn about it and make it their own. Over all, I was pleased with the level of interaction and connection I had between students and with the material in my classes.

Tips: I placed all four stations counterclockwise, in the order students would rotate through them, so that there was very little bumping or cross-traffic in switching stations. Also, I tested extensively ahead of time to make sure my video volume would be at least bearable, if not comfortable for the other groups not viewing it. In a 50 minute block, this would be difficult to do all at once, so I would do two centers per day, with review and discussion at the end of each day. Anything you can do to make a lesson personal and meaningful, like my addition to the video, lets students know you care and work hard for them!

If would like any other materials for this lesson, or have other questions, or just want to visit, you can reach me via Twitter @NathanaelHarvey.