Lesson Plan: Japanese-American Internment

LESSON PLAN: JAPANESE-AMERICAN INTERNMENT

OBJECTIVES

1. Students will develop historical empathy for Americans of Japanese descent who were held in federal camps during World War II.

2. Students will understand the removal and imprisonment of the internees in the context of the wider and long-established anti-Asian-immigrant prejudice.

3. Students will identify challenges that Japanese-American internees faced and ways that they met these challenges.

4. Students will compare and contrast the internees’ experiences with those of select other groups.

NCHE THEMES

Values, Beliefs, Political Ideas, & Institutions

Patterns of Social & Political Interaction

Bradley Commission’s Historical Habits of Mind

#3: Historical Empathy

#8: Historical Causation

#11: Non-rational, Irrational, and Accidental

NCSS THEMES

Time, Continuity, andChange

Individuals, Groups, andInstitutions

Civic Ideals andPractices

TARGET AUDIENCE: middle school

TIME FRAME: 1 to 4 hours, depending upon breadth of literature and documents used

MATERIALS

student copies of selected literature*

presentation copies of selected documents^

document analysis worksheet(s)

journaling notebook (optional)

PROCEDURE

1. Students pair-share or journal about

a. a time when they felt unwelcome or different.

b. a time when they felt bored and restless from inactivity (ex., ill in bed but not

too sick, stuck at adult social event).

2. Briefly review earlier-taught content regarding anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Asian sentiment.

3. Read selected literature about or by Japanese-American internee(s).

If students will be reading a longer piece of literature, they will need to read it before coming to class. Teachers may also assign different pieces to different students or groups of students.

4. Students answer basic questions regarding setting, main character(s), and plot of story.

5. Through whole-class discussion, small-group sharing, or individual writing, students discuss the internee’s life before, during, and after internment; the hardships and/or challenges –both internal and external-- the internee faced; and how s/he responded to these challenges.

6. Students view/ read and analyze primary documents related to

a. some Americans’ prejudicialattitudes,

b. the removal and internment process, and

c. camp life experiences of children and young adults.

7. Students compare and contrast the primary documents with the literature.

8. Students compare and contrast the experience of the Japanese-American internees with that of other groups who experienced forced removal and imprisonment. These could include Native Americans forcibly removed and confined to reservations or Jews under Russian pogroms or Nazi ghettoization and/or concentration camps.

ASSESSMENT

A variety of tools and methods could be used for assessment. These could include journaling, technology-based presentations, content and analysis questions, and creative writing exercises.

Teachers should use their professional discretion in determining the best evaluation tool(s) for use with their students.

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

Pair stronger with weaker students for primary source analysis or assign different primary sources to different levels of students and have them pool their findings.

Concentrate on visual sources and picture books for use by ESOL students.

Differentiate assignments of literature, based on individual students’ reading levels.

Concentrate on audio and audio-visual sources for use by students with significant reading challenges.

Extension and enrichment activities could be assigned for advanced students for steps 2 and 8.