Tag: Japantown

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Bringing Primary Sources to the Classroom: Nikkei Center Suitcase Lesson

           ImageFor the EdMethods class a few peers and I have created a set of lessons for the Nikkei Legacy Center (a museum located in Portland, OR) to pair with the museum’s suitcases. Educators can check out the suitcases, which contain numerous primary sources about Japanese Americans in Portland and their time spent in incarceration camps. The lessons we created range from elementary, middle to high school level.

Creating lessons is always a bit of a challenge but it is even more of a challenge when making them for someone else. The suitcase project has been a great way to practice my lesson making skills by making sure the lessons are thorough in explanations, complete in resources but still flexible so teachers can adapt them to their classrooms.

My lesson is for a middle school social studies classroom. The lesson (that can be broken up into two days) focuses on the incarceration of Japanese Americans from a cultural perspective. The lesson will show students the daily life of internees. The lesson uses readings, videos, and primary source documents with individual and group activities. The lesson would be best used in a class that has already covered World War II.

Here is the procedure of the lesson. For a PDF of the whole lesson click here Suitcase Lesson. (138KB pdf)

Overview: Today’s lesson will focus on the incarceration of Japanese Americans from a cultural perspective. This lesson would fit in after learning about WWII.

Goals: To understand the experience of Japanese Americans being incarcerated during the WWII.

Objective(s): Students will be able to identify the key aspects of life for Japanese Americans in incarceration camps during WWII.

Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.9 Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

Resources: suitcase, pencil/pen, paper, projector, internet access, printed documents included in lesson plan

Procedure:

  • Ask students if they know the following terms: interned, incarceration, Japanese-American, Nisei and Issei. If not, go over as a class making the definition together using previous knowledge.
  • Read them Scenario A. Have them write a short paragraph on how they would feel, what would they do. Then share with a partner. Have a few students share with the class aloud. [Attached to lesson plan. Called “SCENARIO A”]
  • Have students read brief background on why the Japanese Americans were incarcerated. Either read aloud, popcorn style or at teacher discretion. [Attached to lesson plan. Called “HISTORICAL CONTEXT”]. Answer follow up questions.
  • Have students watch a short interview with George Takei about leaving behind his life to go to an incarceration camp. Answer follow up questions [Attached to lesson plan. Called “Video Questions.”]
  • Have students read about life in the incarceration camps. Split up students into different groups based on the sections. Then have them create a poster depicting their section. Share with class. Have class answer as a whole the follow up questions. [Attached to lesson plan. Called Behind the Fence: Life in the Incareration Camp]
  • Show pictures of incarceration camps. Have students draw connections between what they read and what they see in the pictures. Have class discussion. [Pictures in suitcase. Choose from the following images: G3, G2, I6, I5, D2, I3, I4, H2, F2, G1]
  • For the remainder of class and homework, have students write a letter home to a friend pretending to be an incarcerated Japanese American. Have them use material that they learned about from the day. Have them express their feelings of being interned, and have them tell their friend if they still feel like an American after this experience.

Formative Assessment: Students will answer follow up questions to readings, and the class will go over them as a whole.

Summative Assessment: Students will write a letter pretending to be an incarcerated Japanese American.

Photo Credit: A Japanese Child in an incarceration Camp from http://all-that-is-interesting.com/japanese-internment-camp

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Class 7: Lesson Study II Fishbowl / Nikkei Planning

Fishing is good near Klamath Falls Oregon

Lesson Study II

We are beginning our second round of lesson studies. This time we are sharing lesson ideas in groups of three over the next four weeks. Three students will troubleshoot their lesson ideas – with a focus on content, process and product. They’ll do this within “the fishbowl.” Their classmates will observe from outside the fishbowl. They’ll be using a T chart to track two items – useful questions they heard in the fishbowl and question that “should” have been asked. Feedback from in and outside the fishbowl will be used by students to improve their lesson idea.

Portland Assembly Center

Nikkei project planning session

Students are serving as curriculum consultants to the Nikkei Legacy Center. We used class time to work in our three project teams:

  1. “Museum in a Suitcase” – Developing a set of lesson plans for intermediate through high school students to support a traveling suitcase filled with historic artifacts on the incarceration of Japanese-Americans. ( Christina, Kristi, Cory, Heather, Erin and Damian)
  2. “Virtual Museum” – Creating an online collection of lessons that parallel the installation at the Nikkei Center tracing pre war life, incarceration, camp conditions and acclamation following the war. I would serve as a pre or post visit enhancement. (Peter and Kyle)
  3. “Japantown Walking Tour” – Developing a native iPhone app walking tour of the historic Japantown in Portland. It will include geo-fenced text, photos, audio, video and tools for sharing user reaction to the content via social media. (Collin, Aram, Tom and Sam)

Image Credits: Fishing is good near Klamath Falls, Oregon OSU Special Collections

Photo of Nikkei Legacy Center installation

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Class 6: Work Session at Nikkei Legacy Center

Saito Fish Market

We will be serving as curriculum consultants to the Portland’s Nikkei Legacy Center. The center is dedicated to “Sharing and preserving Japanese American history and culture in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, where Japantown once thrived.”

Tonight’s class met at the Legacy Center to work with their staff to plan our projects – Todd Mayberry (Director of Collections and Exhibits) and Kim Blair (Education Manager). Our task to is to use our instructional design skills to assist the Center in creating curriculum material. More on our project-based approach.

At this point we are considering four  projects:

  1. Self-guided instructional activities for middle school museum visitors.
  2. A teacher’s curriculum / activity guide to accompany a historic document filled suitcase that goes out on loan to the classroom.
  3. Online archive of documents with guiding questions and activities
  4. Selecting historic materials for inclusion in an iPhone App tour of Portland’s historic Japantown neighborhood.

Nikkei

Students explore exhibit of WWII incarceration camp room at Nikkei Center

Above: Saito Fish Market (Taken circa 1915)
Mr. Saito driving the Saito Fish Market car. Saito Fish Market was located in Portland’s Japantown on what is now NW Fourth Avenue.
ONLC 1497, gift of Rose Niguma.
Image credit / Oregon Nikkei Endowment

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Class 5: Exploring Project Based Learning

Henry Sakamoto

Henry Sakamoto
For video interviews and more go to Densho Digital Archive. Use free guest login.
The Densho Digital Archive holds a wealth of visual history interviews and other materials that broadly document the Japanese American experience. These unique primary sources cover a span of history from immigration in the early 1900s through redress in the 1980s with a particular focus on the World War II mass incarceration.

Students explore their world with an expectation of choice and control that redefines traditional notions of learning and literacy. Increasingly educators are discovering that they can motivate students with a project (or problem) based approach that engages their students with the opportunity to think like professionals while solving real-world problems.

Here’s 6 reasons why PBL works:

  1. Traditional instruction is based on “teaching as telling.” PBL creates learning more immersive experiences.
  2. A new information “culture” demands a new literacy. PBL can build those skills
  3. We need to increase the rigor in the classroom. PBL moves students to higher levels of Blooms.
  4. PBL makes learning relevant – student take responsibility for their progress.
  5. Usually the audience for thinking is the teacher – PBL shifts the focus to real world application.
  6. PBL can gain added impact by inspiring and empowering student as change agents in their community.

Instead of simply talking about PBL, our class will be undertaking a PBL project that embodies all the elements above. We will be serving as curriculum consultants to the Portland’s Nikkei Legacy Center. The center is dedicated to “Sharing and preserving Japanese American history and culture in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, where Japantown once thrived.”

Our task to is to use our instructional design skills to assist the Center in creating curriculum material. At this point we are considering three possible projects:

  1. Self-guided instructional activities for middle school museum visitors.
  2. A teacher’s curriculum / activity guide to accompany a historic document filled suitcase that goes out on loan to the classroom.
  3. Selecting historic materials for inclusion in an iPhone App tour of Portland’s historic Japantown neighborhood.

A PBL experience always needs a good kick-off entry event to get students engaged in the task. We will begin our project with a classroom visit by Henry Sakamoto, who grew up in  Japantown and was attending high school at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Henry and his family were subjected to FBI search, transfer to the Portland Assembly Center and eventually interred at Mindoka Concentration Camp in Idaho.

Henry will be introduced by Kim Blair, education manager of the Nikkei Legacy Center. Next week’s class will be held at the Center where we will be able to tour the museum and work with Kim and Todd Mayberry, Director of Collections.

Update: Unfortunately Mr Sakamoto could not make it to our class. We discussed our project work with Kim Blair, education manager of the Nikkei Legacy Center.

Then we did a bit of “speed dating” of our ideas for the DBQ Assignment. Students formed two lines and had 2 minutes to pitch their DBQ design idea to each other and share some feedback. Then one line shifted and we repeated the pitch exchange. In all students pitched their idea three times.