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, and Change
Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
Civic Ideals and Practices
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’ prejudicial attitudes,
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.
RECOMMENDED DOCUMENTS AND READINGS
* Literature
“That Damned Fence” poem [for more mature students, with administrative approval]
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochzuki, ill. by Dom Lee
The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida, ill. by Joanna Yardley
Journey to Topaz by Yosiko Uchida, ill. by Donald Carrick [novel]
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata [novel that includes Native American reservation connection]
The Invisible Thread by Yoshiko Uchida [memoir – good for author study]
^ Primary Sources
“The Fifth Column” political cartoon by Theodore Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)
posters, bubble-gum cards, newspaper editorials, etc. found in museum collections [see websites
list]
photographs by Ansel Adams, found at Library of Congress website
photographs by Dorothea Lange, featured in Impounded, edited by Linda Gordon and Gary
Okihiro and also found at San Francisco Museum, Parks Service, National Archives sites
children’s and young adults’ letters, plus later Congressional testimony, excerpted in
Dear Miss Breed, by Joanne Oppenheim and found on jamn website and also found
on University of Washington library website
transcript of oral history of Peter Ota from The Good War by Studs Terkel
citizens’ and officials’ anti-Asian speeches [see websites list]
map of internment camps [nps website]
maps of Nazi ghettos, work camps, death camps