Oakland Unified School District
INSTRUCTIONAL SERVICES
314 East 10th Street, Oakland, CA 94606-2296
Phone: (510) 879-8253
-
Fax: (510) 879-8607
To: 10th grade World History Teachers
From: Shelly Weintraub and Stan Pesick
Re:
Preparing students for this spring’s district world history writing assessment
This memo is developed with the goal of helping you prepare students to write
thoughtfully about this spring’s world history assessment topic. On the assessment
students are asked to respond to the following prompt
Evaluate the motives for and consequences of Japan’s expansion prior to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I. Reading and Understanding the Prompt
Past assessments have asked students to agree or disagree with a statement. This
assessment however, asks students to evaluate – a more difficult skill. To help students
on the assessment you could explain that evaluate means to make a judgment.
You might also point out that the prompt asks students to do two things 1) Evaluate the
motives for Japan’s expansion and 2) evaluate the consequences of Japan’s expansion.
The documents that will be provided in the assessment are intended to fall into one of
these two categories or “buckets”. Deconstructing the prompt will allow students to be
more successful on the spring assessment.
II. What students need to understand about the topic’s historical context:
First, students need to understand that while usually World War II is taught from a
European perspective, this question shifts the focus to Asia. Both arenas are important,
but different – and it is important that students understand the war in Asia as well as
Europe.
Students should understand that the period from the mid 19th century until the end of
World War II was an age where powerful countries colonized less powerful countries.
Japan, however, unlike most of Asia, was never colonized. This was due in part to
Japan’s geographic isolation. Admiral Perry broke this isolation in 1853 and from that
time forward the Japanese tried to quickly industrialize to emulate European powers and
to leave itself less vulnerable to European colonialism.
OUSD History-Social Studies / Preparing for the 10th Grade Spring Assessment / page #1
III. Textbook (World History: The Modern World) pages and sections connected to this
prompt.
 Early Japan – Pages 320 – 331
 Growing Nationalism – Pages 409 – 413
 Japan and World War II – 471-475
In addition, the Map Skills Exercise on page 412 illustrates how Japan was surrounded by
European colonies and how resources necessary to its expansion were located outside its
borders. This exercise helps prepare students for the assessment.
IV. Timeline – providing additional historical context
Japan Timeline
World Timeline
1853 – Matthew Perry, an American
1842 – The beginning of the “Unequal
admiral, demands that Japan open its
Treaties” that gave rights to European
ports to the outside world
countries such as France, Russia and the
United States in Asia.
1868-1912 – Meiji Restoration – Japan
reorganizes its government to try to
1858 – France begins to colonize
modernize
Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia and
Laos
1905 – Russo-Japanese war. Japan
1898 – The United States takes over the
defeats Russia – the first time in modern Philippines and Hawaii.
history when an Asian nation defeated
a European nation in war.
1919 – The Treaty of Versailles allowed
European powers to carve up colonies
1910 – Japan annexes Korea
in Asia, Africa and the Middle East
1921 – Japan signs the Naval Limitations
Treaty which means that for every five
battleships built by the Americans and
the British, the Japanese are only able
to build three.
1931 – Japan invades Manchuria – part
of northern China
IV. Practice Documents
Attached are four sources and an analysis guide that preview for students that types of
documents and arguments they will be working with when they receive the assessment.
Providing students the opportunity to read, analyze, and discuss these documents before
the assessment should help deepen their understanding of the assessment topic, and
support higher levels of student achievement.
OUSD History/Social Studies
OUSD History-Social Studies / Preparing for the 10th Grade Spring Assessment / page #2
Preparing for the Spring, 2007 District Assessment
Working with the four practice documents below can help you prepare to respond
thoughtfully to the topic for this semester’s district assessment in world history -
Evaluate the motives for and consequences of Japan’s expansion prior to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Read the documents and complete the chart that follows.
Practice Document #1
They (the United States and Britain) have begun to interfere in East Asiatic affairs which are no
concern of theirs…In brief all that we claim is return to us the things that belong to us, but all the
the U.S. and Britain want is to get not only the things that belong to them but also the things that
belong to us. It is clear which demand is just and which is unjust.
- from Saburo Kurusu – Ambassador to the United States, November 26, 1942
Practice Document #2
East Asia embraces various races. Its religions are different. It was the favorite policy of the
Anglo-Saxons to make the various races of East Asia compete and fight each other and make
them small and powerless. We must, therefore, console them, bring friendship among them, and
make them all live in peace.
- from Tokutomi Iichiro, “Commentary on the Imperial Declaration of War,” Sources of Japanese
Tradition, p. 294.
Practice Document #3
I remember being driven in a truck along a path that had been cleared through piles of thousands
and thousands of slaughtered bodies. Wild dogs were gnawing at the dead flesh as we stopped
and pulled a group of Chinese prisoners out of the back. Then the Japanese officer proposed a
test of my courage. He unsheathed his sword; spat on it, and with a sudden mighty swing he
brought it down on the neck of a Chinese boy cowering before us. The head was cut clean off
and tumbled away on the ground as the body slumped forward, blood spurting in two great
gushing fountains from the neck. The officer suggested I take the head home as a souvenir. I
remember smiling proudly as I took his sword and began killing people.
- from interview with Nagatomi Hakudo (a Japanese soldier who was part of the invasion of
China by Japan and occupied Nanking) in Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking
Practice Document #4
We have already said that there are only three ways left to Japan to escape from the pressure of
surplus population. We are like a great crowd of people packed into a small and narrow room,
and there are only three doors through which we might escape, namely emigration, advance into
world markets, and expansion of territory. The first door, emigration, has been barred to us by
the anti-Japanese immigration policies of other countries. The second door, advance into world
markets, is being pushed shut by tariff.
- from Hashimoto Kingoro’ “Address to Young Men,” The Need for Emigration and Expansion,
in Sources of Japanese Tradition, pg. 280.
Document #
Author, Date,
type of
Summary –
What is the
Author Point of
View
How would
you use this
OUSD History-Social Studies / Preparing for the 10th Grade Spring Assessment / page #3
document
(primary or
secondary
main idea?
document
answering the
prompt?
1
2
3
4
OUSD History-Social Studies / Preparing for the 10th Grade Spring Assessment / page #4