Spark

Lesson 1: “Before Pearl Harbor”/“Daily Life on the Homefront”

50 min

California CCSS: Focus Standards

California CCSS: Supporting Standards

ELD Standards

Student Lesson

Lesson 1: “Before Pearl Harbor”/“Daily Life on the Homefront”

Student Learning Objectives

Content

Students will engage with an article and photo collection that provide context for the wartime experiences of Japanese Americans and people on the home front generally. The photos also provide a way to introduce Dorothea Lange, one of three photographers whose work at Manzanar is covered in Seen and Unseen.

Language

Students will build historical context by describing and interpreting details from an informational article and a photo collection, using observation and interpretation verbs (depicts, represents, suggests) and the sentence starters “I notice…”/“I wonder...” to explain how perspective and bias shape what gets remembered about Japanese American life before World War II.

Foundations

Students will learn the meanings of perspective and bias, two words fundamental to understanding both the anchor text and the history of Japanese American internment.

Essential Question

How do historical records—texts, images, and testimony—shape what is remembered about the past?

Connections to

Knowledge-Building:

The items in this lesson’s Resource Set describe the communities that were destroyed by the internment policy and, in many cases, never rebuilt.

Enduring Understanding:

The stories of the Japanese Americans affected by Executive Order 9066 did not begin at Pearl Harbor. Japanese immigrants and their descendants had a long history in the United States prior to the war.

Future Lessons:

Lessons 2 and 3 continue building context by introducing documents directly related to Japanese American internment and wartime propaganda.

Unit Performance Task:

To interpret primary documents in this unit’s research project, students will need both a contextual understanding of the internment policy and the ability to consider a source’s perspective and purpose.

Lesson Pacing

Lesson Flow	Purpose of Learning Experience
Launch15 Minutes	Students will read a newspaper article describing Japanese American communities in Los Angeles before World War II and reflect on the struggles and opportunities these communities encountered.
Learning in Action30 Minutes	Part A: Compare Media: Life on the Homefront (RI.7.6, RI.7.7) Students will build background knowledge about the war by examining photographs from the American home front and will continue to discuss the situation of Japanese Americans on the eve of the war. Part B: Preview Themes (RI.7.6) Students will discuss the meaning of key thematic terms for this unit such as perspective and bias and will relate them to the work of documentary photographers.
Look Back5 Minutes	Students will use a 3–2–1 Summary to consolidate what they have learned from the article and photo set.