Objective: To help students become aware of, and sensitive to, the Japanese American camp experience. They will develop a sense of empathy by simulating the situations which Japanese American children faced.
Description: Lesson plan is divided into four parts. It requires reading, writing, class activities and discussion.
Materials: Book, Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971. 1985. A historical fiction of an 11-year old and her family uprooted from their California home an sent to Topaz, a desert wartime camp. 149pp. Video, Historical Time-line of Japanese Americans by Masaye Nakamura and Kathy Lee. Features writer Yoshiko Uchida. (See Bibliography). Overhead projector. Notepaper. A few personal belongings
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION OF BOOK
1. Show Video: Historical Time-line of Japanese Americans.
2. Discuss Japanese American evacuation.
3. Instructor reads prologue in Journey to Topaz
4. Students begin writing in their reading log book on the following:
PART TWO: READING
1. Read aloud Chapters 1 and 2.
2. Using overhead projector, discuss the following questions:
A. Who are the strangers at the door?
B. Why was Papa taken away?
C. If you were Yuki, how would you feel?
3. Read silently Chapters 3 and 4. Answer the following in the reading log.
A. What happens at school to Yuko and how does she feel about what happened?
B. After reading Chapters 1-3, what conclusions can you make about the Sakane family?
C. What must the Sakanes do with all of their belongings?
D. What happens to Pepper and how does Yuki feel about it?
4. In the reading log, list 3 objects you would pack if you were Yuki. List them according to the most treasured first.
PART THREE: SIMULATION ACTIVITY
1. Students are given the following homework assignment. "Your family is being evacuated from your home. Pack in a backpack two sets of clothing, favorite toy, book, game, and whatever you can carry. Include your treasured collections and hobbies. Be careful not to lose them . Be ready to share items from your backpack in groups of four.
2. Next day. Backpacks are piled in the center of the room. Each student picks up another student's backpack. Assignment: Look at contents in backpack and make some statements about the person whose treasures you are looking at. 1. What kind of person - girl?, -boy? interests, hobbies? 2. In Reading Log write your conclusions.
3. Return backpack to each student. Students are then divided into groups of four representing a Japanese American family. Head of household is pinned with a card having family name on it and other family members have only the same identification number pinned on them. Instructor does not reveal where they are going to what they will do when they get there.
4. In family groups, students walk around the school yard twice, carrying their backpacks.
A. Review the Sakane family's evacuation to enhance realistic role playing.
B. In family groups, student writes down the contents of the backpack, places it into two categories. 1. electrical 2. non-electrical. Of the non-electrical, any books with pictures are listed.
5. When family groups return to class, instructor writes down on blackboard, the category of items. Then proceeds to cross off items that may be considered "contraband" such as radios, Walkmans, diaries, language books, books with maps, plastic or toy weapons. Stress that children were not allowed to see most of their class friends or bring their pets to camp.
6. Write in reading log the evacuation experience. How would you feel, what would you do, who would you miss?
PART FOUR: BUILDING BARRACK SPACE
1. Read Chapter 5 - 6.
2. Assign two students to make signs BARRACK 16, STALL NO. 40. Have four students measure and mark with masking tape a 10 x 20 foot space in front of the room to show the Sakane's living space at Tanforan.
3. Instructor leads class discussion. Students discuss, then will write their thoughts in the reading log.
A. Consider the perimeter your new home. It smells like horses and manure. You notice that a barbed wire fence surrounds the buildings you and other people like you live. You are guarded by soldiers with armed guns. What would you do or say. How would you feel?
B. Your new "home" is one room, where all your family lives. You cannot do any of the things you do regularly? What things would you miss the most?
C. Imaging getting up in the morning. You have to go to the bathroom, but you have to walk half a block to get there. Is it cold? hot? Are there dust storms?
D. Breakfast is served exactly at 7am. There is no refrigerator or store nearby. For breakfast they serve you powdered milk or oatmeal mush. For dinner every night, it's liver. What do you choose? How does it taste?
4. Students continue reading the rest of Journey to Topaz. After completion, students
will write book reviews.
