1. Quick Write
How do you address student questions about sensitive topics?
Have you ever used student questions to drive future instruction?
How would student achievement be impacted if you responded to specific student concerns rather than a prescribed curriculum?

2. Exploring a whole different part of World War II
Japanese Internment
Exploring a whole different part of World War II

3. Rationale How can people stand by and let this happen?
After reading The Diary of Anne Frank and nonfiction supplements about the European theater of World War II, my students had many questions about the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Some of the most common ones were:
How can people stand by and let this happen?
How could the Nazis take people from their homes and force them to go to camps?
Were all Germans racist against Jewish people?

4. A word of caution…
It is extremely important to explain to the students that the Japanese people were not harmed in the camps in the ways that the Jewish people were killed or harmed in concentration camps.
Although I am making a connection between the Nazis’ treatment of Jewish people and the United States’ treatment of Japanese people, I am NOT saying that concentration camps and internment camps are the same thing.
During this comparison, which is purely discussion, we focus on issues of property loss, the loss of individual freedom and the subjugation of one race/nationality/religious group under another.

5. Lesson Sequence Discussion—different theaters of WW II
Read Text #1 (we read the whole story)
Graphic organizer
Read Text #2 (we read this orally)
View Text #3 (we view this)
Discussion—point of view
Discussion—other primary documents
Writing! 

7. Text Excerpt #1 “Camp Harmony” by Monica Sone

8. Text Excerpt #2
“In Response to Executive Order 9066” –Dwight Okita

9. Text Excerpt #3 “Uprooted” from the series “We the People”
An oral history project produced by the California Museum
If you’d like more
information, reference

10. Graphic Organizer
Short story
Poem
Oral History

11. Point of View Let’s try it! 
At this point, we discuss what it would be like to be in the camps.
I tape out a typical barracks on the floor in my room and push the desks back so they can see the size they’d be living in.
In their teams, they brainstorm what they’d miss the most and what their number one challenge would be.
Then we share on the Smart Board in a T-chart.
Let’s try it! 

12. Other Primary Documents
Executive Order 9066
The Fifth Amendment

13. How we’d feel… What we’d miss the most…
What would be our biggest challenge…

14. Writing Prompt Your persuasive letter must include:
A thesis statement that has (1) the topic (2) your opinion (3) a plan of development
At least three strong reasons to support your thesis statement
A strong concluding paragraph urging President Roosevelt to take action
At least three appropriate transitions
A date (that matches the topic), a formal opening, a formal closing, a realistic address