Finding Jewels in an Oyster - Pearl Harbor Lesson Ideas

With tomorrow being the 75^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor I’ve been thinking about strategies for teaching the “day of infamy.” My goals in teaching about Pearl Harbor have always been for students to discover the reasons for the attack, to recognize the shock and fear many Americans felt as a result of the attack, and to realize that despite its devastation, this attack did not cripple American efforts, but instead united the country behind the war effort.

Alston, Charles Henry. "REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR - WORK - FIGHT- SACRIFICE!!" / "WE'LL REMEMBER - AND BY GOD, YOU WONT FORGET!!" Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p., 7 Oct. 2011. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.

It is essential for history teachers to include primary sources in lessons to give students a chance to experience the role of a historian. Primary source analysis provides an important opportunity for students to practice critical thinking skills and to learn how to piece together information for themselves. I’ve utilized several different approaches for teaching Pearl Harbor with primary sources, but one of my favorites is simply asking students to analyze sources to determine why Japan chose to attack the United States. This creates a sense of a mystery for students as they attempt to discover the reasons for the attack.

I have searched and compiled primary source sets in the past, but there are many pre-assembled primary source sets available on this topic. I enjoyed using the set put together by the DBQ Project as part of their Why did Japan bomb Pearl Harbor Mini-Q (although this does require purchase of the mini-q). I find that DBQs are an excellent way to gather primary sources for class activities. The sources in DBQs are already excerpted to a short, manageable size and can easily be adapted to a number of classroom lessons. A quick search for “Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor DBQ” yields many results with a number of valuable primary sources that can be used with the DBQs they were compiled for or for other classroom activities.

I also like to have students analyze firsthand accounts of the attack. I want my students to realize that history involves real people who aren’t all that different from them. Eyewitness accounts help to reinforce this reality. One such source is Ginger’s Diary. I like this account because it is written by a 17-year-old girl, making it something students can relate to.  Essential Pearl Harbor includes several other similar accounts, this website also has a number of other valuable resources for teaching about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Remembering Pearl Harbor includes accounts of sailors who witnessed the attack. Thanks to Richard Byrne, I just discovered The 1941 Project, which is an interactive map featuring stories of survivors of the attack.

Student analysis of these firsthand accounts may be done in a variety of ways. Depending on the dynamics of a class, I might have students simply read and discuss these sources. Other times we’ve compared and contrasted different views of the attack, and still other times, I’ve asked students to read firsthand accounts and write an entry as if they’ve just witnessed the attack. This allows them an opportunity to be creative and express feelings similar to those they’ve read about. 

Unknown Navy Photographer. A navy photographer snapped this photograph of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, just as the USS Shaw exploded. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p., 2 Nov. 2007. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.

I also like to use activities similar to the deliberative strategies that are common in the Choices Units by Brown University. I like these activities because they generally require students to take on a role and/or a specific perspective as they view a key decision or event in history. Students must analyze and synthesize information to support a point of view. In this case, I ask students to imagine they are part of a congressional committee tasked with investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor. I divide the class into groups and assign each group a topic to investigate as they prepare to testify before the committee. Groups include a report on the attack itself (what happened), why Japan attacked, did FDR know about the attack, did Churchill know about the attack, and was the attack a success. Additionally, one group takes the role of committee members and they must develop questions to ask each group as they testify.

Today I discovered another good lesson for teaching about Pearl Harbor. In Pearl Harbor & Hawaii during World War II, students predict why Japan might have attacked, conduct research on the attack, and take part in a Google Expedition to gain background knowledge on Hawaii. Students then use My Maps to create an interactive map illustrating the attack. This is obviously a more involved and more time consuming lesson plan than some of the ones I mentioned above, but it seems to do a nice job of incorporating different skills and utilizing technology to create a student-centered lesson. I like the inclusion of Google Expeditions (Expeditions is a virtual reality app that allows users to view 360-degree panoramas, creating an immersive experience that makes users feel as if they have travelled to different locations. This app can be used with or without virtual reality headsets, such as Google Cardboard.). I also like the integration of My Maps, which I discussed in Finding Your Way - Using Google Maps in the Classroom.

BFG (Building Familiarity with Gilded) -- Lesson Ideas for the Gilded Age

Dahl, Roald, and Quentin Blake. The BFG. Digital image. The BFG. Wikipedia, 26 Oct. 2008. Web. 7 Sept. 2016.

Sometimes it’s interesting where our ideas come from. Recently, while reading Roald Dahl’s The BFG with my kids, we came across the term gilded. As we stopped to discuss this word and ensure everyone understood it’s meaning, the history teacher in me took over and I immediately began thinking of the Gilded Age and of ways to explain this period to students.

When introducing this era, I often start with the term gilded. This leads us into a discussion of why a term meaning covered in gold, or having an appearance that conceals something of little value, is used to describe a historical era. This often leads to some great predictions from students and gets them thinking about the time period we are going to study.

I have always felt it is important for students to understand that the Gilded Age was a time of change in the United States and that this change benefitted some at the expense of others. My approach to achieving this instructional goal varied over the years. Several times I had students create Animoto videos as a response to an essential question related to this era in history (This project was very similar to the activity I wrote about in Picture Perfect – Creating Animoto Videos to Illustrate Life During the Great Depression).

Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives. Digital image. How the Other Half Lives. Wikipedia, 19 Aug. 2007. Web. 7 Sept. 2016.

The Gilded Age also provides a great opportunity to work on image analysis. There are a number of excellent images from the Gilded Age for students to analyze. I enjoy using images and excerpts from Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives. Riis’ photographs take us into the lives of many ordinary people in the late 19^th century and really drive home the inequity of the era for students.

This is also a great era to work on analysis of political cartoons. I love using Thomas Nast’s cartoons to help illustrate key issues of the Gilded Age (Nast’s works are available through many different sources, including the Library of Congress). These cartoons are not only telling about the era, but they also provide an opportunity for students to practice analyzing political cartoons. There are many different effective approaches to teaching students how to analyze political cartoons; I often discuss the persuasive techniques common to political cartoons and use the Primary Source Analysis Tool for political cartoons from the Library of Congress. Through this process I want to stress to students that they need to look for symbols in the cartoon, see what action is taking place in the cartoon, examine any text (speech/thought bubbles, captions, labels, etc.), and then determine the message and/or opinion put forth in the cartoon.

As I was explaining the term gilded to my kids recently, I thought of another instructional strategy that allows students to demonstrate understanding of the changes and inequities of this era in history. I think it would be a great activity to have students illustrate how the term gilded represents this time period. Students could create drawings showing wealth and perceived progress covering up the exploitation and problems within American society. This allows students to demonstrate their understanding of the United States’ struggles with growth and the conflicts between wealth vs. poverty, urban vs. rural, industrial vs. artisan, reform vs. corruption, etc. Drawings are an excellent way to assess student understanding of key concepts.

I have used student illustrates to gauge understanding in the past, but I guess I had never thought of applying it to this topic. I like the idea of asking students to draw. This allows them to express their creativity and gives students who are better at expressing themselves in this way an opportunity to demonstrate understanding.

Who Am I? -- Introducing the Teacher through Primary Sources

from: http://aminecube.deviantart.com/art/who-am-i-251512536

As we begin another school year I’ve tried to rethink some of my beginning of the year activities.  I have always felt it is important to expose students to the procedures and routines that are expected within my classroom.  I also think it is essential for students to become comfortable in my classroom, get to know each other and get to know me.  This year I have tried to incorporate all of these introductory activities into a lesson that allows students to begin practicing skills that will commonly be used in the study of history while being exposed to the idea of an inquiry-based approach to learning.

 

I think it is important to introduce students to the study of history early in the year.  This means conveying to students the importance of approaching the study of history as a historian would; piecing together primary sources to try to form a complete picture of the past.  

 

This year I developed an activity to try and combine these objectives into an introductory activity.  This activity begins with a quick discussion of how we learn about history.  Students usually respond by stating that it comes from a book or from the internet.  Further prompting leads students to begin listing things such as letters, diaries, documents, etc.  This opens up a discussion to explain the difference between primary and secondary sources.  The differences between these two types of sources can be further clarified by the video “What is a Primary Source.” 

 

The next phase of this lesson allows students to practice analyzing primary sources in order to form a picture of the past and, in the process, to get to know more about me as a person.  Students are placed in cooperative learning groups of 2-3 and each group is given a few primary sources that relate to various aspects of my life.  Some examples of the types of sources I included are my high school diploma, one of my senior pictures from high school showing the sports I was involved in, ticket stubs from football games I attend, the program from my college graduation, my diploma from my master’s degree, my first teaching contract, some of my favorite books, pictures of my wife and kids, pictures of me camping and canoeing with my family, and my wife’s school ID that shows she is also a teacher.

 

Students work with their groups to analyze the primary sources, completing a chart to record a description of each source and any inferences that can be drawn from the source.   These inferences go beyond a mere summary of the document to draw conclusions based on evidence from the documents.  These conclusions will help explain something about me as a person.  This allows students practice analyzing sources and considering the significance of each source in helping to explain the past.

 

After analyzing each source, students put together all of their information and inferences to form a complete picture of me as a person.  Groups will illustrate their image of me by filling in an outline of a human body that represents me.  Students are instructed to add clothing, accessories, or anything in the background to help illustrate me as a person.

 

To promote a sense of community, each group is given a chance to share their picture of me and explain to the class how they arrived at their conclusions about me.  Students begin to feel like they know a little about me, but they are left with more questions.  After allowing students to ask additional questions about me, we discuss the benefits and shortcomings of primary sources in studying history. 

Students have now had a chance to get to know a little about me, so I transition into an activity that allows me to get to know each of them.  Each student needs to determine what is important about them as a person and brainstorm 5 primary sources that demonstrate these aspects of their life.  Students do not need to bring these sources to school, but rather just describe them in writing.  Along with the description of each source, students include an explanation of what someone could learn about them by examining the source.  Lastly, students complete a picture illustrating important things about them as a person.  Much like the picture they made of me, this will involve adding details to an outline of a human body.

 

This lesson worked very well to achieve the objectives I had for an introductory activity.  Students gained experience working with primary sources on an inquiry-based activity, they got to know a little about me as a person, they were introduced to some of their classmates as they worked together, and they were exposed to the procedures and routines I expect them to follow as we work in groups and complete in class activities.  I was also able learn a little about each of them as they explain primary sources from their lives and create a picture of themselves.

  

He Said, He Said -- Creating Animated Videos About Martin Luther King & Malcolm X

 

Today’s snow day here in Omaha gives me the opportunity to share another lesson idea.  I have used this lesson idea a few times as part of a unit on the civil rights movement, which also corresponds with African American History Month.  This lesson idea goes along with the latter part of our unit on the civil rights movement.  By this time, we have already studied events that spurred the civil rights movement as well as many of the early gains made by activists in this era.  The purpose of this activity is to illustrate the different thinking that contributes to the splintering of the civil rights movement in the mid to late 1960s.  

 

I begin this lesson by asking students to analyze the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Statement of Purpose from 1960 and to compare this to an excerpt from a speech by Stokely Carmichael (Chairman of SNCC) in 1966. 

 

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founding Statement, April, 1960

 

We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our purpose, the presupposition of our belief, and the manner of our action. 

 

Nonviolence, as it grows from the Judeo-Christian tradition, seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents the crucial first step towards such a society. 

 

Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear. Love transcends hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Faith reconciles doubt. Peace dominates war. Mutual regards cancel enmity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community supersedes immoral social systems. 

 

By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, nonviolence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities. 

 

Although each local group in this movement must diligently work out the clear meaning of this statement of purpose, each act or phase of our corporate effort must reflect a genuine spirit of love and good-will.

Taken from http://www.crmvet.org/docs/sncc1.htm

Black Power Address by Stokely Carmichael (SNCC Chairman), Oct. 1966 

  

Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word "Black Power" -- and let them address themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That's white people. They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.

 

And then, therefore, in a larger sense there's the question of black people. We are on the move for our liberation. We have been tired of trying to prove things to white people. We are tired of trying to explain to white people that we’re not going to hurt them. We are concerned with getting the things we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. The question is, Can white people allow for that in this country? The question is, Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country? If that does not happen, brothers and sisters, we have no choice but to say very clearly, "Move over, or we’re going to move on over you."

Excerpted from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower.html

This opening activity allows for practice analyzing primary source documents while also introducing the growing debate among activists over the best method to achieve their goals.  After walking students through their analysis of these documents and leading a discussion about different views on civil rights, students are prompted to predict possible reasons that some civil rights activists began shifting away from nonviolence as a means of achieving change.

 

This discussion of the merits of nonviolence vs. the appeal of violent resistance leads us toward the two people most associated with these divergent views on civil rights; Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.  To further understand the beliefs of these two leaders, students will analyze primary and secondary sources and develop a fictional dialogue between the two men.  

 

Each student is assigned to play the role of either Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr.  Students will analyze a secondary source to gain background knowledge about the figure they were assigned (I have used http://www.biography.com/ as a source for background information -- Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X).  Each student will also analyze a primary source to further explain each man’s opinion of the best way to advance civil rights for African Americans.  Students assigned to Martin Luther King Jr. will read The Power of Nonviolence and those assigned to Malcolm X will read A Summing Up: Louis Lomax Interviews Malcolm X.  When I have done this activity with my AP U.S. History class I leave the documents as they are, but for my honors 9^th grade U.S. History class I have edited the readings to allow for improved comprehension.  These readings could take a while to complete, so depending on the amount of class time available, they could be assigned as homework.  It may also be beneficial to utilize think-pair-share or another strategy to allow students to discuss their readings with other students who had the same person in order to clarify key concepts.

 

Next I pair each student with one of their classmates who had the opposite person.  This pair of students is instructed to develop a fictional dialogue between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.  This dialogue must include a discussion of the goals of each man, their views as to the best way to achieve their goals, and the conversation must include at least four differences between the two leaders.

 

When students finish their dialogue and I can see that they understand the different points of view concerning civil rights, then they are instructed to create an animated video that illustrates these differences.  Xtranormal is a great source for this, it allows students to easily create animated videos in a short amount of time (GoAnimate offers a similar service as Xtranormal).  Students will need to set up a free account (or the teacher could set up accounts ahead of time).  Students may then choose a scene and characters (the free account limits these options somewhat, but there are still a number of choices).  Xtranormal does have a Martin Luther King Jr. character, but there is no Malcolm X, so I suggest that students either choose different characters to represent these two men or that they shift their dialogue so that it is not Malcolm X and Martin Luther King talking, but rather different people discussing the views of these two.  Students can then type their dialogue into Xtranormal and it will turn the text into speech.  Students also have some limited options as to actions of their characters.  I have found that many students get very interested in this lesson in part because they enjoy the opportunity to create animated videos on Xtranormal.

  

Through this lesson idea, students gain a better understanding of the differing views of civil rights as personified by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, they practice the skill of analyzing primary source documents, and student interest is piqued through the creation of an animated video that demonstrates the divergent views on civil rights.