AAPI PERSPECTIVES THEME: Joy & Cultural Resistance
GRADE LEVEL: 3
SUBJECT: ELA, Social Studies
INTENDED UNIT: Joy & Cultural Resistance
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:: How can learning about our families’ and communities’ stories of joy and resistance help us learn about ourselves and the world?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS/BIG IDEAS: How can researching, documenting and uplifting our families’ and our communities’ stories deepen our appreciation of who we are and who holds knowledge?
CONTENT OBJECTIVE:
Knowledge: Students will reflect on the experiences of Japanese Americans at concentration camps during WWII and understand that celebration of community wealth and assets are equally important as critiques of power and systems in uplifting and honoring the knowledges and cultures of minoritized communities.
Skills: Utilizing resistance reads as a means of counter-storytelling and disruption of oppressive narratives.
Habits: Reflection, critical thinking, solidarity, identifying and analyzing systems of oppression, joy as a means of resistance.
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT AREA STANDARDS:
ELA
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
Social Studies
CA ELD STANDARDS:
Exchanging information and ideas with others through oral collaborative discussions on a range of social and academic topics.
Listening actively to spoken English in a range of social and academic contexts.
Reading closely literary and informational texts and viewing multimedia to determine how meaning is conveyed explicitly and implicitly through language.
IEP/504 ACCOMMODATIONS:
All lesson plans will be accommodated with a transcript (for video clips), student facing worksheets, and visual slides ready to be shared and accessed.
Feel free to accommodate extra time for any formative assignments and provide scaffolds as needed for differing age groups/needs.
Refer to specific accommodations in students’ IEP/504 plans.
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Ugly History: Japanese American incarceration camps - Densho Video (link)
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai
a. Book available at the San Jose Public Library
b. Book available at the Santa Clara County Library District
Paul Sakamoto Oral History 4 (14:14 >> 16:29)
Paul Sakamoto Oral History 2 (5:12 >> 6:57)
LESSON IMPLEMENTATION SEQUENCE:
Step 1: Land Acknowledgement, Essential Question, & Warmup
Duration: 10 minutes
Implementation:
Lead the class through a land acknowledgement as appropriate to your specific context.
Introduce the essential questions to the class:
Play the warmup videos, checking for understanding with students through guiding questions and scaffolding.
Resources/Materials:
Slides 1-6
Ugly History: Japanese American incarceration camps - Densho
Assessment: Class discussion
Step 2: Vocabulary
Duration: 10 minutes
Implementation:
Have students read/write the vocabulary words and as a class, have a community discussion about what these words mean to the class as a whole collective:
Joy
Resistance
After your class has come up with some ideas about defining these words, lead a short discussion about the following questions: “Why is it important to learn about joy in our communities?” and “Why is it important to learn about resistance in our communities?”
Before teaching this lesson, please take the time to review the information regarding terminology provided by Densho (Densho: Terminology). Throughout the lesson, you should be modeling for students how to be specific and intentional about the terminology you’re using. It can be helpful for students to understand when you explain why you are intentionally using certain words over others due to the historical context of the events of Japanese American incarceration during WWII.
Resources/Materials:
Slides 7-8
Densho: Terminology
Assessment: N/A
Step 3: Read Aloud
Duration: 10 minutes
Implementation:
Lead a read aloud of the story with the students, and stop to check for students’ understanding throughout the read aloud as necessary to point out key features of the text.
Resources/Materials:
Slide 9
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai
Assessment: N/A
Step 4: AAPI Perspectives Interview Clips & Reflection
Duration: 20 minutes
Implementation:
Play the AAPI Perspectives Interview Clips. As needed, pause to check for student understanding throughout the clips. (For example, students may need help understanding what a “nodule” of a cypress tree branch is.) Then, lead the students in a discussion with the following questions:
In the book, what activities did Mari do with her family and/or friends in the concentration camps?
What activities did Paul and other kids do in the concentration camps?
What kinds of feelings did Mari have at the beginning, middle, and end of the story?
What kinds of feelings might those who were incarcerated have had when they would collect the cypress tree nodules to create art? How do you feel when you create your own art?
Paul tells the story of his mother and the potato. How is horticulture (the art of gardening) also art?
How can learning about our families’ and communities’ stories of joy and resistance help us learn about ourselves and the world?
Paul says that he wasn’t a good artist, but take a look at the drawings behind him. Those are all his artwork! Why do you think he had so much self doubt about his abilities? Do you ever have doubts about your own abilities to do something? Why?
Then, have students write a story or poem, draw a picture, or create a piece of artwork that shows what they have learned from Mari’s and Paul’s stories.
Resources/Materials:
Slides 10-15
Paul Sakamoto Oral History 4 and 2
Assessment:
Class discussion
Story, poem, drawing, or artwork