Teaching history in an Asian American literature course is a challenge because there is so much historical information that has yet to be uncovered. For my digital project, I am creating an Omeka site with lessons on connecting John Okada’s novel, No-No Boy, with Japanese American history during World War II. Also, the lessons will ask students to work with digital resources from credible historical sites. The digital project will include digitized primary sources for students to examine and evaluate. Also, they will learn to make connections between the novel and historical evidence while uncovering complexities in history.
Tag: WWII
Fourth Piece of the Puzzle
For the 4th Piece of the Puzzle, I would like to design a lesson that includes an image from Densho Digital Repository. In one of the collections, there is an image titled, “Funeral Service for a Nisei Soldier.” The link to this image will be posted in Blackboard with credits to Densho Digital Repository and the designated collection. I will post at least 2 questions for students to think about while they are examining the image. This image might be difficult for some students to make sense of after learning about how many of the Japanese Americans were treated during WWII. Some of the students might think: “Why would a person join the U.S. military after he and his family had to give up their home and be shipped off to an internment camp?” Also, they will see the contradictions in the image in relation to the social injustice of Executive Order 9066 and the Loyalty Questionnaire. They will begin to develop questions that they want answers for. They begin to think what else in history needs to be uncovered in the 21st century.
A Plan to Use Image and/or Film for Teaching History
For a face-to-face class, I plan to use a historical film such as Alan Parker’s Come See the Paradise (1990), so I can teach students about key historical moments presented in the film. Prior to viewing the film, I would post 2 questions prior to class discussion that the students will begin to think about while they view the film. After viewing the film, the students will begin to discuss at least 2 prominent issues and themes depicted in the historical moments in the film. After the discussion activity, I would point out at least 2 historical moments key moments in the film. Then, I would direct them to Densho Digital Repository to view at least 2 images from the collections that might be connected to each historical moment and examine them together as a class. Then, the students will be asked to come up with 3 or 4 more historical moments in the film. They will conduct research for each key historical moment by working in groups of 3 or 4 students. Also, they will analyze contradictions and look for what is missing in the selected historical moment of the film. Eventually, they should come up with their own questions when making connections between the film and the research (e.g. primary and secondary sources).
For an online class, I would post some images of Japanese American families before and after WWII. I would add a link to certain images from the Densho Digital Repository in Blackboard. I would post at least 2 questions for them to think about for the posted images that depicts at least 1 or more themes. Students will examine the 2 images and develop questions about them. As a class, we would come up with a list of at least 2-3 major themes. I would teach them how to access and use two media resources. Then, I would ask the students to research Densho or Hirasaki National Resource Center’s online collections to find at least 2 images that depict one or more of the themes. The students will work in groups of 3-4 to further examine and analyze the selected images. They will describe the 2 images with objective and subjective descriptions. Then, they will examine the visual components of the images and look for arguments. Their examination will lead to an analysis of the photographer’s ethos. They will begin to connect the images to the historical event by developing their own questions during the analysis.
Third Piece of the Puzzle
The audience for my final project would be college students who are enrolled in Asian American Literature. Most of my students are Texas residents, and they rarely have exposure to Asian American literature at a two-year college; and a few universities offer the course. I chose them as my audience because they are assigned to read John Okada’s No-No Boy, 1 of 5 novels for the course. To help them learn about the treatment of many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I would like to create a lesson for the 2 or 2.5 weeks they spend with the novel and historical evidence. In the past, when my students were assigned to read Okada’s novel and research history during that time period, they were shocked to find out such information was withheld from them until college. Some students explained to me that most history classes in middle and high schools spend little or no time on the topic of the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Some were shocked to find out that families were forced to leave their houses and businesses, not knowing that they will be able to return to them. To add to their shock or discomfort, they didn’t understand how the U.S. government forced able bodied Japanese American men to separate from their families even after they were removed from their homes and serve in the war. But, the part that they couldn’t understand are the loyalty questions because it was confusing and contradicting, and the questions divided Japanese American families, friends, and communities. Due to this part of discomfort and contradiction, I wanted to include a lesson to help my students grapple with the historical evidence and how literature helps them see something that is still hidden or partially hidden in American history.
By incorporating a lesson that helps students examine and analyze historical evidence in connection to the novel, I am also learning to teach digital history with digital resources. The 21st century student is usually inundated with media and advancing technology, while some students are disenfranchised. Despite the differences, most educators take the leap forward and try to their best to provide a learning environment that adapts to the advancing technology and access to various media. In order to proceed, educators are constantly learning new methods and techniques to engage their students. The 21st century student faces different challenges than the past students, but it’s up to educators to foster a learning environment (e.g. face-to-face, online, or hybrid) that helps the student to think historically and critically in a world of endless information that can be accessed with a few key strokes or just speaking into a mobile device and asking Siri.
Second Piece of the Puzzle
According to McClymer, “We can think of the web as the untextbook,” and the abundance of digital resources allows educators to teach history because “the web enables students to become more active learners.” I would like for my students to understand the importance of filial piety and family values for Japanese Americans living in the U.S. and how WWII and the Executive Order 9066 played a key role in testing those values. First, I will ask my students to do a closed textual reading and analysis of the loyalty questions mentioned in John Okada’s No-No Boy. They will access Densho Encylopedia online because it includes information about the loyalty questionnaire that many Japanese American men were required to answer in 1943. This information plays a key role in helping the students understand the main character’s struggle as a young college student who had to choose between his family or the country he was born in. They will write a reflection that includes questions about the loyalty questionnaire and how it might affect the family.
Then, I will provide at least 2 or 3 primary sources such as photos of Japanese American families before and during WWII for the students to examine. They will be asked to find at least 1 primary source from 2 websites: Densho and the Hirasaki National Resource Center. I will invite my students to visit the Densho website to view photo collections of Japanese American families during WWII. The Densho Digital Repository holds extensive collections of digitized primary sources. They will be assigned to select an image from one of the photo collections of a Japanese American family for analysis and class discussion. Then, the students will select a film from the home-movie collection from the Hirasaki National Resource Center, which is part of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. There are several film collections that feature home-movie footage of Japanese Americans from 1920s to 1960s. My students will select at least 1 home-movie of a Japanese American family before or during the war. The students should be able to make a connection with the selected photo and home-movie and the stories of the families in the novel during an almost forgotten or hidden part of American history. The next lesson plan will include a synthesis of their findings.
I would like to encourage my students to ask questions and dig deeper into the social injustice and how what happened in the past still haunts many Asian Americans who are aware of it. For their final project, their findings and research along with questions can be mashed into a video, or they can create a digital map of family’s journey from home to a camp/camps and to the new home after camp along with some images from the family’s photo collection online.
The digital environment influences the way I teach and learn. I can teach the same objectives for my courses while I change the way I teach my students to think about history. Even though I teach composition and literature, I also place emphasis on history because it is the story of the people. There is so much information that needs to be “uncovered” to show students that history is not just about the past. Learning history goes beyond learning dates, places, people, and events because there are so many stories to discover and uncover. As problem solvers, teachers can learn to foster a learning environment that encourages students to think, to question, to discover, to solve problems, and to learn new ways of approaching history. Educators like me can learn so much from the digital environment. There is an abundance of digital resources that help me to conduct research and compose lesson plans. Also, learning about digital humanities and teaching history in the digital age in the GMU graduate certificate program has encouraged me to view teaching with digital tools and digital media from a progressive perspective. It has reinforced my longtime desire to teach my students the importance of learning with technology to be prepared in a globally competitive world.
First Piece of the Puzzle
For my final project, my initial ideas include several questions that focus on teaching about the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII and how the historical evidence provides an insight into what happened before the war ended. One of the novels that they are assigned to read is John Okada’s No-No Boy. Okada’s novel focuses on more about what happens to Japanese Americans after WWII, but he does begin the novel referencing what had happened to many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The following questions might help my students to begin thinking about the historical issues surrounding an unforgotten and partially hidden period in American history:
What have American history courses revealed about the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII? Why study this part of American history? Are you able to make the connections between the primary and secondary sources? What inquires or historical questions can be derived from viewing, examining, and analyzing the historical evidence? What arguments can be constructed by viewing the primary and secondary sources? Based on your research and reading, what do you think is missing or hidden?
The above questions are challenging for students to make sense of because they were taught from an omniscient narrative that did not include any humanistic approach to learning about the selected historical content. It is a topic that most students have had little exposure to because it is another ugly part of American history. Also, students may have had no exposure to this part of American history, which makes me very sad because I was one of those students. During my freshmen year in high school, my Honors History teacher scanned over a small paragraph in a textbook about the internment camps during WWII and told us that it was not important and it was not on the exam. Fast forward many years later, I have been delving into the unimportant historical content to learn more about it; and I began to “uncover” more interesting sources to investigate and analyze. The historical issues pertaining to the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII make my students feel at unease about what happened, and some of them hesitate at first to learn more about it because it places them in an uncomfortable position. At this point, some of the students begin to ask more developed questions and have a sympathetic or empathic understanding. As a result, they either have to choose “to learn about the rhinoceroses or to learn about unicorns” (Wineburg 498).
(Postscript for Responding to “The History Curriculum in 2013”)
The ideas expressed in Dr. Kelly’s “The History Curriculum in 2013” present a different approach to teaching history. Instead of focusing only on historical content knowledge, he provides 4 different concepts/skills (making, mining, marking, and mashing) with the use of technology to help educators teach history in a new and interesting way. He provides examples for each concept and how each concept can be incorporated into the history curriculum. Kelly knows the importance of digital resources and how they can be used to teach history in a different way. Echoing the move to teach history with a different approach such as Wineburg, Levesque, Calder, and McClymer, Kelly’s ideas are another approach to teaching history and fostering historical thinking. However, Kelly goes a step further with his approach to teaching history by emphasizing that undergraduate students will be better equipped for graduate programs, employment, and research opportunities because they have gained additional skills while studying history.
Densho Encyclopedia
http://encyclopedia.densho.org
http://encyclopedia.densho.org/about/#usingandciting
Densho Encyclopedia provides valuable images and key terms about the history of the Japanese American incarceration and experience during World War II.
