Lessons for Teaching about the Internment Experience
Elementary
- I’m American Too – A Story from Behind the Fences – From Elk Grove USD and the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium. Appropriate for grades 5-8
- In Response to Executive Order 9066 – From Elk Grove USD Technology Services and the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium. Lesson invites students to create a letter poem to commemorate a first-hand account from our TOR WWII archives. Although the lesson is aligned to 8th grade CCSS, it is appropriate for and adaptable to younger students
- Writing for Redress – Created by Elk Grove Unified Teacher Melanie Allen (Raymond Case Elementary School)
- Taking a Stand – Created by Elk Grove Unified Teacher Virginia Herte (Mary Tsukamoto Elementary School)
- How are We Defined as Americans? – PBS Learning Media/The Fred T. Korematsu Institute (Grades K-2, 3-5)
Secondary
- In Response to Executive Order 9066 – From Elk Grove USD Technology Services and the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium. Lesson invites students to create a letter poem to commemorate a first-hand account from our TOR WWII archives. Although the lesson is aligned to 8th grade CCSS, it is appropriate for and adaptable to older students.
- Japanese American Internment – From Stanford University’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum
- A Date that Will Live in Infamy – From the National Archives’ Teaching with Documents series
- I’m American Too – I’m American Now – From Elk Grove USD Technology Services and the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium. Lesson invites students to compare and contrast interviews from WWII and the Vietnam War.
- American Justice on Trial – A problem-based lesson that revolves around a preparing for and holding a mock trial
- What Happens When You Look Like the Enemy – One of a number of excellent lessons and resources from the Densho Project.
- Voices of Japanese-American Internees – From the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), lesson taps into the Pyramid of Hate and introduces students to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988
- PBS Learning Media/The Fred T. Korematsu Institute – Lesson Plans – These standards-aligned lesson plans on the WWII Japanese American incarceration explore topics including Japanese American resistance to the incarceration and the U.S. government’s use of misleading language and euphemisms. Each lesson plan integrates a documentary film clip and includes background information, focus questions, objectives, historical thinking skills, detailed activities, and supplementary materials.
- Who is Fred Korematsu and Why is He an American Hero?
- Confronting Bias and Hate
- Forced Removal
- Pearl Harbor & Executive Order 9066
- Challenging the Government Narrative on Immigration
- Witness to Oppression
- The Successes & Challenges of When They Come For Others
- Photographs Don’t Lie – Documenting Japanese American Concentration Camps