Book Title: The Bracelet

Author: Yoshiko Uchida and Joanna Yardley

Publisher and Date: New York: Philomel, 1993

Curriculum Developer: Ivy Jones

Summary: The Year is 1942. The United States and Japan are at war. Emi is a seven-year-old
Japanese American who finds herself in the middle of this conflict. Emi and her mother are forced to pack up all their things and move to a place called an internment camp. Emi's best friend Laurie gives her a bracelet as a goodbye present. The internment camp that they go to is on an abandoned racetrack. Emi and her mother are given a horse stall to live in. Emi keeps quiet about how unhappy she is. But on the first day of camp, when she discovers she has lost her heart bracelet, she is devastated! She is afraid that she won't be able to remember her good friend without the bracelet. Then, she discovers that she doesn't need the bracelet to remember her friend and that she will always remember her friend because of her memories.

Social Studies Relevance: This book can be tied to several different social studies concepts. Several different geography concepts can be connected to this book. The internment camps where the Japanese Americans were sent were located in remote areas of the country. These different areas could be researched and located on a map. The story also mentions that Emi's home was in California. The students could also research and locate California on a map. The imprisonment of Japanese Americans into internment camps is also an important part of American History. Political Science is another social studies area that would need to be addressed. Students should study what political agenda was being met by relocating the Japanese Americans. Psychology can fall very close to Political science in this area. Students should study what the Americans and the Japanese Americans were thinking during this uprooting and how the two groups are related to one another. Therefore psychology and sociology should be addressed.

Grade level: Fifth

Relationship to Social Studies State Core:

• Create individually, or in a group, one or more of the following: newspapers, posters, poetry, bumper stickers, interviews, surveys, bulletin boards, stories, letter writing, diaries, dialogues, or songs.
  
• Interpret news items from a variety of sources.
  
• Evaluate with other class members right and wrong actions, according to universal standards, as being morally acceptable or unacceptable.
  
• Explain the scope and limits of freedom in a democratic society.
  
• Identify major values in the Declaration of Independence, constitution, and Bill of Rights.
  
• Outline the major historical events, people, wars, and documents that played a significant role in United States history from 492 to the present.

Title of Lesson: Feelings On Japanese Internment

Objectives:

• The students will be able to make a watercolor painting that describes how the book, The Bracelet made them feel.
  
• The students will be able to discuss the feelings described by their painting with the rest of the class.

Materials Needed:

The Bracelet

Watercolors

Paper

Procedure:

1. Read the book, The Bracelet to your students.
2. Discuss with your students the history behind this story. More information about the internment of Japanese Americans is given in the back of the book.
3. Answer any questions that your students have.
4. Give each of your students a couple of pieces of paper and a set of watercolors. It is important to make your students feel that it is okay to use more than one piece of paper. This is probably an assignment that they will do several drafts of before they create a picture that they are satisfied with.
5. Direct your students to paint a picture of something that describes the way this book made them feel.
6. Divide students into discussion groups by having them number off from one to five. Have each of the students describe their picture to the other members in the group.
7. Walk around to the different groups and guide students in the discussion only if needed. Otherwise let the students take control of the discussion and express their emotions freely.

Evaluation:

1. Go around to each group and listen to their discussions. Listen specifically to factors thatdemonstrate that your students are able to create a picture that describes their emotions.
2. You should also listen to make sure that your students are able to communicate theiremotions effectively with the rest of the group.

Title of Lesson: KWL on Japanese Internment

Objective:

• The students will be able to generate a list of concepts about the internment of Japanese
  Americans based on what they have learned from the book, The Bracelet.
• The students will be able to generate a list of concepts about Japanese internment that they would like to know about.
• The students will be able to do research and come up with answers to their questions on
  Japanese internment.

Materials Needed:

Paper

Pencils

Books about Japanese Internment

Procedures

1. Tape three pieces of butcher paper to your chalkboard.
2. Write down "What we know" on the first page.
3. Direct your students to think of things that they know about the internment of Japanese Americans.
4. Have your students come up and list information of this piece of butcher paper. Write down "What we wonder" on the second page.
5. Now, ask your students if they have any questions about it or if there is anything they want to learn about the internment of Japanese Americans.
6. Have your students list their comments on this strip of butcher paper.
7. Give your students the books that you have gathered for this unit. Tell your students to use "Japanese Internment" as their search subject on the internet.
8. direct your students to look for answers to their questions and too also write down any new information that they think would be of interest to the class.
9. Guide your students in their research but be careful that you don't take over this process. Make sure that most of the research is being conducted by the students.
10. Write down "What we have learned" on the third page.
11. Ask your students for input on what they have learned. List their comments on the third sheet of butcher paper.
12. Draw arrows between questions from the second page and answers that correspond to these questions on the third page.
13. Finish up this lesson by reviewing everything that the students learned.

Evaluation:

1. Observe to see if the objectives of this lesson are met by evaluating how the students respond to thethree different list generating activities.
2. You will be able to tell if the research done by your students was effective by the final list that theyhelp you make.

Title of Lesson: Oral History on the Internment of Japanese Americans

Objective:

• Students will be able to interview a person who remembers the internment of Japanese Americans.
  
• Students will be able to write a report based on what their interviewee said and use severaldirect quotes in their report.

Materials Needed:

Paper

Pencils

A tape for each student.

A tape recorder for each student.

Procedure:

1. Explain to your students that they are going to write an oral history.
2. Explain to your students that an oral history is where you interview someone and then write down word for word what that person says.
3. Tell your students that they are going to interview someone about what they remember about the internment of Japanese Americans.
4. Explain to your students that this person should be in their seventies. The person that they interview needs to have been alive when the internment of Japanese Americans took place.
5. Give each of your students a tape recorder and tell them to tape the interview. Once they are finished with the interview they need to write a report based on what the interviewee said. Remind your students to use several direct quotes in their report.
6. Demonstrate how this would be done for your students. Select a student and ask this student what they enjoy doing the most in their spare time. Have this student describe how they do this activity
7. Record the response of this student on a tape recorder. Play the response back to the students and write down word for word on the chalk board what this student said
8. Brainstorm with you class a list of questions that they can use in their interviews. Write these questions on the board.
9. These questions should include the following, What do you remember about the internment of Japanese Americans? Did you know any Japanese Americans who were forced into an internment camp? What do you remember hearing about it in the newspapers and on television? Did you have any specific feeling relating to this internment? How do you feel about it now that you can look back on the whole thing?
10. Help your students find someone they can interview if they are not able to find a person on their own. You should also give them the phone numbers and address of your local retirement home.
11. Each of the students should decide whom they are going to interview by the following week. They should each turn in a card with the name of the person they are going to interview and what their phone number is. If they haven't found someone by the next day you need to step in and make sure that each person has someone to interview.

Evaluation:

1. Evaluate the students based on the report that they hand in. you will be able to tell if the objectives of this lesson have been met based on what your students hand in.

Title of Lesson: Book on Internment of Japanese Americans

Objective:

• Students will write and illustrate a book that describes what it would be like if they were a
  Japanese American forced into an internment camp.

Materials Needed:

Paper

Pencils

Markers

Crayons

Lined paper

Glue

Staple

5 Staplers

Procedure:

1. Tell your students that you want each of them to close their eyes. Once they have closed their eyes walk them through stages of relaxation by doing an elevator analogy.
2. Have your students pretend they are in an elevator. Have your students pretend to go all the way up to the sixth floor. At each different floor tell the students that their minds are becoming clearer and clearer and that they are much more relaxed.
3. Tell the students that they are going to imagine what it would be like tobe a Japanese American in the year 1942.
4. Tell the students that the year is 1942 and that they are a Japanese American living with their family in the United States of America.
5. Explain to your students that their father has been taken away to a work camp and that tomorrow they must leave their home, friends and most of their possessions to go to an internment camp.
6. Have them picture what it would be like to pack up all their stuff and leave to an internment camp where they are forced to live in a horse trailer.
7. Have them imagine what it is like living in this horse trailer and have them imagine what problems might be associated with it.
8. Now direct your class to write and illustrate books or stories on what they have imagined. Tell them that they should write these books as if this was really happening to them.
9. Tell your students to keep in mind that these books are going to be published and used in the classroom.

Evaluation:

1. Look at your students books and determine whether or not each student is able to write the story from a Japanese American's point of view.

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