Smile for the camera! Analyzing photos from the Amache Digital Collections Project
Subject
History or Library
Grade Level
4th Grade
Time
Four 40-minute class periods
Focus of Lesson
Students will learn how to evaluate and interpret primary documents on the Japanese
internment and relocation to the Granada (Camp Amache) Relocation Center.
Standards Addressed
- History Standard 1: Students know the general chronological order of events and people in
history. - History, Standard 5.3: Students know how political power has been acquired, maintained,
used, and/or lost throughout history. - Reading and Writing, Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing,
speaking, listening, and viewing. - Information Literacy, Standard 2: Students evaluate information critically and competently.
Standards Assessed
- History Standard 2.2: Students know how to interpret and evaluate primary and secondary
sources of historical information.
Assessment
Students will be assessed on their ability to understand and interpret photographs. They will be
completing the Analyzing Primary Sources worksheet and responding to a class discussion.
Materials
- Computer with Internet access
- Computer with projector and screen, or overhead projector to show online documents and
photographs
- Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee
- Documentary Children of the Camps: An American Story of Civil Liberties (optional)
- Primary source documents from the collections:
o Library of Congress American Memory America from the Great Depression to World War
II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html
o Amache Digital Collections Project http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public//library/archives/adc.html
- Handouts (see support materials)
Possible Procedures
Part 1. Background on WWII and Japanese Relocation
Day 1
1. Introduce topic by reading the picture book Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki and Dom
Lee: A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live
in an internment camp.
2. Briefly present on the events that lead the U.S. to declare war on Japan and enter WWII. The following primary source documents and images could be used to supplement the lecture:
a) Naval Dispatch announcing bombing of Pearl Harbor
b) Photos from Pearl Harbor Bombing:
c) FDR signing Declaration of War against Japan
Day 2
3. Briefly present on the domestic response to the war with Japan with the relocation and internment of Japanese-America. The following primary source documents and photos could be used to supplement the lecture:
a) Executive Order 9066:
b.) Evacuation from Los Angeles
c) If interested, show the documentary Children of the Camps: An American Story of Civil Liberties. However, it will require an additional class period.
Part 2. Japanese Internment in Colorado at the Granada (Camp Amache) Relocation Center
Day 3
1. Briefly lecture on the history of Japanese Internment in Colorado at the Granada (Camp Amache) Relocation Center. Some resources are:
a) The Problem of the Japanese
b) At home at Amache
c) Chapter 5: Granada Relocation Center: http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce5.htm
from the online book produced by the National Park Service Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites authors J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord
2. Show photographs from Camp Amache to supplement the lecture:
a) Arial view of the Granada Relocation Center
b) Evacuees arriving at the Granada Relocation Center
c) Barracks building:
d) Barracks apartment:
e) Japanese garden
d) First Amache war casualties:
Day 4
3. Analyze Camp Amache Photos.
a) Using an overhead projector (or hand out a copy of the photo to each student) show the Barracks apartment
b) Model how to answer the questions on the Analyzing Primary Sources worksheet
4. Assessment.
a) Break students into smaller groups.
b) Give each student a copy of the Analyzing Primary Sources worksheet (one per student) and a copy of the Children in Grade School Library to analyze (one per student)
c) Have students work in teams. Each student must complete his/her own worksheet.
d) Collect worksheets
Day 5
4. Continue analyzing Camp Amache Photos.
a) Return worksheets
b) Class discusses their answers to the worksheet.
c) Reveal information on the creator, Joseph McClelland, War Relocation Authority Reports Officer and camp photographer of the Amache Camp.
d) Discuss how knowing more information on the creator changes the meaning of the photograph.
5. Summary
a) To conclude the lesson, you may want to comment on Camp Amache today.
b) Report to the President: Japanese-American Internment Sites Preservation on the Granada (Amache) Relocation Center, Colorado (January 2001)
c. Denver Post article "Japanese American leaders keep Amache's memories alive" (16 Feb 2003)
Support Materials
- Image on computer projector or copy of image on overhead of the links above.
- Handout: Analyzing Primary Sources worksheet (one per student)
- a copy for each student of the photograph Barracks apartment:
- a copy for each student of the photograph Children in Grade School Library
Other lesson plans using online primary source documents to teach about Japanese relocation and internment are:
o "Detecting Bias in Primary Sources: Amache Relocation Camp" by Kurt Knierim, Rocky Mountain High School
o "Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself" by Gail Desler, Elk Grove Unified School District, Elk Grove, California
Created by Denise Pan, School Librarian, McGlone Elementary, Denver, CO
