A local TV station kicked off the Veterans Day weekend with a showing of Tora! Tora! Tora! With an all-star cast, I certainly do not question why this 1970′s portrayal of the bombing of Pearl Harbor deserves recognition as an American classic. A number of lines from the movie, however, reminded me of the importance of providing students with access to a broad collection of primary sources for learning about World War II.

It is often through snippets of first-hand accounts of a historical event, that students begin to question information – such as the accounts provided by textbooks. As I listened to one of the American officers in Tora! Tora! Tora! explain that the real danger was the hundreds of Japanese living in Hawaii, I thought about a government propaganda clip, Japanese Relocation, that explained (justified) the need to remove thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage from the West Coast. This government clip provides insight into the political climate of the war years.

But history is all about who is telling the story.  In working on the Time of Remembrance Oral Histories Project, a project I’ve been involved in for that last six years, I find that with each new interview, my understanding of the internment experience deepens, as does my appreciation for war time complexities.

I recently added ten new interviews to the Time of Remembrance collection. Each story is a reminder of what can happen if we allow the loss of rights to any group of people to go unchallenged. Each story is also a reminder that history happens one story at a time.

The additions to the  Interview Archives include first-hand accounts from:

• Jack Dairiki – Born in Sacramento, Jack recounts his trip to Japan in 1941, being caught there, and surviving the bombing of Hiroshima.
• Jim Tanimoto – I met Jim last spring during an annual Pilgrimage to Manzanar. Jim’s story is the first in our collection from a No-No boy, a term for resisters. No-No boys answered “No” to questions 27 and 28 on the Loyalty Oath they were required to take.
• Gary Shiota – Gary explains the issues of the Loyalty Oath.
• Jim Tanaka – Jim provides a window into the 442nd experience and the experience of the 100th battalion from Hawaii.
• Roy Sato – Roy shares experiences of signing up for draft and being classified as “4C” – an “enemy alien.”
• Marion Kanemoto – One of the most powerful stories in the TOR collection, Marion tells of being sent to Japan as part of a prisoner exchange. In later years, with a little help from her law student son, she literally changes history.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll also be uploading a set of powerful lessons created by 12 teachers in my district.  This incredibly talented panel is making available to you grade-level (grades 5-12), standards-aligned lessons that weave in the TOR interview segments. You are free to download, share, and tweak these lessons in anyway that works best for you and your students.

It is my hope that the primary sources provided through the Time of Remembrance site will engage students in “doing history” as opposed to just “studying history.”  Whatever the historical event, all students should have opportunities to construct knowledge and exam differing points of view, and, in the process, gain a sense of what it was like to live through events from the past. The Common Core State Standards support the integration of primary sources into the curriculum because reading through first-hand accounts of any event invites the development of critical thinking and helps students to “distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.”

As for Tora! Tora! Tora!, it just seems that 70 years later, a movie trailer might be appropriate – one that makes clear that actually not a single Japanese-American citizen was ever found guilty of espionage or traitorous activities.

Wishing everyone a restful, reflective Veterans Day:-)

Gail is opening the session with the Issac’s Storm video (great storm in 1900 in Galveston) to accompany book read by elementary students. The movie was created in PhotoStory3. She’s comparing the Issac visual representation to Ike’s storm effects via Animoto.com (love this program, but it’s blocked in my district). Same music even, but much more “modern” looking.

Primary resources to go with Around the Great Hornspoon:

• Art of the Gold Rush from the Oakland Museum
• Library of Congress Gold rush images
• Podcasts with professional readers sharing from actual journals: http://californialegacy.org/podcast/podcast.xml
• Simulations from CBS
• Revision sheet from author of Great Hornspoon – http://www.sidfleischman.com/biography.html
• Motivations: Google Lit Trips via Google Earth (but remember to download a KMZ file)

Moving on to The Quiltmaker’s Journey:

• http://enchantedlearning.com/paint/artisits/amishquilt/ – math end of quilts
• drawing a grid with math tie-in – www.billbear4kids.com/
• other lessons in book:
  • kindness, generosity (make posters, make PSAs
• Moments in Time – Wisconsin Public Television
• Jan Brett’s website – Town Mouse Country Mask – checkout website for masks, finger puppets, videos on how to draw characters
• Lemony Snickett’s website: Checkout the videos. Great samples for filmmaking.
• The Arrival – Showcasing my friend Monica Edinger’s classroom project and author visit.
• StoryNory – audio versions of books with historical tie-ins (e.g., Cinderella stories)
• Moments in Time – Wisconsin Public Television
• Digital Media Overdrive - Audio files of hundreds of books!
• LibriVox – Audio books to download (public domain)
• State of Florida – huge repository of books by reading level/grade level
• Bookhive – storytelling as an entry point – great way to engage students and to model inflection and fluency.
• Book Pals Storyline – Check out Lou Diamond-Phillips reading Polar Express and their Readers Theater
• Read Write Think - Simply the best for literature-based activities and book list
• Google Book search – In some cases you can embed the stories into a blog or wiki
• www.mywebspiration.com – Free and you can invite collaborators – Similar to Bubbl.us for mindmaps. Being a long-term fan of Inspiration, I’m loving having the free version, which allows you to upload any mindmaps you’ve created in the full-blown program.

Great session. I’ll try to get to her afternoon session.