Session 7 (10/25) readings

[Anonymous]

I think the way in which Professor Yamashita presented his lecture through a Socratic Discussion was a great way to elicit findings from students. He asked probing questions at the right time to build on and allowed us to explore what the person might have been going through. We were able to see the war through the eyes of the writer, but we were also able to see the social, political and economic aspects that may have influenced the person. It lent itself to the discusssion about biographies and how best to understand them as a tool for instruction.

[Anonymous]

I especially enjoyed reading the diaries Professor Yamashita shared during the session. It is a wonderful source I plan to use in the classroom for my high school students. Early in the academic year in all of my English classes, regardless of grade, I begin with speeches to discuss rhetoric/literature devices in order to build a foundation of skills for students. The diaries of the Japanese pilot, wife, and child, serve as a great example of going over these skills and will allow me to use great literature from outside the western canon. The nuances and subtleties of the language in the diaries were great, including the writers' tones and word choices. I look forward to using them in my classroom.

[Anonymous]

Featured Exhibit- In Focus: Tokyo August 5-December 14, 2014
This one-gallery exhibition consisted of photographs from four distinct artists who all seek to capture life in Tokyo. All of the photographers are from Japanese heritage.
Shigeichi Nagano captures his photos of the community in focus. They are printed in a silver gelatin, almost black and white in orientation. The community is portrayed as bustling and out grown. This collection of photos demonstrates what growth certain communities have seen post WWII.
Masato Seto uses young couples as the focus of his photographs. The young couples are seen picnicking and on dates. If you were to replace the Japanese couples in the photos and replace them with American couples the scenes are very familiar. These photos demonstrate just how many similarities the two cultures share in regards to young peoples.
Daido Moriyama uses black and white photography to show the nightlife in Tokyo. The photos are provocative and reminiscent of Warhol in a contemporary and sexualized sense. The photographs could easily be transitioned to a high end Western based magazine.
Mikiko Hara captures unknown city dwellers in day to day activities. They are captured waiting on the subway, in a school setting, and walking down the streets. It is certainly a more candid look at life in everyday Tokyo.

[Anonymous]

With a strong emphasis on the Common Core State Standards specific importance is placed on primary documents. Diaries provide a wonderful primary source to utilize in the classroom. In addition to the incorporation of diaries as a primary source for the basis of achieving reading and writing literacy standards they provide students with a personal view from the culture and time period. Too often history is informative and doesn't look at the human aspect. Diaries truly accomplish both of these needs.

[Anonymous]

The Diary of a Naval Attack Pilot was fascinating. If one were to take out the names of people, I think the reader could convince him/herself that the passages were just as easily written by a British, Polish, Russian, American . . . author. History is written by the victors, so it was interesting to look at these primary documents that view the war through different eyes - they were not the enemy, they were doing what needed to be done to protect their way of life and to hold a place in world politics. If you were to juxtapose some of these journal entries with those written by American officers, I think we would perhaps get a more clear picture of the war, if not at the very least, how WWII impacted real lives.

[Anonymous]

[font=Times, 'Times New Roman', serif]"With a strong emphasis on the Common Core State Standards specific importance is placed on primary documents. Diaries provide a wonderful primary source to utilize in the classroom. In addition to the incorporation of diaries as a primary source for the basis of achieving reading and writing literacy standards they provide students with a personal view from the culture and time period. Too often history is informative and doesn't look at the human aspect. Diaries truly accomplish both of these needs."[/font]
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[font=Times, 'Times New Roman', serif]I agree! All along I have been thinking of the new Common Core Standards and the importance of Primary Documents when considering and implementing them. Diaries, as you have stated, give a much broader perspective, a much more human perspective. When also considering GATE icons, "multiple perspectives" is a great opportunity for students to debate sometimes opposing views with regard to any topic! =][/font]

[Anonymous]

Nagano's visual narratives, clearly delivers a-pictorial story telling- and present the city and its dwellers in a constantly evolving relationship of urban towering progress, in direct contradiction with unfulfilled leisure needs of its city dwellers. People appear to seek and take solace from their daily demands within the morphing city scape. His photography captures the tension between the towering vertical city scape, closing into the last pedestrian friendly open spaces offering respite from their daily toil.
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[Anonymous]

This post is perfect for my lesson series because I wanted to focus on Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. I really like the idea of journal/diary writing when my students and I explore the book, so I will use Yamashita's Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese Diaries of Ordinary Japanese as a mentor text. Allowing students to look at multiple accounts of people and their lives will, hopefully, help them understand they value of their own lives. I also want to open my students' eyes to the past and learn from the past.

I'm hoping to connect the different accounts from places outside of America (China, Japan, and Korea to name a few) so that students will have multiple perspectives of "ordinary" life for people. I know that they will compare and contrast these places to their lives and their parent's homelands and I'm excited to learn more about their past and present

This unit will be done at the end of the year. What I have planned for one of the more creative projects is to have students create a running journal of all of the places that they have "visited" through the year. Students will use Google Maps to plot each author's or narrator's setting and write a small journal entry recapping what they (the narrator/speaker/author) have learned from their journey. The last point on the map will be the student's home and what they have learned from their year of traveling. We'll see how it goes!

[cgao]

Please download and read the attached documents.
edited by cgao on 10/24/2014

[Anonymous]

I would have to agree that diaries are a great way to incorporate primary sources into the curriculum. With the new Common Core State Standards, primary sources and higher level reading are required. Aside from the standards, they are a wonderful way to give our students insight into the mindset and perspective of the people living at the times that we are teaching about. It also lends itself to teaching the students how to read critically. Just because the students read primary sources does not meant that they are the truth. it gives us the opportunity to teach them about perspective, bias, tone and purpose. Our students will become more critical of the authors once they have learned to discern the information from the source. That is what is truly important for the students. Can they figure out what and why the author is writing about? Can they draw inferences and see a deeper meaning than what is actually written?

[Author]

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