Japanese Internment

A WebQuery for 11th Grade

Miss Daraskavich
daraskavichj@cwu.edu

Japanese Internment Camp

Introduction

During World War II thousands of Japanese Americans were relocated to internment camps far from the Pacific coast. They were given little time to sell their possions and get ready to move. Some of the people who were to move were new immigrants from Japan while others had been born in the United States and were American citizens. Imagine that you are a reporter who is going to write an article on the "Japanese problem" to do this you will have to talk to people who will be affected and read on why they need to leave.

Task

You will need to write an article on the "Japanese problem" and decide if it is just that American citizens should be treated this way, or is it a necessary task for the good of the country? To decide this you will need to draw on primary sources such as photos, journals, and articles, then come to a conclusion and write an article to state your position and defend it. We will then discuss in class if it was justified or not and talk more about the internment. Your article should be two to three pages double spaced, 12 point font, with one inch margins.

The Process

To help you with writing your article here are some things that you can ask yourself.

Can the task be broken down into a few smaller tasks?
What information is most interesting to you?
Will this information help me form an arguement?
Where should you start?
What kinds of information will you need?
Are there any photos or articles that drove the point home?
If so how can you include that in your article?
What can you tell about the quality of the web resources? Are these facts or opinions? What about the authority of the author?
What patterns can you detect in the information you have collected? Any similarities or differences that are important?
Is something missing? Certain perspectives?
What will you need to create on your own to complete the task?
Do you have enough information to complete the task?
If not, what else is needed?
Once you have all of the info you need, how will it be incorporated into your article?
Have you checked the rubric and task to make sure that you have completed all aspects of the task?

Resources

Here are resources that you can use to research Japanese internment and all the apsects that went along with it. Please use only these resources when writing your article.

http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w188/j1.htm This gives background information on why the Japanese were on the west coast and where they were relocated to.
http://www.svcn.com/archives/lgwt/03.29.00/internment-0013.html This is an article about a speaker who was giving presentations on their time in the internment camps.
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/ This again has the history of behind the camps and the different camps and what their populations were.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/evactxt.html This page has newspaper articles that were written about the internment from WWII. This will give you insight into how people there looked at the internment.
http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312008/ This site has information on the Japanese Americans life before, during, and after the internment camps.
http://www.uen.org/themepark/liberty/japanese.shtml This is a great webpage with images that you can look at and a virtual tour of an internment camp, so look around and see how you would feel in an internment camp.
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/camp.html This site has information about the discrimations and hate the Japanese Americans faced during WWII.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/ This is the collection the Library of Congress has of photos taken in the camps.

Evaluation

You will be graded on the following:

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Articles - Interest	The article contain facts, figures, and/or word choices that make the article exceptionally interesting to readers.	The article contain facts, figures, and/or word choices that make the article interesting to readers.	The article contains some facts or figures but is marginally interesting to read.	The article does not contain facts or figures that might make it interesting to read.
Accuracy of Facts	All facts in the article are accurate	Almost all facts in the article are accurate	Most facts (75%) in the article are accurate.	Several factual errors found throughout the article.
Who, What, When, Where & How	The article adequately address the 5 W's (who, what, when, where and how).	90-99% of the article adequately address the 5 W's (who, what, when, where and how).	75-89% of the article adequately address the 5 W's (who, what, when, where and how).	Less than 75% of the article adequately address the 5 W's (who, what, when, where, and how).
Spelling and Proofreading	No spelling or grammar errors are in the article.	No more than a couple of spelling or grammar errors are in the article.	No more than 5 spelling or grammar errors remain in the article.	Several spelling or grammar errors remain in the final copy of the article.
Requirements	All of the written requirements are met. (2-3 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, Times New Roman, One inch margins)	Almost all the requirements are met. (2-3 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, Times New Roman, One inch margins)	At least 75% of the required content was present. (2-3 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, Times New Roman, One inch margins)	Less than 75% of the required content was present. (2-3 pages, double spaced, 12 pt font, Times New Roman, One inch margins)

Conclusion

Now that you have learned a little about the Japanese internment during WWII you can begin see how discrimation and hate work. One thing you can do is think about life today and how people act towards each other, can the lessons from WWII be applied to help people get along. Can something like this be prevented from happening again?

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