Draft Unit- Isler- The Cost of War

Emily, I think your lesson plan is excellent, I think your subject is sensitive, personal, yet students can gain great insight from reflecting, reading, and discussing various wars around the world. You did not indicate what grade level this lesson was for and it would be interesting to note the student ethnicity mix? I only ask this because a great warm-up to this lesson could be to ask students who has been affected by gang violence or the wars we in the US have been involved in recently. Depending on the students I think many students have been affected by gang violence and that would be a great intro as to the devastation or grief as it relates to a family or family members. Another suggestion for a warm up would to show clips of war and destruction, of course depending on the grade level as to the amount or clips of videos that relate to families being told a family member has been killed in the war, I think recently there was a movie out that was excellent. These suggestions would create strong reactions for students as opposed to a reading or lecture.
In your Learning objectives you indicated you would have students answer one of the questions. I am not sure if you would choose the question or not but I would let the students choose one of the questions they would like to answer as this gives them a choice of topic or possible interest, all your questions are excellent!
As oppose to students reflecting on the source documents, I would have them reflect on the concept is war the end all? Does war solve issues or create issues? Is their an alternative to war between nations/countries? Has this assignment changed your idea or concepts about war? If you do discuss the concept of gang related deaths in the warm up, you could possibly tie this all back to war. Great Lesson! Good luck! Cathie Roberson

thank you so much for the wonderful review cathie! i will definitely be taking your questions and comments into consideration. feel free to use this lesson if you can!

thank you so much Cathie! i love your questions at the end for my conclusion. that really helped me bring in all aspects of the lesson. I would add in the gang violence but my students aren't in that environment, so i don't think it would work well. but as i apply to LAUSD in the future, i will definitely add that in!

I saw your comment on Eddie's post (re not having feedback or lesson plans from your whole group) and thought I'd jump in since I'm in the same boat.
Your concept looks good overall, and I liked the way you incorporated one of the journals Dr. Yamashita discussed with our group.

It may be pushing to cover too many places, but have you considered touching on the Japanese internment camps here in the west coast? It might be a valuable addition since it would show that this doesn't just happen in other countries -- it was real here, too. I mention it partly because I think you're the teacher who is in Palos Verdes, and many of the interned Japanese were from the area -- PV, San Pedro, etc. That means it quite literally happened in their neighborhood.

If you are able to do field trips at all, you could also look into the Museum of Tolerance or the Japanese American National Museum.

eisler very interesting lesson! One suggestion, if you have media access perhaps showing students after they have analyzed the primary documents and looked at both the Holocaust and a Japanese evacuee maybe screening short video clips. Media is such a powerful teaching tool that I feel would fit perfectly with your lessons

you are both are awesome, thank you! i am teaching in san pedro so i should bring in the japanese internment camp, although i agree it might be too much in this lesson. but maybe a culminating lesson? and i love the media idea too. thank you so much!

This is excellent! I think it will allow the students to connect more to the realness of the war victims. This is really thoughtful and insightful lesson planning.