Lesson 35: Seen and Unseen, Discussion, Part 2

Display the Essential Question:

• How can readers evaluate words and images for accuracy, perspective, and ethical use?

Briefly discuss how these dimensions connect to the Performance Task: synthesizing survivor accounts to show understanding of daily life in the camps and responsible witnessing.

• Perspective: whose experiences are visible, whose are hidden

• Emotional tone: fear, hope, isolation, resilience

• Structural choices: sequencing of testimony, placement of images, pacing

Say these Directions: Take a minute to consider the following questions before we discuss ideas as a class.

• Ask: What are some ways we can show differences in perspective during our Performance Task presentations and podcasts?

  • One way we can show differences in perspective is by including visual media created by different people, such as photographs by Toyo Miyatake and drawings or paintings created by another imprisoned artist or photographs by a visiting photographer such as Ansel Adams. Another way is to choose quotations that contrast different perspectives on the same event.

• Ask: What are some ways that we can capture the tone of our sources in the Performance Task?

  • We can choose quotations that convey clear feelings and vividly describe parts of life in a prison. We can look for images with a clear emotional quality and present them in a way that emphasizes this. We can pick sources, or parts of sources, that showcase different feelings and reactions in response to the same events and conditions.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: In today’s group discussion, we are going to use the Essential Question to identify specific ways that sources shape what is understood about the past. Listen for interpretations that may be new to you and could be helpful in your upcoming Performance Task.

Model Socratic Seminar

Explain to students that today’s discussion will follow a slightly different structure from the one in Investigation 1. Instead of following a set list of questions, they will provide their own observations about the survivor sequences in Seen and Unseen, along with the sources that they have researched themselves.

Review the norms for effective academic discussions:

Norms for effective academic discussions:

• We listen without interrupting. We show respect for one another by waiting our turn and listening to what each person has to say.

• We base our comments on evidence. This can be textual or visual evidence. Whenever possible, we say what text and where in our text we are getting our evidence from.

• We respond to ideas rather than individuals. We don’t label someone’s comment as “wrong;” we explain our thinking and evidence.

Review Socratic Seminar

Explain how a Socratic Seminar works:

• Say: One person asks an open-ended question that can be answered by Seen and Unseen. Others then offer evidence from their own reading and annotation to try to answer the question. The group moves from question to question as time permits.

• Ask: What is an example of a potential, open-ended question that could be used in a Socratic Seminar?

“How did young people cope with incarceration at Manzanar?” is something that can be answered, at least in part, from Seen and Unseen because the book discusses children and teenagers and includes some photos of school and sports events.

“How did the soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team change public perceptions of Japanese Americans?” would not work well for this activity because Seen and Unseen does not contain much information about the 442nd RCT. Only students who are also researching the 442nd would be able to contribute substantially here.

• Say: Offer evidence from your reading when you answer a question. You can use evidence from Seen and Unseen or from external sources, but if you choose the latter, it is important to explain what the source is and what it says.

• Say: You can also use sentence frames to present your evidence.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Let’s see how a Socratic Seminar works with a small group, then try one as a class. Remember the norms we reviewed—they are good practices for any academic conversation.

Part A: Model Discussion (RI.7.6, SL.7.1.a-d, SL.7.3, SL.7.4) (10 minutes)

Today’s discussion will follow a slightly different structure from the one in Investigation 1. Instead of following a set list of questions, students will exchange questions and answers about Seen and Unseen and other sources that they have examined.

Model Socratic Seminar

• Say: In this activity, one person will ask a question, and others will respond with evidence-based answers and/or requests for clarification. The goal is to learn more about the subject in a collaborative way.

Students should use their annotations to formulate questions and base answers on evidence from Seen and Unseen or other sources they have examined.

Questions can be clarifying, such as evaluating multiple claims or pieces of evidence and asking which is most compelling or interesting and why.

Questions can be detail-oriented, such as seeking further information about a topic. For example, “How did young people cope with incarceration at Manzanar?” can be answered in part based on Seen and Unseen, while some students may have gained further insight while examining other sources.

Being a Critical Listener

Remind students that while the inner circle speaks, listeners in the outer circle track each contribution on the organizer below. speaker’s argument and specific claims, and evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence (CA Grade 7 addition).

Say these Directions: While your classmates in the inner circle are speaking, your job as a listener is not just to wait for your turn: it is to trace and evaluate what you hear. For each speaker, track three things: What is their claim? What is their evidence? Then ask yourself: Is the reasoning sound? Is the evidence relevant and sufficient to support that claim? You will use your notes in the post-seminar reflection.

Display for students the Argument Evaluation Graphic Organizer:

Label the three columns of the Argument Evaluation Graphic Organizer:

• Claim — What is the speaker arguing?

• Evidence — What source and detail did they cite? (source + page/location)

• Evaluation — Is the reasoning sound? Is the evidence relevant and sufficient to support the claim? (SL.7.3)

Model Discussion Round:

Choose three students to join you in modeling a discussion round. Post the example question on the board: “How do survivors’ stories enrich our understanding of daily life in the prisons?” Give students in the model group a minute to find one detail (text or image) to support their responses. Then call on each student in turn. Guide them to consider multiple ways to respond, including answering the original question and enlarging upon the previous student’s response.

• SAMPLE RESPONSE 1: Survivors’ stories tell us things that photographs taken by even well-intentioned visiting photographers could not capture. For example, Taira Fukushima on p. 97 points out that the smiling portraits taken by Ansel Adams are “not necessarily true” reflections of how incarcerated people actually felt.

• SAMPLE RESPONSE 2: I agree, and the source by Tsumagari adds details that a photograph would usually miss. Tsumagari describes sleeping on hay mattresses and compares conditions across camps, which helps me understand how uncomfortable and unstable daily life could be. That kind of detail makes incarceration feel physical and real, not just historical.

• SAMPLE RESPONSE 3: That’s true, and Kakuda’s account adds a different tone to daily life in the prison. Kakuda remembers the intense heat and the ways people tried to cope with it, so the testimony shows both hardship and endurance at the same time. That contrast matters because it reminds us that people were suffering, but they were also constantly figuring out how to live through those conditions.

For use in Part B, provide the Accountable Talk Sentence Stems resource to help students formulate discussion contributions.

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Part B: Group Discussion (RI.7.6, SL.7.1.a-d, SL.7.3, SL.7.4, SL.7.6) (20 minutes)

Socratic Seminar

Say these Directions: As you participate in the Socratic Seminar, focus your responses to answer the following questions.

1. Ask: We’ve talked about images and text working “together.” But sometimes Partridge and Tamaki design images and text to work against each other—to create tension or contradiction on the page. Can you find an example where the image and the text seem to tell different stories? What does that designed tension accomplish?

   • On pp. 94–97, Adams’s portraits show calm, composed, smiling people. But Fukushima’s testimony directly contradicts what the photographs seem to say—he says the smiles are “not necessarily true.” Partridge designed this as a contradiction: The image says one thing, the words say another. The tension forces the reader to choose whose version to believe, and in that moment of choosing, the reader becomes an active witness rather than a passive viewer. The designed contradiction is more powerful than if image and text agreed because it teaches us to question what we see.

2. Ask: Are there places where the images and the text (including interviews and letters) seem to disagree with one another? How do you make sense of those disagreements?

3. Ask: Across the book, Tamaki sometimes uses full color and sometimes uses limited or black-and-white color. What pattern do you notice in when she uses full color versus less color? What argument does that pattern make across the whole book?

   • I notice that Tamaki uses full color in moments where people are living their lives, like decorating their spaces or spending time together. She uses less color in parts that show control or rules, like when people first arrive at the camps. This pattern shows a contrast between what people experienced and how they tried to make life feel more normal.

4. Ask: How do the survivor accounts you have read help you understand what it means to witness responsibly?

Explain that students will have about 15 minutes for active discussion. Before the session begins, provide reinforcement in the formal language that is used in a Socratic Seminar, which helps students prepare for using formal language in writing.

Say: During this type of discussion, focus on the content of your questions and answers, but also on speaking in a formal style, like the style in which you would write. Use an academic register, which includes full sentences and evidence-based language and avoids slang and, as much as possible, fillers such as “like” or “you know.”

Divide the class into inner and outer circles. Guide the inner circle to converse for about eight minutes while the outer circle observes. Then switch circles, and allow another eight minutes for the new inner circle to converse. As far as is feasible, let students steer the discussion themselves; intervene only when necessary to restore focus, remind students of discussion norms, or prompt movement to a new question. After two rounds, give students about two minutes to return to the Essential Question.

1. Ask: How can readers evaluate words and images for accuracy, perspective, and ethical use?

Use the Unit 2 Academic Discussion 2 Scoring Rubric to assess students’ discussion performance.

Unit 2 Academic Discussion 2 Scoring Rubric

Have students write a short response to the prompt. Collect the response as formative data.

Quick Write

Say these Directions: First, write three or four sentences in response to the reflection question. Then write two or three sentences in response to the exit ticket question.

• Ask: Before we move into our Performance Task presentations, take a moment to reflect. Over the past several weeks, you’ve read survivor testimony, studied photographs of incarcerated people, and analyzed how different sources tell different stories. How has this work changed the way you think about what it means to learn about someone else’s experience? Write three or four sentences.

  • Before this unit, I thought learning about history meant reading facts and dates. Now I understand that learning about someone else’s experience means sitting with their words and images carefully enough to feel something. It means asking what a photograph leaves out, not just what it shows. And it means carrying a responsibility—if someone trusted their story to a book, I owe it to them to receive it honestly, not just analyze it for a grade.

• Ask: What is one new insight or observation you gained from today’s discussion?

  • Today’s discussion helped me realize that the interviews, letters, and oral histories we found often offer different explanations for what happened and why. For instance, Seen and Unseen says that the unrest in winter 1942 resulted from infighting among the prisoners and anger at the poor living conditions. Different primary sources say different things, and some mention other reasons, such as the rumor that the guards were stealing food meant for the prisoners.

Instruct students to reflect on today’s discussion and write any remaining questions they have about the Performance Task in their Journals.