Lesson 33: Seen and Unseen, Explanatory Writing, Part 4

Display the Essential Question:

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

Students will use the Turn-and-Talk routine to discuss the prompt. Instruct students to focus on perspective, emotional impact, omissions, or structural choices when formulating their response. Invite students to share their responses with the class.

Turn-and-Talk

Say these Directions: Take a moment to think about the following question. Then use the Turn-and-Talk routine to discuss your answer with a partner.

• Ask: How do multiple survivor accounts, along with images, shape what we understand about daily life in the incarceration camps?

  • As I read more survivor accounts and look at previous ones in greater detail, I see how much of a community the prisoners at Manzanar created. I also see that some aspects of that community were more formal than they seemed while I was reading Seen and Unseen. For example, in my source research last lesson, I learned that Manzanar had a school system and a network of shops and other businesses run by the prisoners. The people who were confined at Manzanar, realizing they might be there for a long time, created or improved institutions.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we will continue to synthesize our observations from multiple survivor accounts. We will continue to think through differences and similarities in these accounts in terms of what they emphasize and omit, what tone they convey, and what perspectives they reveal.

Display Kernel Sentences on the board. Model the practice of combining and rewriting sentences to reduce repetitive writing, then give students time to rewrite an example on their own. As time permits, have them share and explain their choices. Acknowledge variation in student responses and, as time permits, discuss the merits and drawbacks of different approaches.

Eliminating Redundancy

• Say: As you combine information from multiple sources, you will often need to condense details that are repeated or can be inferred from context. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as:

  • Using personal and relative pronouns in place of nouns that have been introduced

  • Using adverbs (likewise, similarly) to point out similarities instead of reiterating what two sources/situations have in common

  • Replacing vague verbs that are propped up by an adverb (e.g., using examine or scrutinize instead of look closely)

• Say: Let's practice rewriting these two Kernel Sentences to reduce redundancy:

  • Toyo Miyatake and Ansel Adams both documented aspects of the natural setting of the Manzanar War Relocation Center. However, both Miyatake as well as Adams also recognized that the desert surrounding Manzanar was a brutal and unforgiving place in which to live.

• Say: We can reduce redundancy by rewriting these sentences so that they read:

  • While Adams photographed Manzanar's landscape as a free man, Miyatake documented the same terrain as a prisoner. Both photographers, however, recognized the desert as a brutal place to survive.

Discuss the meaning and punctuation of the new sentence. and explain how you have reduced redundancy:

• Say: Here are some moves that make the sentences more concise.

• Say: I changed “both Miyatake as well as Adams” to “both photographers.”

  • Instead of restating the names of the photographers, we can introduce an additional detail about them and save some space in the process.

  • The phrase “both X as well as Y” is redundant; “both X and Y” is better if we need to name X and Y.

• Say: I changed “a harsh and challenging place in which to live” to “a brutal place to survive.”

  • Brutal captures both harshness and challenge in a single word.

  • The phrase “in which to live” is redundant. The Owens Valley desert is a place “to live in” or, better yet, simply a place “to live.”

  • We also replace live with survive to better reflect the reality of imprisonment—surviving a concentration camp is meaningfully different from simply living somewhere.

Say these Directions: Look at the displayed sentences. Work with a partner to make these sentences more concise.

• Dorothea Lange was not allowed to take photographs of Manzanar’s guard towers and barbed-wire fences. Photographer Toyo Miyatake was also, in a sense, forbidden from photographing the guard towers and fences because he was not supposed to have a camera in the camp in the first place.

Then, as a class, review students’ revisions and identify specific opportunities to improve the sentences, such as:

• “the guard towers and fences” → “these features,” “these structures”

  • Instead of repeating the specific security structures, use a shorter phrase that collectively identifies them.

• “Photographer Toyo Miyatake” → “Toyo Miyatake”

  • The mentions of “photographing” and a “camera in the camp” indicate that Miyatake was a photographer in some capacity.

• “he was not supposed to have a camera in the camp in the first place” → “his camera was contraband”

  • Earlier in this unit, students learned a term for items one is “not supposed to have in [a controlled environment] in the first place.” This word does the work of many shorter and less precise ones.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: As we continue comparing survivors’ accounts, we will see a lot of ideas that overlap among them. Part of our job as explanatory writers is to present this information clearly and concisely, showing how different events and ideas are related.

Project a brief example of two survivor sequences from Seen and Unseen that have been used in a prior lesson. Model synthesizing information to write an explanatory paragraph. Students then write their own paragraphs.

Part A: Prepare for Explanatory Writing (RI.7.7, RI.7.9, W.7.2.a-d) (10 minutes)

Say these Directions: Writing an explanatory paragraph requires you to synthesize, or combine, information from different sources. Today, I’ll model how to do this step-by-step. Before you begin writing, take some time to think about and plan what your paragraph will include. Some key themes you may want to synthesize are:

• Patterns across sources (tone, perspective, pacing)

• Differences or omissions across sources and how they affect understanding

• Connections to the Essential Question

Use a think-aloud to explain how you are combining details from the two sequences:

• Say: For example, here is a synthesis I can make about differences I see between sources. In Sequence A, the survivor emphasizes fear and family separation, while Sequence B focuses on daily routines. Combining them gives a fuller picture of life in the incarceration camps and shows what each sequence leaves unseen.

Next, have students choose (or assign them) two to three survivor sequences from Seen and Unseen. Provide them with a graphic organizer (such as a T-chart) to organize their evidence as they prepare to write about these sequences. Sections on one side can include:

• Source/Type (written, photo, illustration)

• Perspective/Key Details

• Omissions/Hidden Elements

• Connections/Patterns

• Impact on Understanding/Emotional Response

Sequence 1: pp. 34–35

Sequence 2: pp. 94–97

Source: statement from Sadae Takizawa with illustrations of life at Tanforan

Source: statement from Taira Fukushima with photos by Ansel Adams and supporting illustrations of life at Manzanar

This sequence conveys the sadness, loneliness, and anger felt by the prisoners.

Takizawa’s testimony contrasts with the details of ways that the prisoners tried to keep up morale.

Fukushima points out that photographs can mislead or misrepresent. His testimony sits alongside Adams’s staged portraits of smiling prisoners.

Did people make art or write journal entries about their melancholy feelings, or did they mostly try to suppress them?

Adams’s photographs don’t show people struggling, suffering, or even having a bad day. They omit large parts of incarceration camp life that Adams deemed irrelevant to his project.

The feelings that Takizawa mentions are part of what Fukushima is talking about when he questions the truth told by photos. If everyone, or even many people, had these feelings, why don’t they show up in the photographic record?

I understand why oral histories and art made about Japanese American incarceration are so important. Prisoners may have tried to keep up some semblance of good cheer at the time for the benefit of their children or families, only letting their real experiences be known much later.

I notice that Toyo Miyatake’s glimpses of the camp, even those that don't show people, tell a different story than the official photos, especially those of Adams and Lange. I think today, with smartphones, we would have even more visual documentation of the harsh aspects of life in the incarceration camps.

Part B: Write an Explanatory Paragraph (RI.7.7, RI.7.9, W.7.2.a-d) (20 minutes)

Say these Directions: Now you will independently write your own explanatory paragraph answering this prompt:

• Write an explanatory paragraph that synthesizes information from two survivor sequences in Seen and Unseen. Analyze patterns, omissions, and perspective across both accounts, using comparative transitions, evidence-based explanation, and academic tone.

Using the graphic organizer you completed in Part A, write a five- to seven-sentence explanatory paragraph with the following basic structure:

• Claim: What do the survivor sequences collectively reveal about daily life in the incarceration camps?

• Evidence: Cite details from each sequence, including photographs or illustrations.

• Analysis/Synthesis: Explain patterns, differences, and omissions and how these structural choices affect your understanding of Japanese American incarceration.

• Connection to Essential Question: Conclude by explaining how combining testimony helps us responsibly interpret and evaluate historical events.

• Say: In your explanatory paragraph, you're making a claim about how images and testimony together shape understanding. Name a specific design choice—such as spacing, color, placement, size, or whether it is a photograph or illustration—and explain how that choice affects your paragraph's claim.

  • In my paragraph, I claim that the photographs in Seen and Unseen reveal a gap between appearance and reality in the camps. To support this, I talk about how the light and angle make the subject look confident and dignified (pp. 94–95). But Fukushima's testimony alongside the photograph says the smiles were “not necessarily true.” I argue that Partridge places the testimony right next to the portrait so readers can see the gap.

• Say: Once you have drafted your paragraph, swap it with a partner’s and provide peer feedback on the following points:

  • What evidence did the paragraph include? Did the evidence come from at least two sources?

  • What patterns or differences did the writer identify?

  • Did the writer connect the explanation to the Essential Question? How so?

  • Is the analysis clear and focused, not just summarizing?

    • The survivor sequences in Seen and Unseen show that life in the incarceration camps was much harder emotionally than many photographs suggest. In her testimony from Tanforan on p. 35, Sadae Takizawa describes feelings of sadness, loneliness, and anger that prisoners carried even while trying to keep up their spirits. However, the photographs by Ansel Adams that appear alongside Taira Fukushima's sequence at Manzanar on pp. 94–97 tell a very different story—they often show prisoners looking calm, composed, or dignified. Fukushima himself points out that photographs can be misleading, which makes sense when you compare them to what Takizawa actually describes feeling. Together, these two sequences reveal a pattern: The written testimony captures emotions that the photos leave out entirely. This matters because it shows that no single source gives us the full picture of what incarceration was really like. Reading both together made me realize that to really understand what happened, you have to pay attention to what sources don’t show, not just what they do.

Writing Rubric: Explanatory Paragraph — Synthesizing Survivor Accounts

Turn-and-Talk

Students will briefly discuss the prompt in pairs or small groups. Then invite students to share their ideas with the whole class.

Say these Directions: Discuss the following prompt:

• Share one pattern, difference, or insight you noticed across the survivor sequences you analyzed. Discuss how this observation changed or deepened your understanding of daily life in the incarceration camps.

  • I noticed that the photographs, collectively, had a very different emotional quality from the prisoners’ testimony. Lange’s photographs captured some of the prisoners’ sorrow and weariness and the harsh conditions they lived in. However, most of the pictures with human subjects are either neutral or cheerful in tone, while much of the spoken and written testimony expresses sadness, anger, distrust, and a sense of betrayal.

Then reflect as a class.

• Ask: How does combining multiple testimonies help us responsibly interpret and evaluate historical events?

Tell students that the next lesson will be another research day to prepare for the end of the unit. Encourage them to review the external sources they found in previous research and, if applicable, make sure they have copies of those sources available for class time.