Lesson 9: Seen and Unseen, Part 4

Have students take out Seen and Unseen with their annotations.

• Lesson 8 Homework: Students were instructed to read pp. 22–49 of Seen and Unseen and to reflect on the rules that restricted how Dorothea Lange could portray Tanforan in her photos.

Think-Pair-Share

Say these Directions: Look at the prompt on the board. Take a moment to think and write down a few ideas. Then, use the Think-Pair-Share routine to discuss your ideas with a partner before sharing with the class.

• Ask: When someone is given rules about what they can or cannot show, how does that affect the viewer?

  • The viewer may not know about the rules and may assume that the photographer or artist freely chose what to show and what not to show. Or the viewer may not even notice that anything has been left out. Finding out about the rules helps viewers understand why a photographer or artist might not have depicted certain things, even if they wanted to show them or believed that they were important.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, you’ll read about Dorothea Lange’s struggles to depict life in the incarceration camps fully and accurately, and you’ll consider the obstacles she faced along the way. You’ll annotate, answer text-dependent questions, and examine the specific rules that Lange had to follow in detail.

Introduce New Words Using Syllables

Target Words: agonizing, contemplate, desolate

Say these Directions: We’re learning about the words agonizing, contemplate, and desolate today. First, let’s explore the words more deeply.

Introduce the word agonizing by breaking it down into syllables.

Introduce the Word:

• Say: Today, we’re going to practice decoding the word agonizing. This word is important because it describes the conflict that Japanese Americans felt when torn between their relatives in Japan and their friends and family in the United States.

Syllable Segmentation:

• Teacher Modeling: Say: Let’s break the word down into its syllables: ag-o-ni-zing.

Visual Representation: Write the word on the board, separating the syllables with hyphens: ag-o-ni-zing.

Decoding Each Syllable:

• Syllable 1: Say: The first syllable is “ag.” It has a short “a” sound, like in the word “bag.”

• Syllable 2: Say: The second syllable is “o.” It has a schwa sound, like the “e” in “item” or the “u” in “circus.”

• Syllable 3: Say: The third syllable is “ni.” It has a long “i” sound, like in the word “fry.”

• Syllable 4: Say: The fourth syllable is “zing.” It has a short “i” sound, like in the words “sing” and “swing.” You have seen this -ing ending before in words like running and jumping. It shows that there is an action or process taking place: something that agonizes a person (causes them distress or agony) is agonizing.

Blending the Syllables:

• Teacher Modeling: Say: Now, let’s blend the syllables together: ag-o-ni-zing. Agonizing!

• Choral Reading: Say: Let’s say the word together: Agonizing!

• Defining the Word:

  • Context Clues: Say: The text says the thought of harming one’s family overseas was agonizing. How would you expect people to feel when they thought about such a thing?

  • Formal Definition: Say: Something agonizing causes a person great pain or distress. The pain can be physical or mental.

  • Spanish Translation: atroz (esp. for physical pain) or angustioso (esp. for anguish or emotional distress)

  • Spanish Definition: “Que causa mucho dolor o angustia”

  • Cognate: Agonizing and agonizante have substantially different meanings despite some overlap and a common origin. Spanish agonizante typically means “dying” or, figuratively, “fading away.”

  • Etymology: The word agonizing comes from the Latin word agonizare, which means “to struggle or contend.” The meaning gradually shifted from an active struggle to describe pain inflicted by external causes.

• Connecting to the Topic: “Japanese Americans faced agonizing choices during their time as prisoners in the camps.”

• Practice: Say: Now, let’s practice using the word agonizing in a sentence. What is an example of a sentence using the word agonizing? Invite students to discuss, write, and share their sentences.

As time permits, introduce contemplate and desolate using this same routine and the information provided below:

Now let’s decode the word: con-tem-plate.

• Syllables: “con” with a short “o” as in “John”; “tem” with short “e” as in “bet”; “plate” pronounced as in “dinner plate”

• Definition: Say: The text says that Japanese Americans did not like to contemplate harming their relatives in Japan. What do you think contemplate means?

• Spanish Cognate: contemplar = “poner la atención en algo”; as in English, contemplar can also mean simply “to gaze at”

• Etymology: from Latin contemplare, “look at, observe; consider”

Now let’s decode the word: de-so-late.

• Syllables: “de” with short “e” as in “red”; “so” with schwa like “o” in “actor”; “late” with schwa like “a” in “around” (clarify if needed: not long “a” as in “late for school”)

• Definition: Say: The text says that the long roads through the California desert were desolate. What kind of landscape do you think they passed through?

• Spanish Cognate: desolado = “desierto, inhóspito”

• Etymology: from Latin desolare, “to abandon or leave alone,” in turn from solus (“alone”)

If time is short, briefly define the words instead and offer examples.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Understanding vocabulary like agonizing, contemplate, and desolate will help you get a clearer sense of Japanese Americans’ experiences at Manzanar and other sites. As you annotate and answer text-dependent questions, notice how these words are used to describe the natural environment and the thoughts and feelings of the incarcerated persons.

Part A: Analyze Documents (RI.7.3, RI.7.6) (15 minutes)

Guide students in analyzing documents for government priorities, censorship, and impact using annotation codes. Facilitate discussion to help students explain how rules shape interpretation and perspective.

Say these Directions: Reread pp. 36–49 as a class. As we read, annotate the text using the following three codes:

• R = reveals something about government priorities

• C = shows censorship

• I = impacts how the incarcerated people are interpreted or seen

Optional: Ask students to underline verbs in the rules. Explain that verbs in rules and regulations often signal what is being controlled.

• Say: Take time to review your partner’s annotations. Then, we will discuss examples of government priorities, censorship, and impact as a class. Be ready to explain in your own words what the authors show were the government’s priorities during the war and what they did not consider a priority.

Have students identify the point of view of the authors.

• Ask: Do the authors stay neutral about the censorship? Do they focus on facts or their own opinions? How does this affect your ability to understand the situation?

Clarify the meaning of censorship as needed by offering examples such as book bans, redaction of letters by deployed military personnel, and restrictions on freedom of the press.

As time permits, lead discussion of the impact of censorship. For example,

• Ask: What effect does the “no photographing barbed wire” rule have on the way that Manzanar was portrayed to the outside?

  • Showing the barbed wire might make the camp seem more like a prison, so not showing it might make the conditions seem less severe or more humane than they actually were.

Part B: Discuss Key Ideas (RI.7.3, SL.7.1a) (15 minutes)

Guide students in collaboratively analyzing censorship rules and forming evidence-based opinions using the Graffiti/Table Talk routine.

Graffiti / Table Talk

Say these Directions: Work in a small group of three to four students. First, silently write your ideas on a shared chart or digital board. Then, discuss your ideas and summarize patterns you notice in response to the following questions.

• Ask: Which rule seems the most restrictive, and why?

  • The rule about the barbed-wire fences seems the most restrictive to me because there must have been many pictures that would have had those fences in view. Dorothea Lange must have had to be creative to document the camp without accidentally including any sign of the barbed wire.

• Ask: What did these rules prevent the public from seeing?

  • These rules prevented the public from seeing how prison-like the camps were. If you couldn’t see the guards, guns, or barbed wire, the camps might seem more like a place where people go camping, with simple cabins and dining halls, and less like a place where people are imprisoned.

• Ask: How would these restrictions influence how the camps were portrayed to people who were not there?

  • Because of these restrictions, the government probably had an easier time selling its version of events to people who were not there. Officials could use terms such as “assembly center” and then publish photos that made these centers seem to be humane and welcoming places.

• Ask: What perspective did the government seem to want the camera to show?

  • Based on the rules and the narrative text, the government during World War II seemed to want to present the camps as safe and orderly places where the internees could live dignified lives until they returned to their homes on the West Coast.

• Ask: What was Dorothea Lange’s perspective on the rules? How do you know?

  • Lange seemed to believe that all aspects of the camp should be seen. I can tell because she took many pictures that she knew would not be published—at least not right away—due to censorship.

• Ask: What do you think is the perspective of the authors of Seen and Unseen toward the photography rules? Does it align more with the government or Dorothea Lange? How do you know?

  • The authors present information factually, without specific comments about how they feel about the rules and Lange’s actions. However, the focus is exposing the censorship and the real conditions of the camp and what happened to people there, so I can infer that the authors are more aligned with Lange than with the government’s censorship. They want the truth to be seen, not unseen.

• Ask: How did government rules (event/idea) influence Lange’s actions (individual) and shape what the public understood (idea)?

  • Government rules limited what Lange could photograph, so she could not show the full reality of the camps. As a result, the public saw a more controlled and less harsh version of camp life.

• Say: Add any helpful information to your Context Capture organizer. Then, with your group, think of other historical examples where censorship or rules may have limited what people knew. As you discuss, stay respectful and focused by connecting your ideas to the reading rather than debating or judging.

Move students into the Lesson Look Back by providing the 3-Column Chart graphic organizer.

3-2-1 Summary

Say these Directions: Create a 3–2–1 Summary focused on the rules that shaped how Dorothea Lange documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Think about how these rules influenced what could be shown and what might have been hidden as you complete your summary. Use the graphic organizer to record:

• 3 rules or restrictions

• 2 reasons for the rules

• 1 truth that the camp rules hid from the viewer

Direct students to use specific evidence from the text in their responses.

Instruct students to reread p. 38 of Seen and Unseen. Instruct students to take notes in their Journal on the following prompt.

• The government’s censorship rules prevented the American public from seeing the harsh conditions at the camps. As a reader today, now that you know what was deliberately hidden, such as the guard towers and barbed wire, write a response in your Journal: What does it mean to finally see what was kept unseen? What responsibility, if any, do you feel as someone who now knows what was hidden?