Lesson 15: Comparing Seen and Unseen and “Surviving Poston’s Desert Heat: Cellars, Fans, Ponds, and Gardens”

Think-Pair-Share

Teacher Guidance: Use this routine to help students bridge from Lesson 14’s work on Adams to today’s shift in perspective. Have students keep their Lesson 14 notes and writing nearby.

Start by reviewing what students wrote for homework.

• Ask: After studying these three photographers’ work across multiple lessons, what is one thing you now understand about the incarcerated community’s experience that you didn’t understand before?

  • I now understand that the people at Manzanar were building a community even while imprisoned. Before, I thought of incarceration as just suffering. But the photographs show people gardening, celebrating, and taking care of each other. That doesn’t mean the incarceration was okay—it means the people were more than their imprisonment. I understand their resilience now, not just their suffering.

• Say: In Lesson 14, we looked closely at how the photographer Adams helped shape what viewers saw about Manzanar. Today, we are shifting from a visiting photographer’s lens to a photo and description from a person who lived through incarceration himself. This matters for our performance task because we need to explain how different kinds of records change what people remember.

• Ask: What might change when the person who experienced incarceration is also the person telling the story?

  • A record created by someone who lived through incarceration can include details that an outside visitor might miss or not understand. The creator can explain what daily survival felt like, not just what something looked like. That can make the record feel more personal and more complete.

Say these Directions: Partner A, share one idea in 30 seconds. Partner B, build on it with one additional detail.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students are ready to study a single word closely to help them notice how language shapes perspective before they read Kakuda’s essay and look at the image.

Language Study

Teacher Guidance: Use this mini-lesson to directly teach connotations of words with similar denotations. Students will use this language work immediately as they read Kakuda’s essay.

Say these Directions: We are going to look closely at one sentence from Seen and Unseen and study why one word is used rather than other, similar words. When writers choose among words that are close in meaning, the connotation changes how readers understand people and events.

Target Sentence Block:

“Ansel wanted to show the prisoners were hardworking, cheerful, and resilient.” (p. 89)

Display the following Language Study table:

Ask students what they think resilient means. Support them with dictionary definitions as needed, but keep a stronger focus on the word’s meaning in context. Write resilient on the board.

• Ask: What are some synonyms for resilient—words that mean almost the same thing—that the author could have used instead?

Write synonyms on the board, making sure to include tough and adaptable. Add the word uncomplaining.

Say these Directions: Compare resilient to other words the author could have used, such as tough, adaptable, or uncomplaining. These words all connect to dealing with difficulty, but they do not leave the same impression.

• Ask: Which words in our set have similar denotations (literal meanings), and how do their connotations differ?

  • Resilient, tough, and adaptable have similar denotations because they can all connect to handling change or difficulty. But resilient sounds more like adapting and recovering, while tough sounds harder and less personal. Adaptable matches resilient, but it doesn’t imply as much strength in the face of difficulty as resilient; it is more neutral. However, adaptable can make it seem like the change was easy to handle.

• Ask: Why is resilient a better word than uncomplaining for describing people who created ways to survive desert heat?

  • Resilient is better because it shows action and problem-solving. Uncomplaining would make it sound like people just stayed silent, but making cellars, fans, ponds, and gardens shows they were doing something to respond.

• Say: Resilient has an active and respectful connotation, because it suggests adapting, recovering, and continuing even in hard conditions. That matters because the word choice shapes how viewers judge the people in the photograph.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Now, students can carry the word resilient into Kakuda’s essay and test whether the record he creates supports that idea.

Part A: Reading Roy Kakuda’s Record (RI.7.6) (14 minutes)

Teacher Guidance: Students read selected sections of Kakuda’s essay that focus on cellars, fans, ponds, and gardens. Have students fold journal paper in half and label the columns What Kakuda Shows or Tells and What This Reveals Because He Experienced Incarceration Himself.

Say these Directions: Ray Kakuda was born in California and imprisoned as a child at the Colorado River Relocation Center near Poston, Arizona. Read the opening of Kakuda’s essay and the sections about cellars, fans, ponds, and gardens with your partner. As you read, stop after each section, and add one note to your journal paper about what becomes more visible because Kakuda is recording this experience himself.

Teach

• Say: I am going to model how to read this essay differently from how we viewed Adams’s photographs. First, I notice that Kakuda is not only showing an image; he is also explaining why people made certain choices in the camp. If I read a section about digging cellars, I should not stop at noting that they dug holes in the ground. I should ask, “What problem were they solving, and how does Kakuda know that?” Because he experienced incarceration himself, he can connect the visual detail to survival, discomfort, and community effort. A visiting photographer might show the result, but Kakuda can explain the purpose and feeling behind it. So my notes should capture both the detail and the meaning the creator helps me understand.

• Ask: In the sections about adapting to desert heat, what detail becomes more visible because Kakuda experienced incarceration himself?

  • A detail that becomes more visible is the reason behind the adaptations. Kakuda does not just show the homemade cooling system. He helps readers understand that this was a response to the extreme heat and part of daily survival.

• Ask: How do Kakuda’s words and photograph work together to make the record more personal?

  • The photograph shows what people built and how they lived, while the words explain why those things mattered. That makes the record more personal because readers get both the visual evidence and the lived explanation from someone who was there.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students have gathered firsthand evidence from Kakuda and are ready to compare how his record shapes memory differently from Adams’s documentation.

Part B: Comparing Survivor Voice and Visiting Photographer Lens (RI.7.6, RI.7.9) (16 minutes)

Turn and Talk

Teacher Guidance: Students use their notes from Part A and their Lesson 14 notes and writing about Adams. Remind students that they are comparing how two creators present the broader topic of Japanese American incarceration, even though Kakuda records Poston and Adams photographs Manzanar.

Display the following success check:

• Use one Kakuda detail and one Adams detail.

• Use one comparison connector: while, whereas, or unlike.

• Use one tone or intent adjective: reflective, community-centered, reassuring, or selective.

• Explain what becomes more visible or less visible.

Say these Directions: Use your notes from Kakuda and your Lesson 14 notes on Adams to prepare one comparison. You may show your thinking in one of two ways on journal paper: either write three labeled comparison bullets or write a short paragraph.

Teach

• Say: I am going to model how to make a strong comparison instead of just listing differences. I might start with a connector: “Unlike Adams, Kakuda . . .” Then I add a specific detail from Kakuda. Next, I connect that to a specific Adams detail. After that, I choose an adjective addressing tone or intent that fits each creator. Finally, I explain what becomes more visible or less visible because of those choices. That last step is what turns a comparison into analysis.

• Ask: What changes when the person who experienced incarceration is also the person telling the story?

  • More of the problem-solving and daily survival becomes visible because Kakuda can explain why people made changes like cellars, fans, ponds, and gardens. Adams’s photos show some parts of camp life, but Kakuda’s record feels more reflective and community-centered because it includes direct experience, not just an image.

• Say: Use one specific detail from Kakuda and one from Adams to explain how each creator shapes historical memory.

  • In the section where Kakuda explains how people adapted to the desert heat, readers see how much creativity and effort daily life required. By contrast, Adams’s Manzanar photos often emphasize calm, posed subjects and a reassuring image of camp life. Together, those choices shape memory differently because Kakuda makes survival work more visible, whereas Adams leaves more of that struggle outside the frame.

Say these Directions: Take two minutes to prepare your comparison in the format you chose. Then share it with your partner, and revise one sentence to make it more precise.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Students are ready to check whether they can identify the strongest explanation of how perspective changes the record.

Quick Write

Teacher Guidance: This Quick Write measures both the content and language objectives. Remind students that they must use one comparison connector, one tone or intent adjective, and at least two specific details.

Say these Directions: In three or four sentences, explain how Kakuda’s words and photograph work together to shape the reader’s understanding of camp life. Compare Kakuda briefly with Adams by using one comparison connector and one tone or intent adjective. Include two specific details: one from Kakuda’s image and one from Adams’s photographs in Seen and Unseen.

• Unlike Adams’s more reassuring photographs, Kakuda’s reflective essay and photo show how people responded to the desert heat with cellars, fans, ponds, and gardens. His photograph gives readers visual evidence of how his family used the pipes to keep the space cool, while his words explain why those choices mattered for daily survival. Whereas Adams often leaves more of that struggle outside the frame, Kakuda makes adaptation and problem-solving more visible because he experienced incarceration himself.

Optional Sentence Starter:

Unlike Adams, Kakuda’s ___ essay and image make ___ more visible because ___.

• Say: Today, we moved from studying how a visiting photographer documented camp life to studying how a person who experienced incarceration documented it himself. That shift helps us prepare for the performance task because strong explanatory writing depends on noticing how perspective changes what becomes visible. The more precisely we name those differences, the stronger our claims will be.

• Ask: Which word or phrase helped you explain the difference between Kakuda’s record and Adams’s record most clearly today?

  • The phrase “makes more visible” helped me most because it pushed me past just saying the sources were different. It helped me explain exactly what Kakuda reveals that Adams leaves less visible.

• Say: When you compare sources in future reading, history, or civic work, remember that every record shows some things clearly and leaves other things less visible. Asking who created the record and why will help you read more carefully anywhere.

Reread one section of Kakuda’s essay and one Adams page from Seen and Unseen, pp. 86–105. In your Journal, write two notes: one detail each source makes visible and one sentence about how you might use those details in your explanatory writing.