Lesson 42: Digital Witness Exhibit, Draft Narration and Captions

Display the Essential Question: How can readers evaluate words and images for accuracy, perspective, and ethical use?

Remind students that, for their upcoming presentation, they will combine sources they have already gathered—images and text—with their own captions and narration to add context and identify themes.

Turn and Talk

Say these Directions: Use the Turn and Talk routine to share with a peer. Think about the text and images you included in your storyboard, and put yourself in the position of an audience member for your presentation.

• Ask: What’s one idea you feel is clear from your presentation, and what needs further explanation?

  • From the mochi-making photo in one panel and the interviewee’s comments about the camp food in another, I think it’s clear that prisoners at Manzanar had different experiences over time regarding food. What I want to come through in my narration and captions is how the prisoners worked to make that happen: how they made Manzanar into something more like a home through their own efforts, despite unjust treatment and few resources.

By the end of this lesson, students will have all the text and images, at least in draft form, that they need to compose and record their presentations. Thus, this is a good point at which to review any technical details of how the presentations will be produced, such as:

• Your expectations and options for the presentation format (e.g., slide deck with recorded narration).

• The target length of the presentation.

  • The student-facing requirements for the Performance Task specify the number of sources and media assets, leaving some discretion as to length.

  • The length you stipulate may vary based on class size, whole-class vs. small-group presentation setting, and available technology (e.g., computers, projectors).

• When and how the presentation will be submitted to you.

• What resources are available to students for composing a multimodal presentation.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we will be transforming our storyboards from last class into a draft of our presentation text. We will be writing captions to display with our selected images, as well as a script for the narration. In drafting these text elements, keep in mind the goals you mentioned in your discussion.

Tell students they will be learning about passive and active voice.

Teach: The voice of a sentence describes who is doing the action and who is receiving the action.

• A sentence in passive voice focuses on the object of a verb: whoever or whatever receives the action of the verb.

  • Example: “The prisoners were transported via buses and trains.”

  • “Prisoners” is the object of the verb “transported.” In this sentence, the prisoners do not transport anyone or anything; they are transported by someone.

  • Example: “The door was slammed shut.”

  • “Door” is the object of the verb “slammed.” In this sentence, the door does not slam itself shut; someone or something slams the door.

• A sentence in active voice has a subject that does the verb. It may also include an object.

  • Example: “Kitchen workers planted a garden in Block 22.”

  • “Workers” is the subject here; the workers are the ones who do the planting. The word “garden” is the object.

  • Example: “Guards patrolled the perimeter.”

  • “Guards” is the subject here; the guards are the ones who do the patrolling.

Emphasize the fact that passive voice highlights the object of the verb, while active voice highlights the subject. Instruct students to think about which effect they might prefer and why.

• How does “the prisoners were transported” have a different meaning from “the government transported prisoners”?

  • You would use the passive voice if you wanted to focus on the prisoners and their experience. You could use the active voice to focus on the government as the group responsible for transporting the prisoners.

Emphasize that, in writing their captions and narration, students will need to choose which voice to use by thinking about the effect it will have. Explain that although overuse of the passive voice can create awkward writing, there is no one-size-fits-all rule.

Point out the implications of both voices when describing an injustice such as Japanese Americans’ wartime incarceration:

• Say: When we use the passive voice to describe an injustice, we focus readers’ attention on the victims or survivors of that injustice. We encourage readers to think about what they experienced.

• Say: When we use the active voice to describe an injustice, we focus on the people who perpetrated it. We encourage readers to think about who specifically is responsible, and we emphasize that injustices do not just “happen.”

Voice and Formal Style

Say: Active and passive voice are not just grammar moves, they shape your formal style.

Formal, academic writing:

• Uses active voice when the actor is known and important

• Uses passive voice when the actor is unknown, intentionally de-emphasized, or when naming the actor would introduce blame-language that weakens the analysis.

Choosing the right voice is choosing formal style.

Display and discuss these two mentor pairs:

Ask: Review the two sentence pairs with a partner. Which sentence is active, and which is passive? Which is correct for the actor of the sentence?

• Mentor Sentence Pair 1 :

  • “The WRA enforced strict censorship of photographs taken at Manzanar.”

    • Active

  • Passive: “Photographs at Manzanar were subject to strict censorship.”

    • Passive

  • The active version names responsibility; it is the more formal, analytic choice when you want readers to know who acted. Use Active Voice.

• Mentor Sentence Pair 2:

  • “Photographs were censored to hide the reality of imprisonment.”

    • Passive

  • “Someone censored photographs to hide the reality of imprisonment.”

    • Active

  • When the subject is vague or unhelpful, the passive keeps the sentence clean and formal. Use Passive Voice.

Ask: In your own captions and narration, find one sentence. Is it active or passive? Is that the right choice for what you are trying to say? If not, revise it.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: As you prepare your presentations, you will need to make choices about how to write your captions and narration. Your writing will be more effective if you consider those choices in terms of the effect they will have on your reader.

Draft Captions and Narration (RI.7.6, W.7.2.a-e, W.7.4)

Before students begin drafting, distribute the Digital Witness Exhibit Performance Task handout and ask them to keep it open alongside their storyboard. Direct their attention specifically to the Narration Script & Captions and Language, Style & Ethical Storytelling criteria so they can use the rubric language as a checklist as they draft.

Model the process of writing a caption using a photo from Seen and Unseen, such as the one at the lower right of p. 97.

• Teach: The captions in your presentation should include the key facts of each image and a sentence to help readers understand why the image is included.

• Say: This photo shows a smiling boy who is posed for a portrait. The information at the back of the book says that the boy’s name was Katsumi Yoshimura and confirms that the photo was taken by Ansel Adams. It is also important to note that the photo was taken at Manzanar in 1943. Those are the basic facts about the photo: I can write “Katsumi Yoshimura poses for a photo by Ansel Adams, Manzanar, 1943.”

• Say: The other thing I can do in the caption is to add a little more detail that helps readers interpret the photograph. I read in Seen and Unseen that Adams wanted to show young, cheerful Japanese Americans who would make a good impression on the rest of the American public. So I can add: “Adams photographed mainly young Japanese Americans, hoping their cheerfulness and resilience would impress those outside the camps.”

Then, demonstrate how you would narrate a portion of a presentation that combined this photo with the Taira Fukushima quote on the same page.

• Say: My spoken narrative can be longer than the captions and contain more detail. This is the main way I will explain the big issues raised in the Performance Task. The narration should explain

  • how the words and images work together

  • what truths they reveal

  • why this story matters

Here, the words contrast with the image to remind us that the photos were taken from a limited perspective for a specific purpose. This is an example of how the people with more access or status in a situation sometimes intentionally show things a certain way through what they focus on or leave out.

• Say: Putting those ideas together, I can produce a narrative that goes something like this: “In this photo, a young boy smiles as if he is attending a school picture day. Yet, as Manzanar survivor Taira Fukushima points out, photographs do not always tell the full truth. The photo was taken in a prison camp, and the boy is a prisoner. The photographer, Ansel Adams, had a particular agenda: he wanted to show Japanese Americans in a way that he hoped would make them more welcome as they were released from the camps. So he took and published photos of cheerful young people. This photo is one example; others show teenagers playing sports and young farmers with their harvest. Adams’s photos deliberately avoided depicting the hardships of camp life. They remind us that official or popular accounts of an event often hide unpleasant realities and show a limited point of view.”

Explain that drafting the narrative is only part of an iterative process in which students consider word choice, time constraints, and content priorities.

• Say: The next thing I will do is read over my narration. Normally, I would do this silently at first to catch any mistakes that are easier to spot on the page. Then, I would read the narration out loud while timing myself. This serves two purposes: it ensures that the language flows smoothly and makes sense, and it tells me how much time this part of the narration is taking up. When I add up the segments of my narration, I may find they take too long. Then, I have to decide what can be trimmed and what needs to be kept to convey the message of my presentation. This is a process that peer review can help with.

Students will work independently using their storyboards and writing from recent lessons to draft their captions, narration, introduction, and conclusion

Say these Directions: Using your storyboard,

• draft captions for your selected images

• draft a narrative passage for each text–image pair

• draft a short introduction and conclusion to your presentation

• use at least 2 transitions to create cohesion in your narration

• use at least 3 precise unit-vocabulary words from your research

Remember that you can use the analysis from your T-Chart graphic organizer, your 3-Column Chart, and your other previous writing about these images and quotations.

Circulate to provide help as needed.

If feasible, have students record their draft narrations in class, or explain how they may do so before the next lesson.

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

In small groups or as a whole class, have students share and discuss their sources using these prompts.

Say these Directions:

• Share a part of your presentation where you use an external source that your partner may not have seen before.

• Review the image and caption or excerpt and citation from your partner. Is the source clear? What is one question you have?

  • I have a quote from Executive Order 9066 that says “war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities,” from Executive Order 9066, November 1940. It’s next to a picture of schoolgirls in dresses taken by Dorothea Lange to show that what the president said about the reasons for moving people into and out of areas didn’t match the reality of the prisons.

  • Maybe you can remind the viewer which president wrote this. I wonder if it says which people are included—whether it was supposed to be certain ages, jobs, or only people who had been in a foreign military.

Have students revise their narration drafts for language, flow, and timing.

• Read the narration and captions for any mistakes.

• Read the narration out loud to see whether it flows and makes sense.

• Record or time reading the narration at a gentle pace to see how long the presentation will be and whether you need to extend or shorten it.

• Make revisions to prepare for peer reviewing in the next lesson.

Students should note two changes they make in their Journal.

Depending on the resources and support available for your class, it may make sense for students to compose the multimedia elements of their presentation during class time (e.g., using a Flex Day) or at home. If much or all of the audiovisual work (recording audio, laying out slides, etc.) will be completed at home, encourage students to do a “tech check,” making sure they can access and use the tools they need to record narration and arrange images/text.