Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• RI.8.1 – Opening A: On an entrance ticket, students use evidence from the text to answer a question.
• RI.8.2 – Work Time A: Students add annotations to “Seeking Redress” with the purpose of identifying the central idea of the text.
• RI.8.6 – Work Time A: Students add annotations to “Seeking Redress” with the purpose of identifying the author’s point of view and how it differs from other points of view.
• RI.8.6 – Work Time B: Students add annotations to “The Simplest Lesson of Internment” with the purpose of identifying the author’s point of view and how it differs from other points of view.
• In this lesson, students engage in a protocol. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning. Protocols are an important feature of the EL curriculum because they are a useful way to engage students in discussion, inquiry, critical thinking, and sophisticated communication. Students engage in the following new protocol in this lesson (instructions for which appear at the first point of use):
• Annotating Text goes beyond underlining, highlighting, or making symbolic notations or codes on a given text. Annotation includes adding purposeful notes, key words and phrases, definitions, and connections tied to specific sections of text. Annotating text promotes student interest in reading and gives learners a focused purpose for writing. It supports readers’ ability to clarify and synthesize ideas, pose relevant questions, and capture analytical thinking about text. Annotation also gives students a clear purpose for actively engaging with text and is driven by the goals or learning targets of the lesson.
• Beginning in Lesson 6 of this unit, students conduct research to learn more about activist organizations whose work embodies lessons from internment in their communities. If not completed in Unit 2, carefully consider now the span of the community within which students should operate. In urban areas with large populations, it may be sufficient to consider the community to be the neighborhood or city within which students live. In smaller towns, it may be necessary to expand the definition of community to include neighboring cities, counties, or regions in the country.
• Successful participation in Unit 3, Lessons 6–12, requires that students are able to reach a local organization by phone and interview a representative of that organization. Ensure that students are able to make contact with organizations by beginning now to develop a short list of prevetted organizations. Begin to reach out to these organizations now to gauge their willingness to be interviewed and let them know of the date when they may expect a call. In Lesson 6, students will be assigned one of the organizations from the list as one of the three organizations they research and prepare to interview.
• Reach out to these organizations before Lesson 6 to explain the project, gauge their willingness to be interviewed, and let them know of the date when they might expect a call from students. A sample email script can be found below:
• Good morning!

My name is _______, and I am a Grade 8 ELA instructor at _______. My students have been studying Japanese American internment, focusing on the overarching lessons, or enduring understandings, that can be learned from this dark time in history. These lessons include “Upholding the rights of other human beings is critical work” and “It is wrong to view entire populations as homogeneous.”

Now, we turn to their own community. In groups, students will conduct research about local organizations that, in their own way and with their own target populations, embody these enduring understandings and contribute to a better world.

I am writing to see if you or someone from your organization might be available for a phone interview with one of these groups of eighth-graders. They will ask you questions about the work your organization does and how it connects to these enduring understandings that they have identified. Students will be conducting some of their own research into local organizations, but I am hoping to make a few prevetted organizations available to them, including yours. If students were to call, it would be on _______ [date] at around _______ [time]. The interview should take no more than 5 minutes. Students will then use your answers to participate in a class discussion about the best ways to apply these lessons to activist work in their own community.

Please let me know if you (or someone in your organization) are available to be an interviewee for a group of students. Thank you!

• If phones are not available or practical, students should plan to contact organizations via email. If so, change the above email script to reference students sending emails.
• Also, at this time, invite community members such as other students, teachers, family members, and people associated with the prevetted organizations to join in the Activist Assembly for the performance task at the end of this unit. Students may want to create formal, written invitations to send to these community members.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Although the Annotating Text protocol is typically done silently, consider inviting students to think aloud with a partner as they annotate “Seeking Redress” in Work Time A. Listening partners can follow along and note the annotation choices made by their partners, and then ask one another questions about their approaches to annotation.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In the previous lesson, students completed the End of Unit 2 Assessment, in which they wrote their independent literary argument essays. This unit builds on the knowledge they have developed while reading Farewell to Manzanar and extends that learning by bringing in additional texts and points of view.

Support All Students

• The Annotating Text protocol helps readers to process information at a deeper level and increases their ability to recall information from the text. It helps learners comprehend difficult materials and more critically engage with the text. Although this protocol is supportive for students at all reading levels, it may be especially useful for ELLs, who benefit from opportunities to gauge and demonstrate their understanding of the text. ▲
• If ELLs find it challenging to locate words, phrases, and sentences to annotate during the protocol, consider giving them the opportunity to annotate for different purposes, such as to react or reflect, or to pose clarifying questions to the author. ▲
• In Closing and Assessment A, students reflect on their experience annotating the text. Provide multiple options for how to carry out this work. Some students, particularly ELLs, may benefit from reflecting orally, while others may process best in writing. If possible, build in opportunities to do both. Allow ELLs to reflect in their home languages first to reduce linguistic interference with the task at hand. ▲

Assessment Guidance

• In this lesson, students learn to annotate a text as they read to deepen their comprehension. Consider creating standard annotations for students to draw from (e.g., circle unfamiliar words, highlight key details, draw a question mark next to confusing parts). Create an anchor chart with the different possible annotations, and encourage students to add to it with their own ideas. Remind students to use annotations in moderation, as they are meant to draw their attention only to the most important ideas.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will participate in a close read of an additional supplemental text, “Psychological Effects of Camp,” analyzing vocabulary and determining central ideas.