Tag Archives: asian-pacific history

Cultural Literacy: Internment of Japanese Americans

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II. I don’t want to belabor the point, but this is not one of the proudest moments in this nation’s history. But come to think of it a bit, especially given the recent spate of racist attacks against Americans of Asian Pacific descent, it might not be a bad idea to teach this as a cautionary tale about nationalist bigotry.

In any case, this worksheet is long enough that you could–especially if you teach social studies–use it as independent practice, i.e. homework.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Yalong River

“Yalong River or  Ya-lung River: River, Sichuan province, S China. It rises in mountains at an elevation of nearly 16,500 ft (5,000 m) in Qinqhai province and flows into the Chang River on the Yunnan border. It is 822 mi (1,323 km) long. It is torrential for most of its course and is unnavigable.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Everyday Edit: Yoshiko Uchida

In observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020, here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Yoshiko Uchida, the Japanese-American writer who suffered the indignity of internment in California during World War II (see above). Please don’t forget that the generous proprietors of the Education World website give away for the taking a yearlong supply of Everyday Edit worksheets. I’ve used these documents to very good effect in my classrooms over the years.

Kyoka

“Kyoka (Izumi Kyoka, 1873-1939) Japanese fiction writer and playwright, known for his many tales of the bizarre, grotesque, and supernatural. One of the most distinctive Japanese stylists, Kyoka rejected the modernist trends of Meiji literary movements such as shizenshugi, which promoted a tedious confessionalism, and sought inspiration in traditional motifs and sources. His work thus recalls the nativism of Ueda Akinari and foreshadows the neotraditionalist writing of Tanizaki Jun’ichiro. The unorthodox quality of Kyoka’s writing has also been seen as symptomatic of a well-documented psychopathology, including  mother fixation and assorted obsessive-compulsive disorders.

One of Japan’s greatest authors, Kyoka has been little translated—in part owing to his notoriously difficult, labyrinthine prose style. Translations include the short stories Koya hijiri (1900; tr The Saint of Mount Koya, 1956) and Sannin mekura no hanashi (1912; tr A Tale of Three Who Were Blind, 1956). Kyoka was also a playwright, and many of his works were performed for the popular Shimpa stage.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Origami II

OK, blink and you’ll miss this post. I write this on April 2, 2020, a day on which the even dumbest, most highly ideological governors in the United States finally yielded to the expertise of public health experts and issued stay-at-home orders for citizens of their states. Yesterday on the news, a reputable source reported that worldwide, 90 percent of schoolchildren are home. That means there are a lot of kids who need something to do.

So, I will press my luck and post another batch of material that does not belong to me in any sense of the word. Depending on which history of the paper-folding art you read, origami has been around for 1,500 to 2,000 years. But these documents come from a book that I am confident remains under its publisher’s copyright. So I won’t crosspost these or in any way promote them (hint: I will post a total of five origami posts, but you’ll need to search them in the search bar in the upper-right-corner of this website). Ready? Here we go.

origami 12 boat; origami 13 house; origami 14 piano; origami 15 oblong box; origami 16 fox; origami 17 sitting fox; origami 18 cicada; origami 19 pigeon; origami 20 pelican; origami 21 pin wheel.

This set of folding terms and directions will help direct this activity. Here is a wikiHow article on how to make origami paper. Finally, here is a link to a plethora of YouTube instructional videos for origami.

Mesopotamia

“Mesopotamia: An ancient region of southwest Asia in present-day Iraq, lying between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Its alluvial plains were the site of the ancient civilizations of Akkad, Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria, now lying within Iraq.”

Excerpted from: Wright, Edmund, Ed. The Oxford Desk Encyclopedia of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Everyday Edit: Sapporo Snow Festival

April is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, so for the next 30 days I’ll post a plethora of materials related to the history of Asia and Asians in global history. To that end, here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on the Sapporo Snow Festival. If you find typos in this document, fix them! That’s the point of the exercise.

Because I always feel remiss anytime I fail to give credit where credit is due, let me remind you (as I will every time I post an Everyday Edit) that the good people at Education World post on their website, free for the taking, a yearlong supply of Everyday Edits. If we want students to write well–and I’m hard pressed to imagine why we wouldn’t–they need to learn to copyedit.

Baghdad

“Baghdad or Bagdad: City, capital of Iraq. Located on the Tigris River, the site has been settled from ancient times. It rose to importance after being chosen in AD 762 by Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775) as the capital of the Abbasid dynasty. Under Harun ar-Rashid it achieved its greatest glory, reflected in the Thousand and One Nights, as one of the world’s largest and richest cities. A center of Islam, it was second only to Constantinople in trade and culture. It began to decline when the capital was moved to Samarra in 809. It was sacked by the Mongols under Hulegu in 1258, taken by Timur in 1401, and captured by the Persian Suleyman I in 1524. It was a shadow of its former self in 1638, when it was absorbed by the Ottoman empire. In 1921 it became capital of the kingdom of Iraq. In 1958 a coup d’etat in Baghdad ended the monarchy. Severely damaged by bombing in the Persian Gulf War, it has since suffered under international trade sanctions.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Independent Practice: Byzantium

Here are two independent practice worksheets on Byzantium. These are basically short reading comprehension worksheets; however, in New York City, and therefore the state, I assume, Byzantium was part of the global studies curriculum at one point, which is why I wrote this; whether that remains the case, I don’t know.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Book of Answers: Scheherazade

“Who is Scheherazade? She is the narrator or the Arabian Nights (c. 1450), who tells stories night after night to keep her husband, the Sultan Schahriah, from strangling her at dawn. Scheherazade tells her stories to her sister Dinarzade in the Sultan’s hearing.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.