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In this lesson students are introduced to the historical thinking concept of Historical Perspectives through an examination of the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Students view the NFB film, Minoru: a Memory of Exile and create a bio-poem reflecting the historical perspective of one of the people in the documentary/memoir.

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Grade Levels: 9/10, 11/12

Subject Area: Social Studies, History, Geography, ELA, Civics

Lesson Overview

In this lesson students are introduced to the historical thinking concept of Historical Perspectives through an examination of the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Students view the NFB film, Minoru: a Memory of Exile and create a bio-poem reflecting the historical perspective of one of the people in the documentary/memoir.

Time Required

2-3 lessons (75 minute periods)

Historical Thinking Concept(s)

This lesson plan uses the following historical thinking concepts: Use primary source evidence and take historical perspectives.

Learning Outcomes

Student will:

Compare and contrast present-day worldviews and those of the past

Examine and compare the perspectives of Japanese-Canadians on internment

Model historical perspective-taking by avoiding presentism

Demonstrate an understanding of historical perspectives by writing a poem from the point of view of a historical actor (Minoru or his father)

Background Information

During the Second World War, Canada declared war with Japan on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There were many Japanese-Canadians living on the British Columbia coast, most of whom were fishers and many of whom were second-generation Canadians. Many British Columbia residents were afraid that the Japanese-Canadians were spies, and coupled with longtime racism and resentment, they lobbied the federal government to deport or intern Japanese-Canadians for the duration of the war. Prime Minister Mackenzie King issued the order, and Japanese-Canadians had their assets and properties seized and auctioned to pay for the internment. Families were often separated and they were sent to camps in the BC interior. At the end of the war, internees were given the choice of moving east to Ontario or Manitoba, or deportation to Japan. Some Canadians who were deported to Japan, were recruited in 1950 by the Canadian military to serve in the Korean war, and their citizenship was reinstated. In 1988, the federal government apologized for the camps and paid individuals compensation, and established educational and community funds.

This lesson can be used on its own, or as part of a course introductory overviewof the historical thinking concepts through selected 20 th century events in Canadian history.

The Lesson Activity

Activating:

1. Introducing Historical Perspectives

1. Ask: If you asked a Canadian in 1913 (or some other date in the past) what they think makes a great country, would their answer be the same as your answer today?

2. Show the Historical Thinking Project Poster: Historical Perspectives. Ask: Are these women dressed appropriately? Why or why not? Have students discuss the question in small groups, then share their responses with the class. The purpose of this discussion is for students to uncover the worldviews of the people of the past, and to compare them to today. Students often make insightful connections between corsets and plastic surgery, and other ideas about fashion and social status today.

2. Introducing Internment

1. Tell students that in 1942, the Canadian government forcibly relocated all Japanese-Canadians to internment camps in the BC interior. Ask: Why do you think they would do this?

2. Small groups discuss this question and try to predict some ways that Canada was different in 1942 from today. Ask some groups to share their predictions, all students should write in their journals.

Acquiring:

1. Watch the NFB documentary, Minoru: A Memory of Exile. Tell students to think about the perspectives shown in the film, and to think about how they might be different from today.

2. Hand out the Bio-Poem template and ask students for homework, or in small groups, to complete the Bio-Poem as if they are Minoru or his father. For students who need literacy support, you can limit the number of lines they must complete - e.g. 10 lines only.

3. You will likely need to watch the film again, with groups looking for primary source evidence from the film to include in the poem to support the perspective presented.

4. Ask each group to put their collective best lines on a chart paper and hang in the classroom.

5. Introduce the peer assessment rubric for historical perspectives. Give each student 2 sticky notes in two different colours. Have students put one colour of sticky notes on the best example of historical perspective-taking, and put a code explaining which aspect it demonstrates (worldview, or context). The other colour of sticky note is for constructive criticism on a line that does not demonstrate a consistent worldview, context or is an example of presentism. Lead a class discussion to propose alternate wording to improve those lines, and to have students explain why a particular line is effective. Leave this work posted in the classroom for students to reference as they write their own bio-poems.

Applying:

1. Students write their own bio-poem from the historical perspective of their choice. Use the peer evaluation checklists to ensure quality.

2. Journal reflection: Students respond to the following prompts in their journals:

1. My/our best line from my/our bio-poem and why.

2. One question I have about Japanese Internment

3. Reflect on your/our initial predictions - what was incorrect and why? What presentist assumptions underlie some of our predictions?

Materials/Resources

Historical Perspectives: Examining Japanese Internment - lesson slides and resources

References
The Historical Thinking Project - Historical Perspectives Template
The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts (Nelson, 2013) - Bio-poem template (p. 167) Guideposts to Historical Thinking (p. 10-11)

Prohibition to Oka (Collishaw, 2013) - links to all resources needed for the unit

Extension Activity

Have some groups write bio-poems from the perspectives of either: Prime Minister Mackenzie King, or a white BC resident. These perspectives require more inferring from the sources presented in the video, but they can also reveal presentist thinking. For example, a white BC resident at the time would not have likely described themselves as "I am a racist." This conflict between students' own presentist views and the views of people in the past can help them to understand the motivations for past events. It's important to emphasize that understanding the motivations is not the same as condoning the past actions.

Assessment

To assess the bio-poem, students should use the peer evaluation checklists to ensure quality. Each line of the poem must be supported by evidence from the film, and should add something new to our understanding of that person.

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kayak: canada’s history magazine for kids

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Grade Levels: 9/10, 11/12 Subject Area: Social Studies, History, Geography, ELA, Civics In this lesson students are introduced to the historical thinking concept of Historical Perspectives through an examination of the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.

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The Virtual Historian The October Crisis, 1970

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The Virtual Historian The October Crisis, 1970

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To practice critical thinking skills using print evidence.  The specific focus of this lesson is on how to analyze primary sources and make inference.  For this activity, the focus is on different primary-source written documents.
Question: Was the use of the War Measures Act extreme or justified under the circumstances?

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The October Crisis, 1970 (Single lesson) | The Virtual Historian

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Refuge Canada examines the experiences of refugees in coming to Canada and Canada’s record in responding to waves of refugees from the start of the 20th century until the present. This follows the themes: life before, fear, displacement, refuge and life in Canada.This interactive and thought-provoking educational program brings components of Refuge Canada into the classroom and invites students to apply historical thinking skills to the driving question - is Canada’s response to refugees something I can be proud of?

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Refuge Canada, which opened its doors in March 2018, examines the experiences of refugees in coming to Canada and Canada's record in responding to waves of refugees from the start of the 20 th century until the present. This exhibition will explore the following themes: life before, fear, displacement, refuge and life in Canada.

Developed as a final project at the Historical Thinking Summer Institute, this interactive and thought-provoking educational program brings components of Refuge Canada into the classroom and invites students to apply historical thinking skills to the driving question - is Canada's response to refugees something I can be proud of?

If you would like to request alternative formats of the program documents, please contact Caroline Gaston by email: learn@pier21.ca or by telephone 902-425-7770 ext. 255.

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Refuge Canada, which opened its doors in March 2018, examines the experiences of refugees in coming to Canada and Canada's record in responding to waves of refugees from the start of the 20 th century until the present. This exhibition will explore the following themes: life before, fear, displacement, refuge and life in Canada.

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The First World War and Canadian Points of View

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The First World War and Canadian Points of View

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An exploration of different points of view of Canadians during the First World War.

Students will be able to explain the causes of the First World War and how Canada became involved. Students will be able to analyse the effectiveness of propaganda posters and create one that represents a specific point of view.

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The First World War and Canadian Points of View | Historica Canada Education Portal

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Students will be able to explain the causes of the First World War and how Canada became involved. Students will be able to analyse the effectiveness of propaganda posters and create one that represents a specific point of view.

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5 session lesson plans that aim to provide students with an understanding of the Komagata Maru incident. There are a number of complex issues surrounding the Komagata Maru, including the context in which the ship arrived in Vancouver; exclusionary national policies; and how South Asian communities have developed and progressed in Canada over the last 100 years.

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For high schools and teachers we have created a 5 session lesson plan that utilizes the website in order to go deeper in the understanding of the Komagata Maru. The aim of the modules is to provide students with an understanding of the Komagata Maru incident.

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Governance, Self-Government, Treaty and Social issues Digital Field Trip at the Royal BC Museum

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Governance, Self-Government, Treaty and Social issues Digital Field Trip at the Royal BC Museum

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Digital Field Trips are inquiry-base, staff-led and can incorporate Historical Thinking Concepts, scientific methods and processes and First Peoples Principles of Learning. All Digital Field Trips include pre and post-visit support.

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Animals and the Seasons
Join Leslie McGarry from the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw - Kwagiulth First Nation at the Royal BC Museum. Explore the cultural significance of animals and the seasons.
Kindergarten to Grade 3

BC First Nations History
Join Leslie McGarry from the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw - Kwagiulth First Nation at the Royal BC Museum.
Explore the pre- and post-contact histories represented in the First Peoples gallery and the cultural diversity of First Peoples in BC.
Grades 4-5

Governance, Self-Government, Treaty and Social issues
Join Leslie McGarry from the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw - Kwagiulth First Nation at the Royal BC Museum.
Explore governance, self-government, treaty and social issues as represented in the First Peoples gallery.
Grades 6 - 12

Museum Career Exploration
Big museums require a big staff-from carpenters to writers, scientists, historians and conservators. Explore 21st century job skills and different career paths with staff at the Royal BC Museum. Time for Q&A included.
Grades 7-9

First Peoples Gallery Tour
Join an Indigenous museum educator on a 30 minute tour of the First Peoples gallery.
Kindergarten to Grade 12

Natural History Gallery Tour
Join a museum educator on a 30 minute tour of the natural history gallery.
Kindergarten to Grade 12

Becoming BC Gallery Tour
Join a museum educator on a 30 minute tour of the Becoming BC gallery.
Kindergarten to Grade 12

Let's Talk
Give us a sense of what you want and we'll work with you to create something that fits your classrooms needs.
Grades K-12

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Animals and the Seasons Join Leslie McGarry from the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw - Kwagiulth First Nation at the Royal BC Museum. Explore the cultural significance of animals and the seasons. Kindergarten to Grade 3 BC First Nations History Join Leslie McGarry from the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw - Kwagiulth First Nation at the Royal BC Museum.

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Historical Perspectives of Chinese Canadians in BC

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Historical Perspectives of Chinese Canadians in BC

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Students will investigate the historical perspectives of Chinese Canadians at different points in BC’s history to attempt to understand their views, beliefs, and attitudes. Students will analyze a variety of evidence about the circumstances, beliefs, worldviews, and values that existed at the time. They will also anticipate how different people thought or felt about specific events and issues in Chinese Canadian history.

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Grade 5 Teaching Materials

The Grade 5 Bamboo Shoots unit is a comprehensive and flexible teaching resource designed to help you bring Chinese Canadian history alive in your classroom. The unit contains adaptable lesson plans, blackline masters, and rubrics-as well as a timeline building game, relevant stories, and a rich collection of historical photographs and archival documents. The lesson-specific materials that you see in the Grade 5 Gallery are available in the lesson download packages below, for offline use.

Overview

Here you'll find materials that pertain to the unit as a whole. The Unit Overview provides context for the resource, information about learning outcomes addressed in each lesson, and suggestions for several ways to approach the unit. The Historical Backgrounders will give you some historical context for the topics addressed in the lessons.

Time Shuffle Card Game

This timeline building game will introduce students to a number of historically significant events in Chinese Canadian history and help them understand the chronological sequence of those events. The downloadable game cards need to be printed and cut out prior to use.

Royal British Columbia Museum Outreach Kit

Can graffiti be historically significant? Students will examine replicas of graffiti left by Chinese migrants detained in Victoria's Federal Immigration Detention Hospital and determine its significance through a hands-on investigation of primary resources. For more information about how to access the Outreach Kit through the Royal BC Museum, visit http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/schools/writing-on-the-wall-outreach-kits/.

Lesson 4: Apologies for Past Wrongs

In this lesson, students will decide if present-day governments should take responsibility for historical wrongs against Chinese Canadians. Students will also consider the various ways in which governments can take responsibility for historical wrongs. This activity will conclude with a U-shaped discussion.

Grade 9 Teaching Materials

The Grade 9 Bamboo Shoots unit is a comprehensive and flexible teaching resource designed to help you bring Chinese Canadian history alive in your classroom. The unit contains adaptable lesson plans, blackline masters, and rubrics-as well as a timeline building game, relevant stories, and a rich collection of historical photographs and archival documents. The lesson-specific materials that you see in the Grade 9 Gallery are available in the lesson download packages below, for offline use.

Overview

Here you'll find materials that pertain to the unit as a whole. The Unit Overview provides context for the resource, information about learning outcomes addressed in each lesson, and suggestions for several ways to approach the unit. The Historical Backgrounders will give you some historical context for the topics addressed in the lessons. The Concluding Assessment offers guidelines and rubrics for assessing students on their overall understanding of Chinese Canadian history in BC.

Time Shuffle Card Game

This timeline building game will introduce students to a number of historically significant events in Chinese Canadian history and help them understand the chronological sequence of those events. The downloadable game cards need to be printed and cut out prior to use.

Royal British Columbia Museum Outreach Kit

Can graffiti be historically significant? Students will examine replicas of graffiti left by Chinese migrants detained in Victoria's Federal Immigration Detention Hospital and determine its significance through a hands-on investigation of primary resources. For more information about how to access the Outreach Kit through the Royal BC Museum, visit visit http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/schools/writing-on-the-wall-outreach-kits/.

Lesson 1: Significant Events in Chinese Canadian History in BC

In Part A of this lesson, students will be introduced to a selection of key events in Chinese Canadian history in BC through a card game and follow-up activity. In Part B, students will discuss what makes a historical event significant, and determine the historical significance of events from the card game. In Part C, students will complete a living continuity and change timeline to identify progress towards, or decline away from, equity for Chinese Canadians in BC.

Lesson 2: Chinese Immigration to BC

In this lesson students consider the short-term and long-term causes, and the intended and unintended consequences, of Chinese immigration to BC. The students teach each other about one of four time periods of Chinese immigration history. They will also demonstrate the relationship between various causes and consequences, and have the option to share their personal or family stories of immigration to the province.

Lesson 3: Historical Perspectives of Chinese Canadians in BC

Students will investigate the historical perspectives of Chinese Canadians at different points in BC's history to attempt to understand their views, beliefs, and attitudes. Students will analyze a variety of evidence about the circumstances, beliefs, worldviews, and values that existed at the time. They will also anticipate how different people thought or felt about specific events and issues in Chinese Canadian history.

Lesson 4: Judging Government Responsibility

In this lesson, students will decide if the government should take responsibility for historical wrongs against Chinese Canadians. In making this ethical judgment, students will consider the historical context, contemporary standards, the responsibility to remember and respond, and the lasting legacy of historical wrongs. Students will also consider the various ways in which governments can take responsibility for historical wrongs. This activity will culminate in a U-shaped debate.

Lesson 5: Memorializing Chinese Canadian History

In this final lesson, students will bring their historical significance thinking skills to their own community, or broader region in BC, to identify a place that they would propose for a memorial. Students will assess their site selections using criteria for geographic and historical significance, and considering local context and community. They will then draft a proposal for their choice of place to memorialize on an interactive map.

Grade 5 Gallery

This extensive viewing gallery presents historical photographs and archival documents related to the history of Chinese people in BC and Canada. These archival resources were acquired from the BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, University of BC Special Collections - Chung Collection, Library and Archives Canada, Vancouver Public Library, and regional museums in the province. Although this gallery was designed to support the Grade 5 lesson plans in Bamboo Shoots, the archival collection housed on this website is valuable for anyone interested in learning more about this important and often untold story in BC's history.

Grade 9 Gallery

This extensive viewing gallery presents historical photographs and archival documents related to the history of Chinese people in BC and Canada. These archival resources were acquired from the BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, University of BC Special Collections - Chung Collection, Library and Archives Canada, Vancouver Public Library, and regional museums in the province. Although this gallery was designed to support the Grade 9 lesson plans in Bamboo Shoots, the archival collection housed on this website is valuable for anyone interested in learning more about this important and often untold story in BC's history.

This resource was developed for the Ministry of International Trade and Minister Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism by Open School BC, Ministry of Education in partnership with the Royal BC Museum, the Legacy Initiatives Advisory Council and BC teachers. View the full list of contributors.

The historical photographs, archival documents and images of curatorial objects in the galleries and in the teaching materials were acquired from various sources and have been reproduced with permission. These materials are intended for educational purposes only and the downloaded files and prints may not be shared, reproduced or used for any other purpose without permission from the copyright holders.

Third Party Copyright Credits for all images on this website can be found in the gallery.
Images used in the homepage design:

Portrait of a group of young men and women, 192- Image 58912, CB Wand photo, Vancouver Public Library

Chinese fish peddlers on Carrall street Vancouver 1904 Image 8005, Philip Timms photo, Vancouver Public Library

Chinatown, Victoria, ca. 1886. (Cormorant Street West of Government Street. This part of Cormorant is now Pandora Avenue.) Image D-04748 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives

Petition for pardon for Ah Sing, accused of receiving stolen goods, Yale and Lytton, 1860s BC Archives, GR-1372 f 1353

Letter and envelope Images 966_87_17a and 966_87_17b courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives

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Bamboo Shoots: Chinese Canadian Legacies in BC

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Here you'll find materials that pertain to the unit as a whole. The Unit Overview provides context for the resource, information about learning outcomes addressed in each lesson, and suggestions for several ways to approach the unit. The Historical Backgrounders will give you some historical context for the topics addressed in the lessons.

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The Guide invites teachers and students to consider suffragists, their campaigns and their opponents as expressions of a diverse range of perspectives on human potential in the 19th and 20th centuries. Women’s suffrage constituted the single greatest expansion in the Canadian electorate and thus in the potential of democracy itself.

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Women's Suffrage in Canada Education Guide | Historica Canada Education Portal

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Disclaimer: All Learning Tools added to the Historica Canada Education Portal may be used by Historica Canada to promote this resource to teachers, students, and the general public.

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Canada's Reaction to the Outbreak of War: 1914 and 2001

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Canada's Reaction to the Outbreak of War: 1914 and 2001

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Why were Canadians so willing to fight in 1914 in a foreign war that had so little to do with Canada's self-interest? Why in 2001 with Afghanistan War and 2003 with Iraq was there so much opposition to Canadian participation? This lesson uses primary documents, both visual and text based, to explore Canada's reaction to the outbreak of war in 1914 in contrast to 2001 and 2003. Based on evidence from these sources and the historical context, students explain the perspectives behind Canada's support for the war in one case and opposition in the second and further their understanding of different perspectives when examining historical events.

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Canada's Reaction to the Outbreak of War: 1914 and 2001 | Historical Thinking Project

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Why were Canadians so willing to fight in 1914 in a foreign war that had so little to do with Canada's self-interest? Why in 2001 with Afghanistan War and 2003 with Iraq was there so much opposition to Canadian participation?

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Over the Top is an interactive adventure that allows students to experience what life in the trenches during the First World War was like. It is a choose your own adventure style game based on real accounts.