Geography (Grades 7-8)

This unit, Geography and the Japanese American Experience in WWII Arkansas, was written for middle school geography teachers. Teaching the unit in its entirety would require 10 classes, or 5 class periods on the block schedule, although lessons or activities could be used separately as well. The unit is based around an essential question, which students should be able to answer by the end of the lessons. This type of curriculum writing, advocated by educators such as Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Grant Wiggins, encourages students to think critically and ties units together so that all activities are linked to a common goal. The culminating project for this unit is a research and reflection project in which students assume the identity of a Japanese American student during WWII and answer the unit’s guiding questions in the form of a diary or scrapbook. Teachers may wish to use the unit at the end of the year to review the five themes of geography and tie them to an important event in U.S. and Arkansas history. Teachers may wish to draw additional information and/or activities from the middle school Arkansas history unit, the Rights and Responsibilities unit for U.S. history and civics, or the elementary Journey Home curriculum. A CD-ROM containing additional primary sources is available by emailing Dr. Kristin Mann at kdmann@ualr.edu.

If time is a concern, each lesson is designed both to be part of the larger unit and to stand as an individual lesson.