Barbed Wire Baseball written by Marissa Moss, Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu

Barbed Wire Baseball
Author Marissa Moss, Illustrator Yuko Shimizu
800L

                This is a retelling of the experience of Kenichi Zenimura during the Japanese Internment during World War II in the southwest of the United States. This story covers when Zeni was young, how he aspired to play baseball, how he achieved his goals as an adult, and lastly how he kept his dream of baseball alive for his sons and himself while his family was imprisoned within the internment camp.

Learning Activity:
After reading through the story, the student will look over a preselected set of images from Ansel Adams’ collection of photographs from the Manzanar Relocation Center in 1943. These images will be scenes of the baseball games, children doing activities, and families together outdoors. From these images, the student will compare the images from the book to what the real photographs were like. The student will write about what is similar and what is different between the two depictions of the events at the Japanese Internment camps.

Standards:
CCSS.ELA-L.RL.4.1 - Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-L.RL.4.7 - Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and directions in the text.

Goal:
The student will write a compare and contrast about the real images from the historic event of the book with the drawn illustrations and fictionalized story.

Objective:
Cognitive –
                The student will observe the drawn imagery and find similarities between the illustrations and the photographs of the events.
                The student will then write about what is different between the two images.

Outcome:
The student will listen to the book, look through the selected historical photographs about the topic of the book, compare and contrast the book to the real-life images. The student will write about the differences between the two.