Author: Ken Mochizuki
Illustrator: Dom Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Age Range: 6 - 11 years
Lexile Level: AD550L
ISBN: 978-1880000199
Read-alikes: The Bracelet, by Yoshiko Uchida
Summary:
Shorty
and his family, along with thousands of Japanese Americans, are sent to
an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fighting the heat
and dust of the desert, Shorty and his father decide to build a baseball
diamond and form a league in order to boost the spirits of the
internees. Shorty quickly learns that he is playing not only to win, but
to gain dignity and self-respect as well.
Activity:
Students pretend to be Shorty, the main character in the book, and will
write a letter to his friend about his experience in the camp. Students
will be split in groups of two to brainstorm ideas for what information
to use from the book and what to add from imagination. Model how the
letters usually start and end and tell students they have to have those
two components for full credit.
Selling Tool: Tell the background of the story before reading the book. (Book Talk)
In
1942, two months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on
December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9066, which incarcerated people of Japanese descent in internment
camps. The reason, according to the government, was because it could not
tell who might be loyal to Japan. The United States was at war with
Germany and Italy at the time, but the order did not apply to German
Americans and Italian Americans. Approximately 120,000
Japanese-Americans - nearly two-thirds of them American citizens by
birth - were first sent to temporary assembly centers (most of which
were located at fairgrounds and racetracks) and then to 10 major
concentration camps in six western states and Arkansas. None of the
internees was ever proven to be dangerous to America during World War
II. In 1988, the United States government admitted that what it had done
was wrong. We are going to read a book today by someone whose parents
were in one of those internment camps. Based on their stories, he wrote
this book.
Question:
Imagine that you are living in a camp
like the one Shorty lived in. Write a letter to a friend, telling about
life in the Camp and how you feel about being sent to live there.
Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Goal: Students will learn how to find important information in a text.
Objectives:
- Using the book, the students will write a short response in a form of a letter, to a question prompted by teacher.
- Students will have two modeled components in their letter: beginning and end.
Outcomes:
- Students will learn how to use their imagination along with the given text to create their own story.
- Students will have practice writing letters.
Works Cited:
https://www.leeandlow.com/books/baseball-saved-us
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