Book

Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Use this guide to Jeanne Wakatsuki's memoir about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II to develop students' literacy skills and increase understanding of this history.

Subject

English & Language Arts
History
Social Studies

Language

English — US

Updated

September 26, 2022

Save

Teaching Farewell To Manzanar

ISBN: 978-1-940457-25-3

Date of Publication: December 2017

Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when the United States government authorized the forced relocation of all Japanese Americans on the West Coast to incarceration camps. Teaching “Farewell to Manzanar” interweaves a literary analysis of Jeanne’s memoir with an exploration of the relevant historical context surrounding her experience.

Format: Print Book

Cost: $9.95

This book is available for purchase from most places you buy books, including major retailers and independent bookstores.

Purchase on Bookshop Purchase on Amazon

Log in to your Facing History account to download this resource for free. If you don't have an account, Sign Up today (it’s fast, easy, and free!).

Unlock Access

About this Book

This guide provides engaging activities, teaching strategies, and recommended media to structure your students' reading of the memoir. Throughout their study, students will return to the central questions: How do our confrontations with justice and injustice help to shape our identity? How do those confrontations influence the things we say and do?

This guide is part of Witnesses to History, a series that helps students access the past through the voices of real people recalling experiences from their youth.

Collection

Enrich your teaching of To Kill a Mockingbird with this set of videos, photographs, and readings that will help students contextualize the novel.

Lesson

Students explore the strategies, risks, and historical significance of the 1963 Chicago school boycott, while also considering bigger-picture questions about social progress.

Crowd fills LaSalle Street between City Hall and building housing Board of Education as hundreds of demonstrators marched in Chicago on Oct. 22, 1963 following a one-day boycott of public schools.

Lesson

Students learn about the debate within the women’s rights movement over the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

Five black women officers sitting for a portrait

Lesson

Students explore some of the limitations of Reconstruction's transformation on US democracy and learn about groups who demanded that the promise of equality be made a reality.

Seated portrait of women's voting rights advocate Susan B. Anthony.

Lesson

Students learn about the responses to Johnson’s policies by Republicans in Congress and examine the fourteenth amendment that overturned Presidential Reconstruction.

Photo of page 1 of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution

Lesson

Students reflect on the revolutionary changes that occurred because of the landmark legislation and amendments passed during the Reconstruction era.

A studio portrait shows African American members of the General Assembly from 1887 to 1888

Lesson

Students learn about the period of violence in the South from 1873-1876 and examine its role in influencing elections and ending Republican control of Southern state governments.

A picture of one hand holding down another hand on top of a gun and a pile of papers

Lesson

Students explore the legacies of the Reconstruction era today, reflect on the idea of democracy as a continuous process, and consider how they can best participate in the ongoing work of strengthening our democracy.

Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue with signs for Black Lives Matter

Lesson

Students learn about the violent responses to the transformation of US democracy that occurred as a result of Radical Reconstruction.

Black and white photo of the house committee

Lesson

Students examine the factors that led many northerners to turn against federal policies passed during the Reconstruction era that protected freedpeople.

A drawn picture of people crowding into the Fourth National Bank

Lesson

Students explore the supporting question "How should we remember the nation’s founding?"

Washington DC, Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Building Southwest Pavilion. The Library has had an ongoing exhibition entitled "Thomas Jefferson's Library", which presents the Library's efforts to completely recreate Thomas Jefferson's personal library. The exhibit is located on the Building's second floor in the Southwest Pavilion, called the Pavilion of the Discoverers due to the paintings and bas-reliefs that adorn the space.

Assessment

Students culminate their arc of inquiry into the US founding by completing a C3-aligned Summative Performance Task and Taking Informed Action.

More Like This Teaching Resources Learning & Events

The resources I’m getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

— Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

Search

Search

Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Subject

Language

Updated

Teaching Farewell To Manzanar

Purchase this Resource

Download a PDF of This Free Book

About this Book

Explore Other Witnesses to History Guides

You might also be interested in…

Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

10 Questions for the Past: The 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott

The Struggle over Women’s Rights

Equality for All

Radical Reconstruction and the Birth of Civil Rights

Expanding Democracy

Political Violence and the Overthrow of Reconstruction

The Unfinished Revolution

Backlash and the KKK

Shifting Public Opinion

Supporting Question 4: Memory of the Founding

Summative Performance Task & Taking Informed Action

Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Subject

Language

Updated

Teaching Farewell To Manzanar

Purchase this Resource

Download a PDF of This Free Book

About this Book

Media and Strategies for Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Explore Other Witnesses to History Guides

You might also be interested in…

Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

10 Questions for the Past: The 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott

The Struggle over Women’s Rights

Equality for All

Radical Reconstruction and the Birth of Civil Rights

Expanding Democracy

Political Violence and the Overthrow of Reconstruction

The Unfinished Revolution

Backlash and the KKK

Shifting Public Opinion

Supporting Question 4: Memory of the Founding

Summative Performance Task & Taking Informed Action

Inspiration, insights, & ways to get involved