Takaki Chapter 9

I'll start the reflection by thanking the wonderful public library in Alexandria, Va. Without having Takaki's book in circulation, I would have never completed this reflection as I left my book in class last week. Oooppppssss!!!!



Without having my copy to write notes in the book, I had to improvise and write my notes down on a separate sheet of paper. Not a terrible inconvience, but a slight annoyance none the less.



As I read the description of Wounded Knee, I was trying to imagine the encounter in my head. I made a note as to how well Takaki paints the picture of the battle with strong, vivid language, and how real the encounter appeared. I also thought back to how the battle was introduced to me as a student and how the instruction I received lacked the passion, energy, and pain Takaki's discussion presents.



I also reflected on how the "Native American" question is presented in schools and how, for whatever reason, it receives none of the focused attention it deserves. I also reflected on how I can present the lesson better next year, making notes on paper about what I can add to the lesson, such as Takaki's description of Wounded Knee and the picture of the death of Big Foot.



For my lesson, I would have my students read what their current text book mentions about the battle of Wounded Knee and then have them read Takaki's decription. Usually, I would have my students compare each piece of literature and discuss their differnces and why the authors may have choosen to present the story as they did. While this method is an effective technique in teaching social studies, I would like to spice things up a bit and focus on teaching writing style and how the style of the textbook and Takaki are draqstically different and how writing style can impact how an event is understood.

Style, for lack of a better term, means voice. When comparing the textbook to Takaki, the voices used by the authors differ significantly. I would have my students make note of how the styles differ and ask why did the author choose that particular style to tell the story. In addition, how do the different writing styles impact your interpretation of the event? After comparing the two pieces, I would present students with primary source documents of Wounded Knee and have them write a newspaper story describing what they read.

Takaki Chapter 8

In chapter 8, Takaki discusses the experience of the Chinese immigrants during the late 1800's. While the discrimination and racism experienced by the Chinese parallels the experiences of many other immigrant groups during the same period, Takaki mentions that some of the hatred and anger the Chinese experienced was due in part because the tremendous influx of Chinese immigrants meant fewer jobs for "native" Americans. I reflected on how this similar theme still plays out today, with racist attitudes towards certain groups developing because of their perceived ability to "steal" jobs that we previously done by a different group. In particular, there is some racism towards some of the Hispanic groups who have immigrated to the US because they are willing to do work at a cheaper rate than other groups. I also reflected on how race, as a social construct, prevents people from seeing that everyone is in the same boat and keeps different groups of people from uniting under one cause.

For a lesson plan, I would have my students read the section of Takaki that discusses the growth of "Chinatown" sections in certain cities. I would then present information that discusses how another immigrant group developed their own section of a particular city (i.e. Greektown in Chicago) and compare and contrast. Finally, I would take a students on a fieldtrip to Chinatown in DC and have them write a report on what they saw and see if it resembles anything that Takaki mentioned. In addition, I would present students with a description of Chinatown in DC as a reference in which to develop their ideas.

Takaki Chapter 7 and Wineburg Chapter 4

To spice things up a bit, I will do my reflection on Wineburg. Continuing in much the same fashion as when Takaki, I underlined what I thought were key points, read the cover of the book to get the author's viewpoint, and asked myself questions as I read. With Wineburg's chapter, though, I found myself doing something a little different. Instead of asking myself superficial questions such as "how can I relate this material to my students" or "what issues would be beneficial for my students to investigate," Wineburg's discussion on how to properly contextualize history inspired me to ask more salient questions such as "what do my students know about contextualization" or "how can I even approach to teach my students about contextualization?" I continually found myself drifting off and asking myself the question "if you were an administrator or consultant designing a curriculum, would you continue down the road most schools take when designing a social studies curriculum, or would you develop something that would allow students to contextualize more?" In essence, I was contextualizing Wineburg's discussion by considering the viewpoint of students, teachers, and administrators.
One of the issues I contend with as a new teacher is how to teach the material the way I want to while fulfilling standards. Currently, in the rush to fulfill standards, teaching students to contextualize is difficult because of timing and resources. Is what Wineburg proposing actually doable in most schools? If I were an administrator, how would I try to accomplish what Wineburg discusses? These were some of the questions I was asking myself while reading chapter 4.
I was also disappointed with the history teachers responses to the information Wineburg presented (I noted that with a :( in my book). I felt that the physics teacher did a much better job contextualizing the material, so much so, I wrote questions in my book about discipline training and how much attention should be paid to how teachers are trained and what courses they should be qualified to teach. Once again, I drifted off to my stint as a make believe administrator and pondered whether or not the type of discipline training should be considered when certifying teachers or designing curriculum.

For my lesson plan, I would have students research current immigration policy and some of the reasons why some people have argued that greater control must be exercised over immigration. Hopefully, my students will uncover the argument made by some that America is becoming "less American" because the influx of immigrants, particularly those from Latin America, has had an indelible impact on political, social, and economic issues. In essence, some Americans feel that the US has been invaded by immigrants and that the US is becoming increasingly Hispanic. I would then present Takaki's findings where he illustrates the sentiment of Mexicans living in California when Anglo settlers started moving into California. I would have students compare the two scenarios, asking them what are the similarities and differences and what information can we gleam from Takaki's investigation that might shed light on current immigration issues.

Takai Chapter 6

Takaki Chapter 6 and Wineburg Chapter 3

I found Takaki’s chapter on the emigration of the Irish particularly interesting because I was not familiar with the entire story of the emigration of the Irish and their incredible struggle for political, economic, and social equality. It’s quite moving, inspiring, and dispelled some of the myths or stereotypes that often plague the Irish.

While reading Takaki, I conceptualized the story of the Irish by recalling scenes from Martin Scorcese’s movie “Gangs of New York.” The movie outlines some the struggles Irish immigrants faced while trying to make a new life in New York City, particularly racism, discrimination, poverty, and the riot caused by discriminatory draft policies. As I was reading, I was filtering through the images and story lines of the movie and trying to make connections between the movie and Takaki’s investigation. Not only did using the movie as a reference enhance my conceptualization of Takaki, but it also increased my critical analysis of the book as I constantly questioned where Takaki obtained his research and how the viewpoint of an academic might differ from the viewpoint of a film maker. While conducting this process of referring back to the movie to help me conceptualize, I considered how beneficial this would be for my students and how to better incorporate film in my class.

For my lesson plan, I would divide my class into three groups and assign each group a section of Takaki. Takaki has divided chapter 6 into three sections and I would assign each group a section. Each group will read the section, select roles (i.e. Irish immigrants, landlords, politicians, businessmen) and do any additional research to prepare them for the lesson. To add a kinesthetic component to the lesson, I will require each group to perform a 10 minute skit on their assigned section. The purpose of the skit is to have the students role play the people, struggles, policies, agendas, actions, ideas, etc., that affected Irish immigrants. By performing the skit, the instruction is differentiated and I will be able to assess what the students have learned by gauging what they mentioned/performed in their skit.