In the state of Connecticut, language arts curriculum is broken down into three section. The first lists the state standards that each grade needs to meet. The second section is called “Grade Level Expectations.” This section of the curriculum breaks down specific tasks the state feels students in each grade should be able to do in order to meet each of the standards. And the final section breaks down how the standards and expectations coorrispond with the CMTs and CAPT expectations.
Under the state standard: “Exploring and Responding to Literature” the state gives the expectation that students need to be able to “Develop an Interpretation” during reading. One way they can practice this skill, according to the state given grade level expectations is to: “Explain how certain actions cause certain effects, e.g., how the Holocaust changed international politics today or how the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II affected traditional Japanese family structure.”
Because of this expectation, I chose to build my point of view bibliography around the Holocaust and Japanese internment camps. I felt that this would be helpful for the eighth grade instructor during the year.
I included a mix of fiction and non-fiction from numerous points of view. I included the points of view of Americans, Jews experiencing the Holocaust first hand, German soldiers, American Soldiers, Japanese Soldiers, and Japanese-Americans experiencing the internment camps. I felt that this mix of view points would allow the language arts teachers to create numerous discussions and debates around the similarities and differences between the concentration camps and internment camps, the mind sets of the American soldiers and the Japanese soldiers, and the Jewish people experiencing the hate crimes and the Japanese-Americans experiencing their own hate crimes.
~Melissa Lopes
1. Connecticut. Connecticut PK-8 English Language Art Curriculum Standards. Hartford: Department of Education, 2010. Print.
Holocaust:
Nonfiction
1. Brandman, Bronia and Carol Bierman. The Girl Who Survived: A True Story of the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.
When the Germans occupied Poland in WWII, they forced Jews into overcrowded ghettos. To help her family survive, 11 year old Bronia risked her life, smuggling goods to trade for food. Then came the day that Bronia and her family were shipped to Aushwitz. Through courage, luck, and the kindness of a stranger, Bronia became one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. RL: 4
2. Koestler-Grack, Rachel A. Elie Wiesel: Witness for Humanity. Pleasantville: Gareth Stevens, 2009. Print.
A biography. Out of the horror of the Holocaust rose a single voiceone that would not be silenced, one that would not let the world forget. Elie Wiesel was just a teenager when he and his family were forced from their home in Sighet, Transylvania (now Romania) and sent to Auschwitz. Though he managed to survive the Nazi concentration camp, Elie lost more than half of his family there. RL: 6
3. McKay, Sharon, and Kathy Kacer. Whispers From the Ghettos. New York: Puffin Books, 2009. Print.
The stories in this book come from behind the walls and barbed wire of Europe's ghettos during the Nazi regime. We hear the voices of young boys and girls as they live with the fear that they might be deported to the death camps at any moment. Theirs are stories of courage and determination, of struggle and resistance. They speak for those who, like them, managed to survive the war. And they speak for those who did not. RL:7
4. Perl, Lila, and Marion Blumenthal Lazan. Four Perfect Pebbles. New York: Avon Book, 1996. Print.
A harrowing and often moving account of the co-author's family's struggle to survive the Holocaust. Opening in Bergen-Belsen, the story retraces the events leading up to the Blumenthals' imprisonment. RL: 6
5. Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor's Tale. New York: Scholastic, 1986. Print.
A biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during World War II and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of New York City. The work is a graphic narrative in which Jews are depicted as mice, while Germans are depicted as cats. It is the only comic book ever to have won a Pulitzer Prize.
6. Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam, 1960. Print.
In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. These are his memories of the nightmare world of the death camps. RL:
7. Zullo, Allan. Escape: Children of the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.
A collection of gripping true-life accounts of children struggling through and surviving the Holocaust. RL:7
8. Zullo, Allan and Mara Bovsun. Heroes of the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.
True accounts of brave kids who risked their live to save people from the Nazis. RL:7
Holocaust
Fiction
1. Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. New York: Bantam, 1989. Print.
Ten year old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend, Ellen Rosen often think about the way life was before the war. It is now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching in their town. Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission. Somehow she must find the strength and courage to save her best friend's life. RL: 7
2. Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Print.
In Warsaw in 1939, a boy wanders the streets and survives by stealing what food he can. He knows nothing of his background: Is he a Jew? A Gypsy? Was he ever called something other than Stopthief? Befriended by a band of orphaned Jewish boys, he begins to share their sleeping quarters. He understands very little of what is happening. When the Nazi "Jackboots" march into the town, he greets them happily, admires their shiny boots and tanks, and hopes he can join their ranks someday.
3. Williams, Laura E. Behind the Bedroom Wall. New York: Milkweed, 1996. Print.
13 year old Korinna must decide whether to report her parents to her Hitler youth group when she discovers that they are hiding Jews in a secret space behind Korinna's bedroom wall. RL:
4. Yolan, Jane. The Devil's Arithmetic. New York: Puffin, 1988. Print.
When 12-year-old Hannah is transported back to a 1940's Polish village, she experiences the very horrors that had embarrassed and annoyed her when her elders related their Holocaust experiences. RL:
Japanese Internment
Non-fiction
1. Brimner, Larry. Voices from the Camps. New York: F.Watts, 1994. Print.
The personal testimony of Japanese American survivors is woven into this history of their experience in California during World War II, when racist hysteria led to their forced evacuation and imprisonment. Brimner describes the roundups; the journey to "relocation" camps; the daily life in the camps; the bitter return after the war, often to homes and businesses that were gone; the enduring burden of shame that kept many survivors heartbroken and silent; and, finally, the campaign for redress and reparation.
2. Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki. Farewell to Manzanar. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 1973. Print.
This book explores the themes of racism and the civil rights of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
3. Inada, Lawson Fusao. Only What We Could Carry. New York: Heyday Books, 2000. Print.
This nonfiction book tells the story of the Japanese Internment is told through poetry, prose, autobiography, biography, news accounts, government documents, letters, and other primary resources.
4. Stanley, Jerry. I Am An American: a true story of Japanese internment. New York: Crown, 1994. Print.
At the same time personal and broad based, this non-fiction book for young adults follows the experiences of a high school senior named Shi Nomura and weaves in the history that impacted his life and that of so many others.
5. Uchida, Yoshiko. The Invisible Thread. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1993. Print.
A firsthand account of life in a Japanese American internment camp during WWII.
Japanese Internment
Fiction
1. Cheaney, J.B. My Friend the Enemy. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.
Hating the Japanese was simple before she met Sogoji. Pearl Harbor was bombed on Hazel Anderson’s birthday and she’s been on the lookout for enemies ever since. She scours the skies above Mount Hood with her binoculars, hoping to make some crucial observation, or uncover the hideout of enemy spies. But what she discovers instead is a 15-year-old orphan, hiding out, trying to avoid being sent to an internment camp. Sogoji was born in America. He’s eager to help Hazel with the war effort. Is this lonely boy really the enemy? Hazel must decide what it means to be a true American, and a true friend.
2. Kadohata, Cynthia. Weedflower. New York: Atheneum, 2009. Print.
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to.That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States.
3. Mazer, Harry. A Boy No More. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.
Adam Pelko's father was killed in Pearl Harbor when the USS Arizona was bombed. Now, the boy, his mother, and sister have moved from Hawaii to California in the midst of America's involvement in World War II. He receives a letter from his Japanese-American friend, Davi Mori, in which Davi tells him that his father is being held in an internment camp in California and asks for Adam's help in finding him. The teen struggles with loyalty to his friend and disobeying his late father's wishes and his mother's determination to keep him from getting involved.
4. Mochizuki, Ken. Baseball Saved Us. New York: Lee & Low Books, 1993. Print.
This moving tale of a Japanese American boy living in a World War II internment camp documents a part of history that has been virtually forgotten. "Shorty" learns to play baseball and gains the confidence to overcome the hardships and discrimination he faces.
5. Salisbury, Graham. Under the Blood-Red Sun. New York: Dell Yearling, 2001. Print.
Tomikazu Nakaji's biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Korea invaded by Japanese
1. Park, Linda Sue. When My Name was Keoko. New York: Clarion, 2002. Print.
Inspired by her own family's stories of living in South Korea during the Japanese occupation in the years preceding World War II, Newbery Medal-winning author Linda Sue Park chronicles the compelling story of two siblings, 10-year-old Sun-hee and 13-year-old Tae-yul, and their battle to maintain their identity and dignity during one of Korea's most difficult and turbulent times.
Soldiers
Nonfiction
1. Ambrose, Stephen. Band of Brothers. New York: Touchstone, 2001. Print.
The men of E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, volunteered for this elite fighting force because they wanted to be the best in the army--and avoid fighting alongside unmotivated, out-of-shape draftees. The price they paid for that desire was long, arduous, and sometimes sadistic training, followed by some of the most horrific battles of World War II.
2. Brook, Henry. True Stories of D-Day. New York: Usborne, 2006. Print.
In a move that amazed the world, the Allied nations shipped an army across the English Channel and stormed into Nazi-occupied Europe. Millions of people were caught up in the struggle for the Normandy beaches, but victory or defeat came down to the bravery of individuals.
3. Powers, Ron. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam, 2000. Print.
The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.
Soldiers
Fiction
1. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. The Boy Who Dared. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.
Propaganda and promises quickly turn to oppressive new laws including the required participation in the Hitler Youth. Helmuth Hübener enters the program and is at once impressed with the bravado, shiny uniforms, boots, and patriotic fever sweeping the country. But his Mormon-based teachings trigger questions in his mind about the reality behind the regime's invasions of neighboring countries, mistreatment of Jewish citizens, and closely controlled media. He creates an underground newsletter with information gathered from BBC reports using an illegal shortwave radio.
2. Elliot, L.M. Under a War Torn Sky. New York:Hyperion, 2001. Print.
In 1944, 19-year-old Hank is an American pilot flying his 15th bombing mission when his plane is shot down over Alsace, near the Swiss border. Locals assist him in getting to neutral territory. There, a Red Cross doctor advises him to attempt an escape from Europe across France with the help of the French Resistance. Hank's many adventures as he makes his way toward home and freedom comprise the rest of the story. This is a gritty, unblinking look at the horrors that the Nazis visited upon France during the occupation.
3. Hughes, Dean. Soldier Boys.
Parallel stories follow teenagers Spence Morgan, a farm boy from Utah, and Dieter Hedrick, a farm boy from Bavaria. Stirred by complex feelings of patriotism and adolescent insecurities, both young men find themselves fighting for their respective countries in World War II.
4. Mazer, Harry. A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor.
While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7, 1941, teenaged Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack and through the chaos of the subsequent days tries to find his father, a naval officer who was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombs fell.
5. Salisbury, Graham. Eyes of the Emporer. New York: Dell Yearling, 2005. Print.
Eddy, a 16-year-old Japanese American, tells how he and his buddies, Chik and Cobra, become part of Company B of the 100th Infantry Battalion following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Without discounting the community's old loyalties to Japan, the story makes clear the transition caused by the declaration of war, and by the desire to be part of the great fight to protect America. These young men are patriotic, but the powers that be have a hard time trusting their dedication. The novel is based on historical fact, and Salisbury brings events vividly to life as he recounts one humiliation after another foisted on the troops, from the top down to their immediate commanders.
6. Wulffson, Don. Soldier X. New York: Viking, 2001. Print.
In 1943 sixteen-year-old Erik experiences the horrors of war when he is drafted into the German army and sent to fight on the Russian front.
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