Hiroshima Lesson Plan

Rhapsody in August

Kind of Activity:

Mixed Media

Objective:

To analyze how a Japanese versus American authorship over the story of Hiroshima's survivors differs.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.6, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3

Structure:

Though Hersey's book was seminal for American understanding of the impact of the atomic bomb, it was told through a lens of American understanding. The great filmmaker Akira Kurasawa made a film, Rhapsody in August, about an elderly hibakusha woman. Students should be on the look out for how this telling of the hibakusha story (albeit fictional) differs from Hersey's.

***Note: the film...