Sadako and her 1,000 paper cranes (For 4th Year of Secondary Education)

Teaching Sequence:

The students have already seen the content of the IIWW in History. It is part of the Curriculum Design. It will be taken as background knowledge for this teaching sequence.

Pre-Task:

Taking into consideration that there are 4 rows of benches in this classroom arrangement, the teacher will ask one of the two students who sit at the front of each row to read out loud a short piece of information extracted from The Usborne First Encyclopedia of History (By Fiona Chandler).  The first student will read about the 2nd World War beginnings and enemies, the second will read about Pearl Harbor, the third, about the Holocaust and the fourth, about the Atom bomb.

The idea is that when the representative of one row is reading, the students in the other 3 rows have to write down the key words of each paragraph. Then, in pairs, the students will have to decide on the most significant terms to create a word cloud with “Wordle”. When they finish, they will see their same row neighbour’s cloud to compare it to their own cloud and to give them their opinion on the choice of words. 

Core Task:

The teacher tells the students they are going to watch a video from YouTube that shows the true story of a girl named Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing.

Try to answer these questions by taking down notes while watching. Be ready to discuss them afterwards.

1)      How old was she when the atom bomb was dropped? As she grew, What were her interests or dreams?

2)      How old was she when the doctors discovered her illness? What disease did she have? What had caused it?

3)      What Japanese saying inspired her and gave her hope? Is it simply a local tradition or does it have a broader implication?

Follow up:

1)      After watching, solve this puzzle…

(The word INTERCULTURALITY will be given in the crosswords as it is crucial)

2)      Let’s think: Write your conclusion including at least four of the words from the crosswords and three of the ones you have used in the word cloud done with Wordle.

3)      Let’s feel: Imagine you are Sadako. While you are hospitalized you need to express your feelings through a HAIKU, a typical Japanese poem. It is made up of three lines. The first and the third ones comprise five syllables and the one in the middle has seven syllables. It is a simple but deep poem dealing with everyday situations and human psychology through the use of vocabulary connected to the seasons.

Extra information:

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

This is the true story a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States. She had leukemia from the radiation and spent her time in a nursing home creating origami (folded paper) cranes in hope of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese saying that one who created a thousand origami cranes would then be granted a wish. Her wish was simply to live. However, she managed to fold only 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more, and died shortly after. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes, which were buried with Sadako. They also built a statue of Sadako holding a giant golden origami crane in Hiroshima Peace Park.

Now every year on Obon Day, which is a holiday in Japan to remember the departed spirits of one's ancestors, thousands of people leave paper cranes near the statue. On the statue there is a plaque: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth."

Adapted from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki