Lesson Five

Black Ships & Samurai, Lesson 05

Comparing Narratives

Introduction
The National Standards for History note that “reading historical narratives requires that students analyze the assumptions—stated and unstated—from which the narrative was constructed and assess the strength of the evidence presented. It requires that students consider the significance of what the author included as well what (he or she) chose to omit. Also, it requires that students examine the interpretative nature of history, comparing, for example, alternative historical narratives written by historians who have given different weight to the political, economic, social, and/or technological causes of events and who have developed competing interpretations of the significance of those events.” This lesson uses the Black Ships & Samurai unit as a vehicle for helping students to understand and develop the skills necessary for analyzing history as a constructed story or narrative.

National History Standards

Objectives
At the conclusion of this activity, students will be better able to:
    • Recognize history as a constructed story of the past
    • Recognize that the telling of history is an interpretive process and that there are multiple narratives of history
    • Construct an exhibit or PowerPoint essay of the initial encounter between Perry and the Japanese that organizes and applies the visual data from the unit in an alternative narrative to the one presented in the unit

Time required
2-3 class periods, including Internet time

Materials and preparation
    •Handout 05-A, “Analyzing the Story of Perry’s Mission to Japan as Presented in Sample Textbooks”
    •Handout 05-B, “Using the Black Ships & Samurai unit to Elaborate the Story of Commodore Perry in Japan”
    •Handout 05-C, “Retelling the First Encounters between Japan and the United States”
    •Textbook Excerpts
    •Internet access

Procedure
Prior to online time:

1. Working together, come up with a class definition of “history.” Students should be able to recognize that history is not simply events, but a record or narrative description of events and the relationships among events. Review with students the following characteristics of history.

History is:
    • Based on evidence
    • Explanatory
    • Interpretive—it reflects the perspectives and experiences of author
    • Synthetic—it brings together information from various sources
    • Selective—the teller of history necessarily must decide what s/he includes in the story and what to omit, what facts to put in, what not, which voices and perspectives to put in, which to omit
    • Weighted—by virtue of the selection process above, any one story of history will give more coverage, and thus more “weight” or importance, to some events and people rather than others
    • Constructed

Ask students: Is there one story or history of any event? How might alternate histories come to be? (Based on their understanding and application of the characteristics of history outlined above, students should be able to recognize that more than one story of an event, time, or people is possible—and probable.)

Ask students: How is your textbook a “history”? How does it fit the definition and characteristics above?

2. Give students excerpts on Perry and the expedition to Japan from two textbooks—perhaps a U.S. history text and a world history text. If your own texts do not have any mention of Perry’s expedition, two samples are provided. Ask students to analyze the two excerpts for the following. These questions are also provided in Handout 05-A.

    • Who is telling the story? What might be the writer’s goals?
    • Who is the audience for this historical story?
    • What are the restrictions that a history textbook writer faces and how does this affect the story he or she tells?
    • How do the two accounts (world and U.S. texts) differ and why might that be so?
    • Find specific pieces of information included in one account that are not included in the other. How does the inclusion or omission of information change the story of the event?
    • What does the historian’s ability to select, include, or omit information say about the nature of history?

3. Ask students to consider how a collection of artwork can be considered a narrative or story. How can art be seen as history? How can artwork fit the definition and characteristics of history above?

Ask students to consider Black Ships & Samurai, particularly the Essay, as a form of historical narrative. Ask them to consider how the author created a particular story by the way he put the images and sections of the Essay together. Have students think about design of the Web site, the various sections, and the required juxtaposition or placement of art within it.

Online
3. Assign students to work in pairs or threes and assign each group one of the sections of the Black Ships & Samurai unit to analyze closely. The sections to be examined are:

    Essay: Introduction
    Essay: Black Ships
    Essay: Portraits
    Essay: Gifts
    Essay: Perry

Each group is to locate 10 specific examples of data in the Essay that extend or complicate the history of the Perry expedition that they read in the textbook excerpts in Step One. Students should jot down notes on the data they find, as well as their own notes on how this additional information in the Black Ships & Samurai Essay changes the story of the Perry encounter with Japan that they understood before they studied Black Ships & Samurai. Handout 05-B can be assigned to help students focus on this task. Allow students one class period for this task.

4. When students have completed their online task, review their findings, using Handout 05-B questions as a guide. Ask students for culminating comments on how the additional data in Black Ships & Samurai complicated the story of the Perry expedition. Ask students to generate a list of “additional story lines” addressed in the unit that were not addressed in the texts.

5. To culminate their analysis, students apply their knowledge to construct an alternate narrative of the initial encounter between the Perry mission and the Japanese by designing their own short PowerPoint essay or museum exhibit. Distribute Handout 05-C or refer students to it online and review the directions for student projects carefully with students.

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