Gifted Unit on Origami and Sadako & the Thousand Paper Cranes Novel Study
"Little Boy" and "Fat Man"
Before we read Chapter One, let's learn about the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan during World War II.
Hiroshima, a manufacturing center of some 350,000 people located about 500 miles from Tokyo, was selected as the first target. After arriving at the U.S. base on the Pacific island of Tinian, the 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets). The plane dropped the bomb–known as “Little Boy” by parachute at 8:15 in the morning. It exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12 -15,000 tons of TNT. It destroyed five square miles of the city.
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Hiroshima’s devastation failed to elicit immediate Japanese surrender, however, and on August 9 Major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, Bockscar, from Tinian. The primary target was the city of Kokura, but thick clouds drove Sweeney to a secondary target. The plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning in Nagasaki. More powerful than the one used at Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22-kiloton blast. The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bomb’s effect, limiting the destruction to 2.6 square miles.
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At noon on August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in a radio broadcast. The news spread quickly, and “Victory in Japan” or “V-J Day” celebrations broke out across the United States and other Allied nations. The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.
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The Enola Gay
Slideshow of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay"
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
The Attack on Hiroshima
After World War II, most of Hiroshima would be rebuilt, though one destroyed section was set aside as a reminder of the effects of the atomic bomb.
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Time to read chapter one independently...
Good Luck Signs
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Text Connections
Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials.
Let's examine each type of text connection...
