Learning Fairness from Nonfiction Texts
Grade
Grade 6
UNIT
7
•
Fairness
In Unit 7, Lesson 2, “Learning Fairness from Nonfiction Texts,” students will learn examples of fairness from the lives of real people: a WWII soldier named Susumu Ito and the members of the Lubetsky family he helped to rescue from the Dachau concentration camp. Additionally, students will answer questions to develop their critical thinking skills and advance their academic dialogue skills through class discussion.
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SUGGESTED TIME:
- For either in-class silent reading or homework, have students read the two articles and answer the worksheet questions.
- Allow at least 50 minutes of class time for an all-class discussion of the worksheet questions.
RELATED SUBJECT:
English Language Arts
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Read two short nonfiction texts
- Determine the authors’ purpose in the text
- Compose answers to questions about the text that demonstrate reading comprehension
- Demonstrate understanding of standard English sentence structure and grammar
- Practice reading and conversation skills by sharing sentences with classmates
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
- Video: The 442nd Regimental Combat Team | WWII in 2 by The National WWII Museum (~2 min)
- Video: From Hawaii to the Holocaust by directcinemalimited (~2 min)
- Article 1: “Second Lieutenant Susumu ‘Sus’ Ito.” The Nisei Soldier Congressional Gold Medal Digital Exhibition. Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
- Article 2: “Reflection on Veterans’ Day” by Daniel Lubetsky, Founder, KIND Snacks, Builders Movement. November 11, 2024. (Full text included on the worksheet)
- Prohuman Grade 6 Unit 7 Worksheet 2: Learning Fairness from Nonfiction Texts
VOCABULARY:
Fairness: I treat everyone the same. If someone has been left out, I bring them in.
ELA COMMON CORE STANDARDS MET
CHARACTER AND SOCIAL EMOTIONAL (CSED) NATIONAL STANDARDS MET
LESSON PROCEDURE
Step 1:
- Explain that we will be reading two short nonfiction texts that show examples of fairness from the lives of real people: a WWII soldier named Susumu Ito and the members of the Lubetsky family he helped to rescue from the Dachau concentration camp.
- We will watch two short videos that give the historical context:
- Video: The 442nd Regimental Combat Team | WWII in 2 by The National WWII Museum (~2 min)
- Video: From Hawaii to the Holocaust by directcinemalimited (~2 min)
Step 2:
- Have students complete these two articles, either through in-class silent reading sessions or as homework:
- Article 1: “Second Lieutenant Susumu ‘Sus’ Ito.” The Nisei Soldier Congressional Gold Medal Digital Exhibition. Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
Article 2: “Reflection on Veterans’ Day,” by Daniel Lubetsky, Founder, KIND Snacks, Builders Movement. November 11, 2024.
- Have students complete the short-answer questions on the worksheet as they read the articles.
Step 3:
- Allow at least 50 minutes for in-class discussion of the short-answer questions on the worksheet.
GRADE 6 UNIT 7 WORKSHEET 2: LEARNING FAIRNESS FROM NONFICTION TEXTS
Article 1:
“Second Lieutenant Susumu ‘Sus’ Ito.” The Nisei Soldier Congressional Gold Medal Digital Exhibition. Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
Article 2:
“Reflection on Veterans’ Day,” by Daniel Lubetsky, Founder, KIND Snacks, Builders Movement. November 11, 2024. Full text below:
On a cold April day in 1945, my father, uncle, and grandfather saw tanks approaching the Dachau Concentration Camp.
At first, they thought it was the Nazis. But out of the tanks came young men with facial features unlike any they had seen before. To my father, it was the most beautiful sight on earth. The men he saw were part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese American soldiers, who came to liberate Dachau. One of those soldiers was Susumu Ito, a 26-year-old lieutenant, risking his life to free people like my 15-year-old father and 19-year-old uncle, even as his own family had been uprooted and placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The kindness that the Japanese American soldiers showed my father nourished him more than the first bite of food that filled his emaciated stomach. A Jewish Lithuanian, torn from his home, rescued by a Japanese American similarly relegated to the fringes of society: an unlikely, noble pair of human beings, unwilling to accept the fates that society insisted should be their own.
This postcard is from my Uncle Larry to Susumu, thanking him for his courageous actions and marking the beginning of a long friendship.
Today, on Veteran’s Day, I want to express my deepest gratitude to all veterans for their service and sacrifice. I am especially thankful to the heroic soldiers who gave so many a new chance at life after Dachau. Thank you, Susumu, for not only rescuing my family but also reminding me—just as my dad did—that seeing the humanity in others and striving toward the ideals we have yet to achieve, even under the grimmest of circumstances, is what will save us all.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER AFTER READING THE ARTICLES:
- What happened to Susumu’s family after the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
- What was Susumu’s role in the war and why was it dangerous?
- What happened in the rescue of the lost battalion and how many people were saved?
- What concentration camp did Susumu help to liberate? Where was it located and when did the liberation happen?
- Despite how they were treated by the U.S. government, how did Susumu and the other Japanese American soldiers demonstrate forgiveness for the unfair ways the U.S. government had treated them and work for fairness?
- In Daniel Lubetsky’s article, what do we learn about who Susumu helped?
- What did Daniel Lubetsky conclude in his article is the bigger meaning we can all learn from Susumu’s role in rescuing his family members?
- What is one way that you can show fairness to others?
- Write about and share a principle you want to live by that you learned from reading these articles.
Prohuman K-12 Curriculum © 2025 by Prohuman Foundation is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/