How can we help students move beyond the "memorization" of history and instead feel the "emotion" of a period? In this two-period lesson design, my students explored the annexation of Korea by Imperial Japan, not through textbooks alone, but through the eyes of a poet and the power of generative AI.
Period 1: Immersing in Historical Perspectives with "Gems"
To start, I used Gems (custom AI assistants built on Google Gemini) to help students grasp the "atmosphere" of the era.
- The Persona Design: Using ChatGPT and Gemini, I crafted several personas: a Japanese teacher, a Chinese student studying abroad, and an elderly man living in Seoul.
- The Activity: Students worked in groups of four, each interviewing a different persona. By bringing these diverse perspectives back to their group, they could compare how the same historical moment felt depending on one’s nationality and social position.
This setup transformed students from passive listeners into active investigators, allowing them to "feel" the tensions and complexities of the time through dialogue.
Period 2: Deconstructing the Heart of a Poet
In the second period, we focused on the renowned poet Takuboku Ishikawa and his tanka:
"On the map, / Over the land of Korea / I brush black ink, / While listening / To the autumn wind."
I created a specific Takuboku Gem, embedding reliable historical sources and URLs into its knowledge base. Students interviewed the "poet" about his intent: "What were you thinking as you painted the map black?" or "What was the mood of the people around you?"
This served as a powerful case study in Question Formulation. Students learned that to get deep, meaningful answers from the AI, they had to refine their own curiosity and understanding of the context.
Creative Expression with iPad
After the interview, students were tasked with designing a visual representation of the poem that captured Takuboku’s inner conflict.
- The Freedom to Create: There were no restrictions on apps. Students chose what they were comfortable with—Pages, Keynote, or Canva.
- Design Intent: Whether they used vertical text, specific fonts, or symbolic backgrounds, every choice had to be explained in writing on Padlet.
The results were breathtaking. Some used the "scattered text" style to show fragmentation of the heart, while others used stark color contrasts to represent the weight of the ink. By using digital tools, students could iterate their designs instantly, focusing on how to align their visual choices with their historical interpretation.
Learning Objectives & Impact
- Connecting Poetry and History: Students moved beyond seeing history as "facts" and began to read the "emotional landscape" of the intellectual elite of that era.
- Experiencing the Era through Expression: By visualizing the "atmosphere," students had to concretely imagine the past, leading to a reconstructive understanding of history rather than simple rote learning.
- Developing Personal Agency: The process of turning a poem into a visual work forced students to ask, "How do I interpret this?" This makes history a personal matter—a "subjective" experience.
- Visualizing Diversity of Thought: Seeing how differently classmates interpreted the same poem through various fonts and layouts sparked deep dialogue. It served as an entry point to multiperspective historical thinking.
Conclusion
The most important takeaway was that this activity was accessible to everyone, yet allowed for deep, personalized output. By using ICT, we can make the invisible "inner world" of a student visible. I look forward to continuing to design lessons that maximize student creativity and agency.
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