Hachikō: A Loyal Dog

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By: Mandy Lover, Gayle Green, Axel Reitzig, Jessica Rodd, and Lynn Williams with Kelly Himeisen, Katherine White, Fran Cohen, Katie Peterson, Linda Katzenmeyer, and Mike Wojczuk

Featured Children’s Literature:Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog, by Pamela S. Turner (primary), or Hachiko Waits, by Lesléa Newman (intermediate)

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Lesson (pdf)

Materials (pdf)

Hachikō Photographs Powerpoint (ppsx)

 

 

Objectives:

1. Students will define loyalty, using an example from Japanese culture and explaining how loyalty contributes to a good community.
2. Students will practice retelling a story in both written and oral formats.
3. Students will use art to describe character traits (such as loyalty).

National Content Standards:

Geography

• Geography Standard 4: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places.

Civics

• Civics Standard 4: What are the roles of the citizen in American democracy?

Reading and Writing

• Reading Standard 2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
• Reading Standard 3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
• Writing Standard 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
• Speaking and Listening Standard 1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Visual Arts

• Visual Arts Standard 2: Students use knowledge of structures and functions.
• Visual Arts Standard 5: Students reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others.

Plan for Assessment:

1. Students will demonstrate ability to identify central ideas or themes of a text and summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
   • Primary : Students will create books summarizing the Hachikō story and use the books to retell the Hachikō story to another individual.
   • Intermediate: Students will use their knowledge of a character to expand a story and tell it from that character’s point of view.
2. Students will demonstrate understanding of the character trait loyalty and relate the trait to building a good community.
   • Primary/Intermediate : Students will discuss the importance of loyalty and depict a character visually to reflect the character’s loyalty.

A checklist is provided for assessing students’ final work; it can be used by the teacher, by students who hear others’ presentations, or by students as a self-assessment tool.

Notes:

• This lesson has several parts. It can be taught as a daylong lesson or be spread across several days. Under many headings in the Implementation section, separate directions are provided for primary and intermediate classes. Teachers leading an intermediate class should skip the primary steps and follow the steps for intermediate classes.
• The stories featured in this lesson are based on the true story of an Akita-breed dog named Hachi, who greeted his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, at Shibuya Station or the gate of the University of Tokyo campus at the end of each workday. After the professor’s sudden death in 1925, Hachi continued to go to the station and wait for his owner each day until his own death in 1935. The story of this dog’s loyalty gained national fame in Japan after a former student of Professor Ueno published several newspaper articles about Hachi. In Hachi’s honor, Japanese people donated funds, and sculptor Teru Ando created a bronze statue of the dog. This statue was melted down during World War II, but in 1948 a new statue sculpted by Teru Ando’s son Takeshi was erected in its place. Today at Shibuya Station, the north-side exit and plaza are named the Hachikō exit and Hachikō Plaza. People use the Hachikō statue in the plaza as a landmark to meet friends. Also commemorating Hachikō are a mosaic wall-mural of Hachikō’s family and the Hachikō Memorial Museum housed in an old street car, which documents the story.

Materials:

1. Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog, by Pamela S. Turner, or Hachiko Waits, by Lesléa Newman
2. Copies of A Pet I Have Known (provided) for all students (Optional)
3. Copies of Retelling Hachikō’s Story Checklist (provided) for all students
4. Hachikō Photographs PowerPoint (provided)
5. Drawing/writing paper, crayons, markers, pencils
6. Construction paper, scissors
7. Computer, LCD projector, and screen

Implementation:

Introduction and Connections

Primary/Intermediate

1. Assign students to bring in or draw a picture of a pet they have known. You may want to use the A Pet I Have Known handout, on which students can draw the pet and write a sentence or two about it. Guide students to reflect upon the feelings the pet evokes. Possible guiding questions:
   • Why do we take good care of our pets?
   • Why are we so concerned when pets get lost?
   • How are we loyal to pets after they die?
   • What does a pet do to show it is loyal to its owner?
   • How is taking care of a pet important to the community?
2. Introduce whichever Hachikō book you are reading as a true story from Japan.
3. Develop background knowledge of commuter trains and public transportation in Japan. Help students understand that in Japan’s cities, millions of people ride trains every day from the neighborhoods where they live to the parts of the city where they work, go to school, shop, or take part in other activities; at the end of the day, they ride the train back home again. They walk or bike to a train station, where they can buy a ticket and wait on the platform for their train. Almost two and a half million people pass through Shibuya Station in Tokyo every day. You may want to show some of the images from the Hachikō Photographs PowerPoint at this time to give students a visual reference for what the trains, station, and platform look like.
4. Discuss the following vocabulary (depending on the knowledge and age of students): platform, kimono, newsstand, vendor, rice balls (called onigiri in Japanese, a rice ball is rice compressed into a ball or triangle around a filling such as a small piece of cooked salmon or pickled plum; rice balls are sometimes wrapped in seaweed; they are a popular food in lunch boxes or for snacks), professor, leather harness, samurai, tabisocks (traditional Japanese socks with the big toe split from the other toes for wearing with thonged footwear, such as the traditional Japanese geta), station, bronze, university, stray. You may want to have students make a Vocabulary Book in which they draw or paste pictures that illustrate each of the terms listed.
5. Create a vocabulary list while reading the story or doing a picture walk. Revisit the list after reading the story.

Instruction: Read-aloud and Retell

Primary

1. Tell students they will be summarizing the story you read by drawing and writing. Give each student a piece of blank paper. Have the students fold the paper in half twice—first crosswise and then lengthwise—to create a mini-book.

2. Read Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog in four sections. The following is one effective way to divide the story (note that the pages are not numbered; our numbering begins where the story begins and does not include the front matter):
   • Introduction to Kentaro, Hachikō, and the train station: Pages 1 through 5 (last sentence: “His brown eyes were fixed on the station entrance.”)
   • Introduction to Professor Ueno and Hachikō and Kentaro’s friendship: Page 6 through the end of the first paragraph on page 10 (last sentence: “”When it was cold, I would bury my face in the thick ruff of creamy fur around his neck.”)
   • Professor Ueno’s death and Hachikō’s loyalty: Second paragraph on page 10 (paragraph beginning “One day in May…”) through just before the last paragraph on page 18 (last sentence: “’Or perhaps he knows Dr. Ueno is dead, but he waits at the station to honor his master’s memory.’”)
   • Hachikō’s death and the Hachikō statue: Last paragraph on page 18 (sentence beginning, “As the years passed. . .”) to the end of the book.

   After each section, have each student draw a picture and write a sentence summarizing that section. Tell students to use one new vocabulary word from the story on each page of their book.

3. After reading the story, show the Hachikō Photographs PowerPoint to help students understand that this really is a true story. Spend time discussing what made the station a special place to Hachikō and why the area around the statue of Hachikō is a special place to people today.

Intermediate

1. Tell students they will be summarizing each chapter of the story you read through drawing and writing.
2. Read Hachiko Waits aloud, chapter by chapter. After each chapter, have the students write and illustrate a summary paragraph. Tell students to use two new words from the story in each paragraph.
3. After reading the story, show the Hachikō Photographs PowerPoint to help students understand that this really is a true story. Spend time discussing what made the station a special place to Hachikō and why the area around the statue of Hachikō is a special place to people today.

Guided Practice: Class Discussion

Primary

1. Lead the class in creating a retell of the story. Use guiding questions such as the following to help the students:
   • Where did Hachikō go during the day? What was special about this place?
   • What did Hachikō do that showed he was loyal?
   • Did he enjoy his routine?
   • Were any other characters in the story loyal?
   • What did characters in the story do to make their community a better place?
2. Tell the class that they are now going to create an illustration that represents Hachikō. Follow Molly Bang’s example in her book Picture This, demonstrating how a small red triangle might represent Little Red Riding Hood while a larger, rounded, light purple triangle could represent her mother.
3. Ask the class for ideas about the shape, color, and size that should represent Hachikō. As they give you ideas, students should justify their thoughts by connecting Hachikō’s actions and character traits with the shapes they propose using.
4. Ask students what type of shape they feel best represents loyalty. The students do not need to agree. Lead a discussion of how Hachikō showed that he was loyal. Encourage students to talk about why loyalty is an important character trait—how does loyalty help make a good community?
5. Give the students construction paper and scissors and have them make their own representations of Hachikō. Tell them they must be able to say why they are making Hachikō the shape, size, and color that they select.

Intermediate

1. Tell the class that they are now going to create an illustration that represents Hachikō. Follow Molly Bang’s example in her book Picture This, demonstrating how a small red triangle might represent Little Red Riding Hood while a larger, rounded, light purple triangle could represent her mother.
2. Ask the class for ideas about the shape, color, and size that should represent Hachikō. As they give you ideas, students should justify their thoughts by connecting Hachikō’s actions and character traits with the shapes they propose using.
3. Ask students what type of shape they feel best represents loyalty. The students do not need to agree. Lead a discussion of how Hachikō showed that he was loyal. Encourage students to talk about why loyalty is an important character trait—how does loyalty help make a good community?
4. Give students construction paper and scissors and have them make their own representations of Hachikō. Ask the students to write about why they are making Hachikō the shape, size, and color that they select.
5. Ask students to rewrite the story from Hachikō’s point of view, incorporating the idea of loyalty and how people or animals with loyalty contributed to the community in the story; they should also write about what Hachikō might have done before 3 pm each day.
6. Have students illustrate one event from their stories, using the construction-paper shapes they made and crayons or colored pencils for the background. Other characters can be represented with construction-paper shapes or can be drawn in crayon or pencil.

Conclusion

Primary

1. Assign students to use the mini-books they created in the Instruction: Read-aloud and Retell section above to retell the story to another individual and use their construction paper shape to describe Hachikō’s character. Use the Retelling Hachikō’s Story Checklist to assess student work or to have students self-assess.

Intermediate

1. Assign students to show their illustrations of Hachikō to the class or a small group, explain why they chose the shape they did, and read their story from Hachikō’s point of view. Use the Retelling Hachikō’s Story Checklist to assess student work or to have students self-assess.

Extensions and Cross-Curricular Ideas:

1. Visual Arts: Assign students to make a mosaic related to the story, using geometrical cutouts as the mosaic “tiles.” Encourage students to convey their ideas about loyalty through their mosaic.
2. Character Education: Compare and contrast the concept of loyalty in Japanese and American culture, using the story of Annie in Fort Collins, CO (or of another local hero dog in your area). Annie’s story is told in Annie, The Railroad Dog and, more briefly, on the Colorado Historical Society web site (see Resources and References).
3. Geography: Discuss how the Hachikō statue now serves as a meeting place for family and friends in the area. Encourage students to discuss the physical features of the area around the statue (both natural and human-made), as well as the way people react to and use the space. Is there a place in your community with similar features? That people react to similarly?

Resources and References:

Resources for Use in Lesson

Newman, Lesléa. Hachiko Waits. Machiyo Kodaira, illustrator. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004.

Turner, Pamela S. Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog. Yan Nascimbene, illustrator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

Resources for Use in Extensions or Cross-Curricular Ideas

Ahlbrandt, Arlene Briggs. Annie, The Railroad Dog. Fort Collins, CO: Citizens Printing, 1998.

Harvesting Historical Riches: Colorado and Southern Freight Depot. Colorado Historical Society Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. 

References for Teacher Background

Bang, Molly. Picture This: How Pictures Work. New York: Sea Star Books, 2000.

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The Program for Teaching East Asia at the University of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the support of the Freeman Foundation and Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership in the development of Texts and Contexts: Teaching Japan Through Children's Literature.

Created 2010 Program for Teaching East Asia, University of Colorado.