Grade 7 Lesson at a Glance: Chapter 9, Lesson 4

Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Across the Centuries

Lesson at a Glance
Chapter 9, Lesson 4: Japan: Unified Yet Isolated (pp. 237-241)

The Big Idea
Framework Concept: Values Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan entered a new period in which strict class control and cultural isolation led to increasing prosperity and lasting cultural achievement.

Tell students how Japan was reunified and how the Tokugawa shogunate enforced a strict class system as well as strict isolationism in trade, travel, and ideas. Work with students to understand the restrictions and responsibilities of each of the four official classes below shogun and daimyo. Have students consider the advantages and disadvantages of a strict class system like this one, and of isolationism. Then tell students that Japan prospered under the Tokugawa shogunate and ask them to explain why. What were the values of the Tokugawas? Answers should include stability, self-sufficiency, loyalty, etc.

Lesson Outline
Use the Lesson Outline to preview the content of the lesson. You may wish to print it for your students as a guide during reading.

Check for Understanding

Ask students to choose one class of society and to write a letter as if from a member of that class. They should write to their local daimyo explaining their current station in life and why they would like the daimyo to put them in a different class. They should stress the disadvantages of their current class and the advantages of the one they would like to join.
Have students create a skit showing the meeting of two Japanese from different social classes. For instance, they might create a scene in which a daimyo and a rich merchant argue the merits of their favorite forms of entertainment. Or they might create a scene between a peasant and a tax collector.

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