Pearl Harbor Classroom Activities

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech is the focus of a seven-lesson series that has young historians researching information about the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Using both an audio version of the speech and a remastered pop-up video, students analyze Roosevelt’s choice of syntax and diction and the rhetorical devices he uses to impact his audience. Scholars also research possible motives for the attack and the consequences of the attack. To conclude the unit, students compare the attack on Pearl Harbor with the events of September 11, 2001 and consider why the attackers chose the targets they did, the aftereffects of the attacks, and the lessons that can be learned from the events.