Hiroshima

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. John Hersey worked as a war correspondent in World War II in both the European and Pacific Theaters, accompanying the Allies during their invasion of Sicily, evacuating wounded soldiers from Guadalcanal, and surviving four plane crashes along the way.  After the war, Hersey spent time in Hiroshima, reporting on the devastation there for The New Yorker. Consider the role that war correspondents play in documenting and narrating life from a war zone. Why is it important and what purpose does it serve?

Teaching Suggestion: Consider preparing students to extend beyond this Short Answer to an investigation of the way in which Hiroshima was written. You may prompt students to consider how experiencing war impacts one’s reporting on it. This will help to segue nicely to the second Short Answer.

• “American Foreign and War Correspondents” discusses the prominent war correspondents who covered the European Theatre of the war, emphasizing those who reported on the atrocities Nazis and others committed during the Holocaust.
• “Reporting From the Front Lines of World War Two” describes the adventurous exploits of several correspondents such as Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite and explores some of their motivations to become front-line reporters.

2. John Hersey’s Hiroshima was first published in 1946, one year after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is considered one of the earliest and most successful examples of New Journalism. What is New Journalism and how has it impacted the genre of nonfiction? What makes New Journalism such an apt style for certain types of storytelling?

Teaching Suggestion: Consider connecting this Short Answer with the first, as Hersey’s own experiences directly influenced the style in which he wrote Hiroshima. You may want to remind students that in traditional journalism before Hersey, correspondents were instructed to become “invisible” in their reporting—they were taught to only report the facts and do so in the most objective manner possible. You may also prompt students to connect to any of the unit's three themes.

• “Wolfe and the New Journalism,” a short article from the Chicago Public Library, explains how Tom Wolfe took the writing style John Hersey helped pioneer to sensational heights in the 1970s.
• “The Intrepid Journalist Who Exposed Hiroshima’s Horror” is a segment from the PBS News Hour coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the bombing and the release of Fallout, a book about Hersey’s reporting on the devastation. This site includes a transcript as well as the television broadcast.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

The word “memorialize” is a verb that means “to preserve the memory of something.” Why would a community want to memorialize something, especially if that memory is painful? What existing memorials can you think of, and what do good memorials have in common? What do you memorialize, either personally or publicly?

Teaching Suggestion: Consider encouraging students to reflect individually first before sharing together. You might also direct students to the resource below after they have had a chance to digest the prompt in a more general way.

“Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park” - This page describes Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, built in memory and honor of those who died after the atomic bomb was dropped.