"Never Shall I Forget" Holocaust Resources for Teaching Night

Transcription

1 "Never Shall I Forget" Holocaust Resources for Teaching Night Technology Integration Learning Plan (TILP) by Julie Gerding Overview In the course of my Holocaust literature and research unit (based on Elie Wiesel's memoir Night), I will enhance student understanding of Holocaust related events through supplementary internet and video material both in class as a large group and individually in the computer lab. Analysis While teaching Night, a memoir of Wiesel's World War II and concentration camp experience, I have noticed that my forty-five sophomores have a general understanding of the Holocaust, but they lack specific information that could make the book even more meaningful. Undeniably, students find the book compelling; from a survey I gave last year, I found that of all the books, Night was one that frequently surfaced as a favorite for the year. By answering students' questions about Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz, concentration camp life, the "Final Solution," and numerous other topics, I have found that they want to know more about the real people and places behind the story. Additionally, allowing students to see pictures of the people and events described in Night has been particularly powerful. Still images have put the students in the appropriate mindset in the past; they are interested but subdued by what they see. For this reason, the attitude toward the subject matter is promising. Still, much more exposure to the topic is needed. Needs Assessment To determine student needs, I will assess prior knowledge by asking students what they already know about anti-semitism, Elie Wiesel, Jewish ghettos, Auschwitz and other camps, etc. (I have done this to a degree in my class already, which is how I know that they need more information.) I might also use a KWL chart for each student to obtain more information from students who are reluctant to speak. Based on what they say, I will determine what pieces of information are missing and find innovative ways of presenting the material to the class and allowing them to find some of the answers on their own. During the course of the unit, I will address individual student questions to determine what else needs to be taught. Purpose, Knowledge, and Skills Assuming that the students' knowledge is similar to what this year's sophomores and last year's sophomores in my classes know, I will use internet, PowerPoint, and video resources to give them a clearer understanding of (1) Elie Wiesel's community life in Sighet, Transylvania (modern day Romania),

2 (2) conditions in the ghettos (blocks in the city used as holding areas), (3) basic information about concentration camps (Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and others mentioned in Night) as well as individual people mentioned at the camps, (4) and the situation of Jewish survivors after World War II. While students are using internet resources, they will also develop skills in navigating web sites and finding the appropriate information through the guided activities I provide. Scope Typically, this unit (in its current state) takes approximately three and a half weeks to complete. This includes a small group research project about a Holocaust topic, the reading and discussion of Elie Wiesel's Night, and the viewing of Life is Beautiful. Because of the additional material that will be added via this plan, the unit will last approximately four and a half weeks. Design and Development Desired Learning Outcomes After completing this revised unit, students will have a deeper understanding of Elie Wiesel's life in Sighet, the experience of Jewish prisoners in the ghettos, and the horrifying conditions in concentration camps. be able to "put a face" to the names and visualize specific places mentioned in Night. see connections between Wiesel's experience retold in Night and survivor testimonies through internet video clips and documentaries on DVD. have used internet resources to learn more about issues raised in class. Strategies to Implement Resources and Media Each of the following strategies provides a unique opportunity for students to gain a better understanding of Elie Wiesel's Night and the Holocaust in general. The internet sites I have selected provide firsthand images of the places and people mentioned in the book. As of yet, I have not found better sources that are as easily accessible as these web sites. The selected films also provide unique perspectives from Holocaust survivors; this will build on what the students learn from Wiesel's memoir. Again, the films online and on DVD allow students to see more survivors; while having Holocaust survivors visit class and speak might be equally as powerful, the number of people from which the students might learn is significantly greater through film, thus broadening their understanding of the Holocaust. 1. Through a teacher-led presentation, students will see images of Sighet (Wiesel's hometown) and its pre-war Jewish inhabitants. Using a computer and a data projector, I will display the PBS photo album, Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular. Life in Sighet, Romania ( Additionally, using the "Movie Clips" section at A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust ( students will view

3 archival footage of ghettos, concentration camps, and Nazi propaganda about the ghettos. This strategy is in the directed instruction tradition. I feel that since this is in the introduction to the unit, it would be best if I set the tone for the next few weeks with a "teacher-led" approach before having the students begin their searches about other topics. 2. Through a guided activity in the computer lab, students will individually view the "Ghettos" section of the Holocaust Learning Center site from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ( Here, students will see images from the ghettos and view Quicktime videos of survivors describing conditions in the ghettos in which they stayed. Headphones will be provided for those who do not have them so that each student can view the video material found at the site without disturbing others. Because there is a wealth of information at this site, I would like for the students to have an opportunity to explore and find the answers with only some guidance from me (thus adopting a more constructivist approach). This will allow students to work at their own pace as they look for information relating to the scenes in Night. While they will have a worksheet to help focus their search (so that they stay in one area of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum web site and are able to finish the activity in time), they will have some leeway to investigate some areas of the site more than others. 3. Through a guided activity in the computer lab, students will visit the Auschwitz- Birkenau Memorial and Museum web site ( to the read information about and view images of the main camp, crematoriums, gas chambers, victims, and liberation. As with the previous strategy, I would like the students to work through this material at their own pace with a general guide from me. This will allow students to have a more active role in studying the information on the site while allowing me to address individual questions as I monitor the work. (Possibly, I might use all of the web sites listed on this page to construct a webquest in which each strategy represents some of the specific activities associated with the quest. This would also be in a constructivist frame of mind.) 4. Through a teacher-led PowerPoint presentation using a computer and a data projector, students will see additional photographs of the concentration camps, SS officers and their activities, and prisoners. Using "Virtual Reality Movies" at A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust ( students will also see selected 360 Quicktime movies of various locations in Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Buchenwald. For this activity, I have chosen directed instruction to refocus the group at the middle of the unit and to accommodate for web traffic at the site and locally. If I have twenty students looking at virtual reality movies online at the same time, the school's network might have problems (as I have seen in the past) or the web site might not be able to accommodate the traffic. This will also allow students to see the movies projected on a large screen, which could potentially be more effective than it would on a computer screen.

4 5. Using a television and a DVD player, students will view the Academy Award winning film Life is Beautiful and one of the following documentaries: the Academy Award winning documentary The Long Way Home, the Academy Award winning documentary Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, or the PBS documentary Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular. It is difficult to classify this activity as being directed or constructivist. While I am providing the students with a limited amount of information, what each student gleans from each film might be different than what another student does. a. While I have used Life is Beautiful (more information at in the past, I hope to focus the students' viewing so that they pay attention to the depiction of the concentration camps and how the music, lighting, and colors create a contrasting mood the concentration camp scenes vs. earlier non-concentration camp scenes. The film also demonstrates anti-semitism in pre-holocaust Europe as well as early restrictions placed on Jews in Italy. b. The Long Way Home (more information at focuses on Jewish refugees after World War II and the creation of Israel. Students will watch this documentary to gain a better understanding of what happened after the war was over (a part of history that is sometimes neglected). c. As the Internet Movie Database ( notes, Into the Arms of Strangers is "the story of the child refugees who were transported to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust." While students have Elie Wiesel's story (at age 15), they frequently want to know more about what happened to other children during the Holocaust. This will allow them to connect Wiesel's experience with that of other child Holocaust victims. d. The PBS special Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular will allow students to hear Wiesel speak about his life during and after the concentration camps, thus "putting a face" to the man they have read about and deepening their understanding of his life after Auschwitz. Structure and Sequence For the most part, activities listed in the "Strategies" section above will be interspersed with library research and classroom discussion of Night. Because I feel that both directed instruction and constructivist activities have merit, I have tried to find a balance by using both types. Below, I have indicated how and where each strategy will be used. A tentative day by day schedule is also available afterwards. 1. Before reading Night, students will begin the unit with Strategy #1 (shown above). In the past, I have used overhead transparencies to display images I had found of Elie Wiesel and Auschwitz. As I have noted before, these images have a powerful, sobering effect on my students, which places them in the right mindset to begin

5 reading Night. Having found even more (and at times higher quality) images and movie clips online, I will show these instead. Afterwards, students will take notes on information I provide about Wiesel (PowerPoint). 2. When students reach the "ghetto" section of Night (within the first 10 pages), I will use Strategy #2 to give them more information about life in the ghettos. This will provide images to go with the passages students are reading. 3. When Wiesel reaches Auschwitz in Night (approximately 25 pages into the book), I will use Strategy #3 to give students background information and images of Auschwitz. As they continue reading, I will used Strategy #4 to provide more information about the camp. 4. While students are finishing the book at home (pages 63-end), they will view Life is Beautiful (Strategy #5) in class. 5. After discussing the end of the novel, students will view one of the three documentaries mentioned in Strategy #5 to give them a more complete understanding of the issues discussed while reading Night. Tentative Schedule: Day 1 Assess prior knowledge; background info the Holocaust and Wiesel (#1) 2 Library research for self-selected topics in groups 3 Library research 4 Library research; students begin Night 5 Class discussion about pages 1-20 in Night 6 Computer lab more info about ghetto life (#2); students continue reading 7 Computer lab navigate Auschwitz site (#3); students continue reading 8 Class discussion about pages in Night 9 Presentation about Auschwitz (#4); class discussion about pages "Quest" (test/quiz) over pages 1-62 and background information 11 Background about Life is Beautiful; work day for projects 12 Watch Life is Beautiful (#5); students continue reading at home 13 Watch Life is Beautiful (#5); students continue reading at home 14 Watch Life is Beautiful (#5); students continue reading at home 15 Class discussion about page 63-end 16 "Quest" over page 63-end and Life is Beautiful 17 Holocaust poetry assignment (in current unit no technology) 18 Watch documentary (#5); discuss 19 Watch documentary (#5); discuss 20 Finish documentary (#5); discuss

6 21 Work day for projects 22 Holocaust topic presentations 23 Holocaust topic presentations Assessment With each strategy, I will use a few assessment techniques to gauge what my students have learned. As shown below, I have tried to use both informal and formal techniques. 1. Questions in Class/Class Discussion Through student and teacher questions (whether they are individual topics addressed in class or part of a larger class discussion), I will see how well students understand the material from their responses. 2. Written Work Student responses and notes during the internet parts of the unit will demonstrate what specific knowledge students have gained. 3. "Quests" Again, written responses to specific questions will demonstrate the depth of student understanding. 4. Presentations Oral presentations about related Holocaust topics will demonstrate knowledge that students have constructed for themselves during library sessions, work days, and outside of class. (Although this activity involves technology in its research phase, I did not describe it here because it is something I am already doing in class. The information students learn through the strategies listed above, however, could build on the knowledge they have about their own individual topics.) Implementation The most difficult problems I might have would be lack of lab time, malfunction of hardware, or web sites not responding. Beyond those concerns, most small problems would be easily manageable as they appear. To address the first concern, I typically sign up to use the lab at least a month in advance for specific class periods. This will reserve the lab and any other equipment I might need on those days. If I get behind, I might have to rearrange the learning activities above to fit the lab schedule, since lab times typically cannot be changed due to the amount of traffic the lab gets. Hardware malfunctions could cause more serious problems. If a computer, data projector, television, or DVD player fails to work, I need a back up plan. Because there are a few other televisions, DVD players, and mobile computers (laptops or computers on carts my computer is in the back of the room due to wiring, so I usually get a different one) in the department, I would arrange to have a back up on standby for those days. Because data projectors are scarce, I might have PowerPoint presentations on transparencies as a back up. Internet sites with virtual reality films would be more difficult to reproduce in another fashion, so I would most likely have to do some schedule rearrangement until I could get working hardware.

7 Web sites that are not responding are probably the largest concern. It would probably be wise to find alternative web sites that have similar material so that if one site fails, another might work. Because I cannot shift lab days too easily, I would also want to have a printed back up of some of the information so that students could still learn from the site. It would not spark as much interest or provide for the freedom I would like to give students while navigating the site, but they would at least have the information. I could also see if the movies can be downloaded to the server so that students can access them outside of the web site if it does not respond. In the meantime, I could contact the webmaster of the site and see if it will be fixed soon. Evaluation I will evaluate this unit through student responses in class, performance on activities, and surveys distributed at the end of the unit. Casual comments by students during the unit will allow me to see the "bugs" that need to be worked on before I use the unit again. If students respond positively to the activity at hand and are able to repeat what they have learned at a later date (perhaps through discussion or through individual comments to me), I will also know what parts of the unit were a success. Additionally, the performance on the unit activities (handouts, presentations, class discussions, and "quests") will demonstrate whether or not students have deepened their understanding beyond the book that we read in class. Finally, students will also have an opportunity to critique the unit through a survey given at the end of class. Students will be able to reflect on their own learning and determine whether or not their understanding was deepened through the technology used, how smoothly the technological portions of the unit went, whether or not the experience could have been performed as well without technology, and what could be changed to improve the unit for future students. Using the data from these three sources, I will be able to reevaluate my unit and consider changes for the next year. ShowMe Performance Standards*: 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.3 ShowMe Knowledge Standards*: CA 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 * These standards are for strategies that are new to this unit, though other standards might be met by preexisting material. Additional standards that are met by previously used material are listed below.