ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCES

Anticipation Guide - students examine 10-15 statements such as "I would help someone I saw in trouble, no matter the danger" and "Prejudice leads to violence," checking them off if they agree with the statements. Class discussion to share opinions is helpful. At the end of the unit, students will check off those statements again to see if their opinions have changed.

Text Rendering

Students will read the Preface to Night, underlining one sentence, one word, and one phrase and copying them onto a piece of paper. Have students stand in a circle. The first time around the circle, students will read their sentence. The second time, they will read their phrase, and the third time they will read their word. Some will repeat elements, but it's okay for them to do that because it emphasizes important images. After the reading, students write in their journals about their feelings about the activity, the images it aroused, their expectations about the memoir, etc.

Holocaust Scavenger Hunt

Students complete a scavenger hunt by visiting different web pages that contain the information for which they are looking. This Scavenger Hunt focuses on history related to the Nazis, Anti-Semitism, and concentration camps. It uses pages from the USHMM's "The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students" (http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/).

Bystanders

After reading and discussing Czeslaw Miloz's "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto" and Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar," students write a journal entry about the role of bystanders in the Holocaust. On the second day, students read about the SS St. Louis and listen to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." Students then produce an editorial about the US's decision not to allow the St. Louis to dock, gathering further information from the internet if necessary.

Resistance

Students divide into groups to read sections of the USHMM's booklet Resistance During the Holocaust. The sections titled "Armed Resistance: Ghetto Rebellions," "Anti-Nazi Activities of the Christian Opposition," "Defiant Activities of the Jehovah's Witnesses," "Activities of the Herbert Baum Group," and "The ‘White Rose'" work best. Each group then goes to the board/overhead to chart information about their group of resisters: who they were, why they opposed the Nazis, what they did, and what price they paid.

Rose Blanche

I read Roberto Innocenti's Rose Blanche to students, making sure I show them all the pictures. We talk about allusion, and I ask them to make a list of the allusions in the story, verbal and visual. Some of the examples they usually come up with are the verbal allusion of the title character's name (it means "White Rose" in French), the visual allusion of the mayor's mustache (reminiscent of Hitler), and the yellow stars on the uniforms of the children Rose befriends. Students then divide up into groups of 2-3 to create their own posters about Resistance, using visual and verbal allusions to the groups they learned about the day before.

Night WebQuest

http://www.tyrrell.k12.nc.us/dduck/
pages/tenth/night/night.html

We usually complete Part I (Elie Wiesel Biography) before we read Night, Part II (The Cabbala) during our reading of Segment 1, Part III (the Journey to the Camps) while we are reading Segments 2-3, Part IV (Holocaust Timeline) as we read Segments 4-7, and Part V (Other Survivors' Stories) after we have finished reading Night.

Found Poem

Students choose 1-2 page sections of Night that contain especially vivid imagery. It helps to use a photocopier to enlarge these sections and cut out some of the words. Students arrange the words to form a poem, then share their poems, explaining what image they are focusing on and why they chose that image.

Quiz on Segments 1-4 of Night

Character Portraits

Students choose a character in Night and list as many characteristics and emotions as they can for the character. Next, students choose a symbol to represent as many of those characteristics and emotions as possible. For example, they might choose fire to represent Madame Schacter's fear. Students draw a portrait of their character using these symbols. Madame Schacter might have smokestacks for eyes and a fiery mouth.

Juliek's Violin

Students re-read the section in which Elie listens to Juliek play his violin in a crowded cattle car, then write in their journals about what they think this music sounds like. When they have finished, the class listens to the Beethoven violin concerto Juliek played (Violin Concerto in D) and discusses how the concerto differs from expectations. Why isn't it sad? What is Juliek saying by playing this music in such a horrific situation?

"Nobel Lecture"

Students will read Elie Wiesel's Nobel Lecture, then compose a letter to him expressing their views about why it is/is not important to learn about the Holocaust. Time the second day will be used to review letter formatting, peer editing.

Night Test

Other Victims Project

Students work cooperatively to collect information about groups persecuted during the Holocaust (Sinti and Roma peoples, Poles, the handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals), create new products using this information, respond reflectively on the roots and manifestations of prejudice against these groups, and present their findings to the class.

Life is Beautiful

Students view the film Life is Beautiful, then brainstorm essay topics relating our study of the Holocaust to the film. Students often choose to compare and contrast the father/son relationships in the film and Night or explore the question of whether or not it's appropriate to make a comedy about the Holocaust.