Holocaust Unit Tamara Style (sort of)

We have EIGHT weeks of school left.  But, we are on a block schedule which means I only see my students every other day.  So, what to teach?  I could go with the district “mandated” curriculum, which frankly, does not really float my boat. 

I decided I should teach what I know. I should teach what I love, and I should teach what works! And so, I’m excited to report that I will not be passing up my favorite: Holocaust Unit. 

When I teach the Holocaust I don’t do a long lesson on Germany. I don’t give Hitler much air time. What I do is use ideas and lessons that I have gleaned from other sources and build my unit that way. This year, I’m trying this.

PHOTOGRAPH ANALYSIS-borrowed from a lesson I got from a workshop lead by the USNHMM at an NCTE conference.

1. Find 3 baby photos of 3 famous people who your students will know. I used to use Ronald Reagan, but kids nowadays don’t really know who he is. This year I used a baby pic of Che Guevarra, Hilary Clinton, George W. Bush. 
2. Show the images on your LCD or overhead. Provide the students with a handout for analyzing photos. You can make a simple one that has items such as: year taken? candid or staged? male or female? what year? How can you tell what year? What event? Etc.
3. The fourth picture you show is Hitler’s baby photo. 
4. Once you’ve had the kids view and analyze the 4 photos, reveal who the babies are in the same order. 
5. When you get to that Hitler photo, the kids will be surprised; especially if they don’t know they are starting an Holocaust unit. 
6. To conclude this introductory activity, I use this as an opportunity to discuss Bias, Racism, Prejudice, and any other issues of that sort.

FOUND POETRY-I use the book “Images of the Holocaust”. 

1. Find ten to fifteen short (2 page) narratives of survivors and others who experienced the Holocaust first hand. Photo copy the narratives so the kids can highlight and annotate.
2. I randomly pass these out which will tie into the next activity later.
3. Students silently read their narratives. Only a couple students in each class read the same narrative
4. While reading they are highlighting key words, phrases, or sentences.
5. When done they will make a found poem using only words and phrases that come from their text. 
6. They must then type their poem and create a border that is creative.
7. Finally they will simply read their poem to the class.
8. As they conclude their poems, I use this as a chance to explain different aspects of the Holocaust. For example, if crematorium is used in their narrative, we discuss the implications of this.  If the word ghetto is there, we talk about what life was like there.  This gives me and the students a chance to learn through creative experiences instead of doing a traditional history lesson.

BUTTERFLY PROJECT-Thank you to The Doc is In for the ideas to do this! I pretty much did what Doc does.

1. Copy poems out of the book, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”.
2. Label the copies A – Z.
3. Make slips with A – Z and have the kids randomly pick a poem.  The point of randomly picking is that when they learn why their art is a butterfly and which children survived, I can tie in the randomness that Nazis used against the Jews.
4. Students then must memorize their poem and understand the poem in order to create the Butterfly. I
5. I told them that the poems are written by children in a ghetto and gave them a tiny background on Terezin. I gave them no other information except that they have to trust me that there is a GOOD reason why their STUNNING visual representation must take the shape of a butterfly.
6. I used my LCD to show the samples that Doc posted on his blog. Again, thanks Doc!

Next week the students will begin the novel Night. We will only be reading it in class.  While we read I stop often, ask, explain, and dialogue with the classes.  I have chapter and section quizzes and some simple creative work to go with it.

Overall the students always love the topic of the Holocaust so most teachers can’t go wrong with units. Hopefully the way I’ve organized this works well. When all is done, I’m considering showing “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”.