OK. So I have officially taught a unit on the Holocaust. And omg was it difficult, and actually pretty successful. I actually think I effectively communicated information to these students in an analytical way and so that they absorbed the information and started thinking about historical questions - such as How do beliefs change over time?
What was really challenging about the unit was making it activity-based. My second lesson was more successful in this regard as we did some primary source work and did a modelling activity. But overall I am finding that it is difficult to keep the level of the discussion high when I give it over to the kids. They lose focus fast. And they really need teacher-centered discussion to keep the level of engagement high.
I have been planning to do a novel study on Maus for the second two weeks in language, but frankly I am feeling kind of burnt out from all this Holocaust stuff. I would really like to put it aside and make it a bit lighter in my classroom. Though I'm not sure what to do next, and I have to get some reading in for the kids.
That's all for now....
Drama drama and more drama! That's all I have to say to keep their attention. It has worked wonders for me and I think you can have similar results. In fact look in one of our books Teaching Fairly in an unfair world for a whole variety of activities that would work well in that kind of lesson. One that comes to mind would be collective role where you make groups of about 3-4 ppl and assign each group a role of one person. When all groups have a role you take on the role of a mediator and you have a sort of community circle. You might have to take sometime to prepare the roles - maybe a few could be survivors, a few could be former nazi soldiers, etc. Or you get one of the million poems and stories and pick characters from that. Now I realize before the collective role takes place you probably want your students to get inside their characters heads so to speak. Find some pictures that would represent the different roles and have them come up with a what we know, think we know and want to know chart then on the back have them draw a silhouette and have them place thoughts and feelings inside the silhouette to describe what they think on the inside and then have them place influences on the outside of their silhouettes. After that they should be pretty comfortable to start a debate in role. This activity blew me away when I did this in class. I did it with a high and low level class and they both succeeded by leaps and bounds.
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Randal, this seems like an amazing idea! I am done my unit now, but maybe I can squeeze it in somehow. Thoughts are percolating..... :D
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