Saturday, December 05, 2009

Interdisciplinary Unit on the Holocaust

The English teacher and I started teaching the Holocaust unit to the transition students on Monday.


For the literature piece, students are reading the graphic novels Maus I and Maus II by Art Spiegelman. I highly recommend these novels! Students that tend to not enjoy reading will usually read these novels. Spiegelman does an amazing job telling the story of his father ( a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz) and the struggling relationship between a father and a son.


There are so great teaching activities on these fantastic novels:
Maus in the Classroom
Random House Teaching Guide for Maus I
WebEnglish Teacher
ReadWriteThink Lesson


Teaching Activities on the Holocaust:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Education World: Teaching the Holocaust
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence


Movies about the Holocaust:
The Pianist
Schindler's List
Life is Beautiful
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
And many more!

For the most part, most of the students are enjoying the books and the history that is being taught in this unit. They are asking a lot of questions and are VERY curious about this topic. The few that are not enjoying the unit are the kids that just don't buy into school anyway. Those kids have done nothing all school year and just don't want to be in school. The transition teachers have done everything possible to get the kids to buy into school. We've been working hard in working on the social and behavior issues with these kids. Most of the students are FINALLY "getting it" and behaving (almost) like high school students instead of elementary students.

We also have the adjustment counselor working with the students more during this unit since the topic can bring up some serious issues with this type of student population. So far, everyone seems to be doing OK with topic.

I know that we as educators can't save all of our students from dropping out of school or caring about their futures. It's just so frustrating at times that some students just don't seem to understand that education (at least their high school diploma) is their key to their future.

My final assessment for this unit will be for the students to create a Museum of Toleration based on what they learned from the Holocaust unit. They will look at the topic of genocide since 1945 and pick a topic, research it, and then present their findings in some visual way (poster, PowerPoint, collage, etc). We will have their projects on display either in the library or in the hallway. This is the plan anyway. I still have to work out the actual details of the assessment. The English teacher and I will be assessing the projects.

I will try and post throughout the unit how things are going and any concerns that begin to come up.