Goals & Objectives
Students will learn how to successfully dissect and use primary sources. Students will interpret differences and similarities using 3 primary sources, and write a short essay regarding the most important pieces of sources given to them.
California State Content and Common Core Standards
10.8 Students analyze the causes and consequences of World War II.
10.8.5. Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of six million Jewish civilians.
10.8.5. Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of six million Jewish civilians.
Lesson Introduction
The teacher will introduce the lesson visually. As the students file into the classroom, the students will set their belongings down and do a walk-through gallery within the classroom. Posted on the walls will be approximately 12-14 posters depicting the concentration camps, Nazi propaganda, and images of the inmates themselves. The objective is to get the students hooked and thinking about how horrifying this time period was, and how scared and hopeless life seemed for some. The teacher will try to gently make the students feel what it was to be in someone’s shoes in a death camp.
Vocabulary
Students will learn the following vocabulary/ideas in the lesson:
- Primary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- The Holocaust
- Auschwitz
- Primary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- The Holocaust
- Auschwitz
Content Delivery (Lecture)
The teacher will reintroduce the main ideas behind the Holocaust from a previous lesson. The teacher will then differentiate the difference between primary and secondary sources, and have the students find reasons they believe the Holocaust was able to occur at all in history.
Student Engagement
Once the students have mastered what a primary document is, they will analyze the following three documents:
Auschwitz.- Nazi testimony regarding gassing at the camp.
Medical Experiments.- Reports on freezing, low pressure and other experiments performed on camp inmates.
Survivor Stories: Eva Galler- http://hist341group6.wordpress.com/primary-sources/survivor-stories-eva-gellar/
Students, in groups, will read over these three primary resources, from both survivors and Nazi military, and try to find an answer to why this atrocity was allowed to occur in history. Students will write their findings in their own short essay. Students will critically think about, and answer these questions:
1) Do you believe that all Nazi’s believed in what Hitler was trying to accomplish, or were some just following orders so they, themselves didn’t get in trouble?
2) What would the feeling be like to immediately be separated from your family as soon as you stepped off that train car, not knowing whether they were alive, being experimented on, or if you’d ever see them?
3) Can hope ever be considered a bad thing?
4) What are your ideas towards those people that devoutly say the Holocaust never happened?
5) How do you think these survivors made it out of these concentration camps alive? Sheer will? Hope?
6) If you were a survivor of Auschwitz, would you be willing, like some survivors are, to go back to this still-standing museum of death and teach others about tolerance? Whatever your answer, do you think it is hard for these survivors to go back and see where they, or their families, were held?
Auschwitz.- Nazi testimony regarding gassing at the camp.
Medical Experiments.- Reports on freezing, low pressure and other experiments performed on camp inmates.
Survivor Stories: Eva Galler- http://hist341group6.wordpress.com/primary-sources/survivor-stories-eva-gellar/
Students, in groups, will read over these three primary resources, from both survivors and Nazi military, and try to find an answer to why this atrocity was allowed to occur in history. Students will write their findings in their own short essay. Students will critically think about, and answer these questions:
1) Do you believe that all Nazi’s believed in what Hitler was trying to accomplish, or were some just following orders so they, themselves didn’t get in trouble?
2) What would the feeling be like to immediately be separated from your family as soon as you stepped off that train car, not knowing whether they were alive, being experimented on, or if you’d ever see them?
3) Can hope ever be considered a bad thing?
4) What are your ideas towards those people that devoutly say the Holocaust never happened?
5) How do you think these survivors made it out of these concentration camps alive? Sheer will? Hope?
6) If you were a survivor of Auschwitz, would you be willing, like some survivors are, to go back to this still-standing museum of death and teach others about tolerance? Whatever your answer, do you think it is hard for these survivors to go back and see where they, or their families, were held?
Lesson Closure
Students will quickly pair-share one item they learned from the lesson. They can give their partner their answer from one of the questions, or just share something they found interesting.
Assessment
Formative- The teacher will walk the classroom and listen to the ideas and thoughts students come up with regarding the primary sources they are reading.
Summative- Students will receive a grade on their short essay. The teacher will make sure the students did some critical thinking by answering the questions given to them in a thoughtful manner. This will also allow the teacher to see if the students received all of the pertinent ideas from the lesson.
Summative- Students will receive a grade on their short essay. The teacher will make sure the students did some critical thinking by answering the questions given to them in a thoughtful manner. This will also allow the teacher to see if the students received all of the pertinent ideas from the lesson.
Accommodations for English Learners, Striving Readers and Students with Special Needs
Allowing students to brainstorm constructively and openly during the lesson introduction is a type of interactive instruction that might help students with special needs and striving readers. This activity allows these students to receive instruction by speaking and listening. English learners and students with special needs will benefit from the use of visual aides. Striving readers will be able to do this assignment, and it will allow the teacher to see how much information the student is taking in.