Submitted By: Alison Timm and Shelly Barnard
Collaborators: Rena Berlin (VA Holocaust Museum), teachers and Joy McDonald ITRT.
Lesson Title: Voices of the Holocaust: Documentary
Target Grade/Subject: English 7
Length: 6, 90 minute classes
Lesson #:2379
Summary
The students are reading an in-class the novel, Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, which deals with themes about the Holocaust. Students will be working with a partner and researching one of five topics: Children of the Holocaust, Women of the Holocaust, Men of the Holocaust, Survivors/Descendants of the Holocaust, or Hitler/Nazi Germany. The students will be researching general background information on their topic and finding pictures, video clips, quotes, and music that pertains to their topic. Each group will conduct a fishbowl discussion while Skyping with an expert from the holocaust museum. During this activity students will receive feedback, expert guidance and additional research questions to further extend their knowledge before creating their documentary. Students will use Movie Maker on their computers to make a three minute documentary about their specific topic, which will include the interview, pictures, short video clips, music, and text.
Essential Questions:
- What role does memory play in our lives?
- What is the effect on people who no longer have a say in how they live?
- Do people always portray themselves as they really are, or do they behave as they think others want them to behave?
- What is the effect of honoring those who lost their lives in the Holocaust?
- Is it better for a community/nation to celebrate difference or similarities in people?
- Is it possible for a community/nation to tolerate all members and live in peace?
TIPC Ratings
Student driven with various digital tools of research (databases, texts, web sites, united streaming, teacher tube). Students generated their own guiding research questions individually and collaboratively in a schoolspace chat. Students were required to evaluate resources for accuracy using previously taught information fluency skills.
Student work was created collaboratively in student selected groups with student defined group roles. Each class communicated with an audience both within and beyond the classroom electronically using a variety of tools (schoolspace chats and Skype). The class reflected on their role in the group as a culminating activity.
By answering all essential questions in essay form at the end of the project, students will think critically and draw conclusions. Students will investigate multiple perspectives while researching their topic and while listening to other students discuss the perspectives included in their research findings.
Throughout this entire research process, students will see the real world relevance of this topic: “The Faces of the Holocaust”. Students will make connections to contemporary issues as they become aware of how these historical events continue to affect society. Students created documentary movies that showed evidence of new insights, products and perspectives in regards to the impact on humanity from the atrocities of the Holocaust. The class reflected on their work in the creative process as a culminating activity.
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