Grade: Senior

#4540. Interative History Notebook Mini-lesson

Social Studies, level: Senior
Posted Sun Mar 6 21:36:06 PST 2011 by Amy Mudukutore (Amy Mudukutore).
Graduate Student Regis Univ., Erie, USA
Materials Required: Composition book, Copy of Elie Wiesels book Night
Activity Time: 30 minutes
Concepts Taught: Writing/Response on Holocaust

Student Interactive History Notebook and Journal -- Mini Lesson

Materials:
Composition Book
Colored pencils
Night by Elie Wiesel

Objective: the interactive notebook is a place for students to review and connect with content vocabulary and events. It gives the students the freedom to draw pictures, write a poem , draw a comic, write a response, story or use a visual like a graphic organizer to show the meaning of terms, chapters, or any historical event. It draws on the students strengths and provides an interactive experience on which the students can learn and connect to the subject. The teacher provides a model of which to show the students and scaffolds the activity until students become comfortable and independent.

Mini-lesson
• The teacher will choose a quote from Chapter 1 of Night by Elie Wiesel. The book is being read as a supplement for not only the topic of the Holocaust but other genocides which occurred in the 20th century . ( Armenians , Stalin's Purges, Cambodia, Bosnia, Tutsi by Hutu)
• The teacher displays the quote chosen from the book and reads it to the class.
" The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in the Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo. The train had stopped. The Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. There everybody was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks . Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. This took place in the Galician forest." (Wiesel, 1958)
• Discuss the quote and vocabulary within the passage and then read the poem or other interactive response they have created in their Interactive Journal/notebook.

Things Remembered by Amy Mudukutore

Herded like cattle from train to truck to forest, so close, no space
Where?
The unknown, I look into eyes and see the deep pools of disbelief
Why?
My legs ache from standing and I feel thirst but the dirt is everywhere.
I smell it, I taste it, its cool, innocent of the sins about to be committed
Why?
The sound cracks like lightening and there are wails of sorrow
The forest will never be the same , the blood will seep in and the trees will remember
Next crack, next crack, NEXT WHY. . ...

• The poems words are in the shape of a trench to add meaning to it and visual effect.

• The teacher asks the students to take a quote or paragraph from Chapter 1 of Night and create their own response to it. It can be a poem, paragraph, comic, picture, etc.

• It can be presented or kept between student and teacher.

• The addition of each page of the notebook adds new vocabulary or new topic and allows the students to write and interactive on a deeper level with content.

Works Cited
Wiesel, E. (1958). Night. New York: Hill and Wang.