First and fifth periods finished up the work on heroes yesterday, developing checklists of qualities and examples before creating as groups one-sentence definitions of “hero.”

Sixth period students working

Afterward, we moved to an anticipatory writing lesson on the Holocaust in preparation for the unit we’re beginning on The Diary of Anne Frank. Students began with a simple prompt in their diary:

We’re all unique in some way, and we all belong to a group that is itself unique in some way. Find the one thing that connects you to one group of people yet makes you different from many other people. It can race, religion, political views, where your family comes from—anything.

From there, as I showed period pictures of the development of the Holocaust, students continued walking in the Jews’ shoes, so to speak. As we saw the Jews’ freedom restricted, we imagined ourselves in that position:

Leaders are blaming you subgroup for all the country’s problems. They are taking steps to remove your group’s power and influence in society. Write a diary entry about how your group is being singled out and treated differently.

And the entire Jewish population herded into the ghettos, we continued in our empathetic journey:

One day, soldiers come to your house and tell you and your family that everyone must move to a new section of town. You’re given ten minutes to gather your belongings. What do you take with you?

Finally, we began looking at the death camps, and imagining such horrible, utterly unimaginable rumors in our hypothetical journal writing:

You hear rumors that people are being rounded up in other parts of the country for mass execution. Some people believe it; others think the notion is ridiculous. Write a dialog you overhear among adults in your family discussing the rumors.

We ended with a few pictures from my own visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2005, including a photo of the gas chamber in the BIrkenau sub-camp, dynamited as the Germans retreated, fully aware of potential world reaction when it learned of what had been going on in the camp.

Dynamited gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Second and fourth periods began by looking at the paraphrasing homework. We paid careful attention to the role connotation can play in effective (and not-so-effective) paraphrasing.

Second period’s paraphrases

Additionally, we reached the climax of the Odyssey. It’s a favorite among many students, with the Hollywood-style gore and mayhem.

Homework

• First and fifth periods: none.
• Second and fourth periods:
  • complete the Odyssey;
  • answer questions 10, 12, and 13 on page 1102.