A Unit Plan for Teaching
Night
By Elie Wiesel
To ENG 1P1
ED/EN 3051
UNIT SUMMARY
This unit is designed to be delivered to a Grade Nine Applied English Class. It could easily be adapted to suit older grades, particularly to Grade Ten English to compliment the Grade Ten History curriculum.
The first set of lessons, under the reading strand, is designed as an introductory lesson to the novel to be delivered before students begin reading. It is meant to provide students with support before being asked to read the text in a number of ways; providing historical context, providing geographical context, understanding the non-fiction genre, and clarifying Hebrew word meaning. Some subtasks are adapted from Ontario’s Think Literacy guide.
The second set of lessons on the strand of media studies, revolves around connecting the text (which has been read by this point) and the film “Life is Beautiful” together. Students will focus on the importance of establishing their understanding of characters effectively, so to be able to understand the point of view of anyone students were instructed to analyze.
The third set of lessons, under the writing strand, allows students to reflect during reading, preparing them to complete the Questioning Circles, making connections, and journal writing in role assignments after the text has been read.
The fourth set of lessons allows students to work in groups, share their opinions with supporting reasons, and help them prepare to present their culminating task, the Oral Presentation, which the previous lessons have helped them prepare.
Included are lesson plans, instructional strategies, resources, rubrics, handouts, and accommodations for ELL or identified students.
Night by Elie Wiesel
Lesson One: Strand: Reading
Getting Ready to Read
This lesson is designed as an introductory lesson to the novel, to be delivered before students begin reading. It is meant to provide students with support, before being asked to read the text, in a number of ways; providing historical context, providing geographical context, understanding the non-fiction genre, and clarifying Hebrew word meaning. Some subtasks are adapted from Ontario’s Think Literacy guide.
Subtask One: Vocabulary.
This lesson is designed to foresee and circumvent and difficulties students may experience with vocabulary in the text.
EXPECTATIONS / STRATEGIES / TEACHER NOTESExpectations are taken from The Ontario Curriculum- English, Grade 9 Applied. / Explain to students that a Jewish man, living in Transylvania, wrote the novel they are about to read in 1979. Explain that the book was initially written in Hebrew. Despite numerous translations, there are a number of words that remain in Hebrew. Explain that today we will explore how to discover the meaning of the Hebrew words, and other challenging words, by looking at the context in which they are said.
Get students into small groups of 4 or 5. Distribute cue cards with full sentences from the novel containing Hebrew words. (see Appendix for list)
-identify and use a few different reading comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading.
-make inferences about simple texts…using stated and implied ideas from the text. / Each small group should begin with one cue card. Tell each group it is up to them to come to a consensus as to what the Hebrew word means in English. Hopefully they can extrapolate the meaning from the context of the sentence. If not, they can go to an information source. / Have appropriate resources available for groups who are unable to determine the meaning of their words. For example a dictionary, or in room internet access.
It is also important for students to realize that despite the fact they may not have gotten the exact definition correct, it was probably still possible to understand the broader meaning of the sentence. Not knowing or understanding one word does not necessarily mean you cannot understand the book.
-communicate orally for a few different purposes.
-communicate in a clear coherent manner for a few different purposes. / When each group is satisfied with their meaning, they must elect a representative from their group to stand and inform the rest of the class their word, and it’s meaning.
Each group must then write a clear definition of the meaning of the word, and put it up on the class word wall.
APPENDIX:
List of sentences containing Hebrew words:
1) He was a jack-of-all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, a Shtibl. P.3 (meaning; a communal house of prayer.)
2) He was the Rabbi in our town. P.7 (meaning; Jewish religious leader)
3) I asked my father to find me someone to guide me in my studies of Kabbalah. P.4 meaning; school of thought surrounding the mysticism in Judaism)
4) Some schoolmates and I were studying a Talmudic treatise outside the Synagogue. P.12 (meaning; an important text of mainstream Judaism)
5) I held onto my phylacteries, which contained my precious scripture. (small boxes containing scripture, worn by men for daily prayer.)
6) Some of the men tried to bring along their Torah. (meaning; the Hebrew bible. The most important book to an orthodox Jew.)
7) It was Rosh Hashanah, a day for celebrating. (meaning; the Jewish New Year.)
8) The women cooked meat for Passover. (meaning; an eight day festival commemorating the freeing of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery.)
Subtask Two: Historical Context.
This lesson is designed to access and enrich student’s prior knowledge of Nazi Germany to help create the context of the novel.
EXPECTATIONS / STRATEGIES / TEACHER NOTES-communicate in a clear coherent manner for a few different purposes.
-identify and use a few different active listening strategies when participating in classroom interactions. / As a class, design a web on the chalkboard or whiteboard detailing all the information we, as a class, know about Nazi Germany, and concentration camps. / The discussion should involve most of the class, though some students may not have anything to contribute. Some good teacher prompts may include; “What do we know about the timeframe?” “How many people tragically lost their lives?” “Who was the leader of the Nazi party?” “What was the primary reason people were put in concentration camps?”
See appendix for a sample of a web designed to act as background context for the novel. / This creation of a web will help serve as a diagnostic assessment of the students’ prior knowledge.
The web should be exhaustive.
-identify the important information and ideas in simple oral texts, and some teacher-selected complex texts. / If students have insufficient background information on Nazi Germany and concentration camps, consider reading the accompanying excerpt. Students should then be able to extrapolate some significant information.
EXCERPT ON NAZI GERMANY (taken from the Glencoe Literature Library): http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/pdf/night.pdf
Hitler’s treatment of the Jews was more than a political strategy. He was an anti- Semite (hater of Jews) who viewed the Jews as an inferior race. In fact, Judaism is not a race, but rather a religion. Soon after taking control of Germany, Hitler began persecuting German Jews. They lost their citizenship and often their right to work, were barred from public schools and gathering places, could no longer marry non-Jews, and suffered frequent physical attacks to their homes and businesses. Hitler defined as Jews those with at least one Jewish grandparent, whether or not they observed their religion. By 1938, before the War spread beyond Germany, Hitler and his secret-police organization, the Gestapo, had already imprisoned more than 30,000 Jews. In keeping with his goal of achieving German racial “purity,” Hitler also attacked and imprisoned Gypsies, people with handicaps, and homosexuals. Those who disagreed with Hitler’s political views—Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet and Slavic prisoners of war—were also mercilessly imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered. As Hitler’s control of Europe spread, more and more innocent people were imprisoned or killed. Some were forced to live in ghettos, enclosed areas within cities, where they often starved. Others were executed or sent to the rapidly expanding camp system. By the end of the war, at least six million Jews and five million non-Jews had lost their lives.
APPENDIX:
Subtask Three: Geographical Context.
This lesson is designed to help students begin to understand the great distances travelled in the text, as well as where in the world it is taking place.
EXPECTATIONS / STRATEGIES / TEACHER NOTESThis lesson will utilize the free web based resource; Google Lit Trips.
Follow along with the slides, they scaffold the journey the main character will go on very well. / Be sure to familiarize yourself with the interface of Google Lit Trips beforehand. It may also prove useful to have some printed hard copies of the slides for those students who desire or require a closer inspection.
To bring context to the journey, tell students that through the course of the novel, the narrator will travel over 1000 kilometers. That’s like travelling from Toronto, to Thunder Bay.
See Appendix for slide samples.
APPENDIX:
This map shows the entire route the narrator travels throughout the course of the novel.
This map shows a satelite image of Buchenwald concentration camp, taken in the year 2007.
Subtask Four: Providing Emotional Context.
This lesson is designed to set up an appropriate tone, and emotional context before reading the novel. The novel is very raw, and can evoke powerful reactions. Therefore it is important to prepare students for what they are about to encounter, so that they are not overly traumatized by the work, and can react in a mature and appropriate way.
EXPECTATIONS / STRATEGIES / TEACHER NOTESTo begin, remind students that the novel they are about to read, is a piece of non-fiction. It is one man’s memoir, of his personal journey. It took him ten years before he could even begin to write his story down. / Consider utilizing this quote by Wiesel: “"So heavy was my anguish that I made a vow: not to speak, not to touch upon the essential for at least ten years. Long enough to see clearly. Long enough to learn to listen to the voices crying inside my own. Long enough to regain possession of my memory. Long enough to unite the language of man with the silence of the dead."
-use appropriate descriptive words, phrases, and expressions to make their writing clear for their intended audience. / Distribute index cards to students, one for each. Tell each student to have a pen or pencil. They will be asked to write.
-write complete sentences that communicate their meaning accurately …
-explain how their own beliefs, values, and experiences are revealed in their writing. / See the appendix for suggestions of images to be used. Project images using an overhead, or digital projector.
Tell students to answer the following; “I see…” / This response is meant to be simply factual. A detailed description of that they can observe by looking at the photo. This forces them to study the photo closely.
Next, remove the image. Have students complete the following statement; “I remember…” / This response should be the particular part of the image that stood out to them the most. Could be the general mood, tone, or feeling the photo created, or it could be a particular look on someone’s face, or other small detail. This is meant to make the students think about why the photo was, or was not captivating.
Finally, have students complete the following; “I hope…” / This response should be a desire for the people featured in the photo. It is meant to cause students to become emotionally invested in what they have just seen.
If anyone wishes to share something they have written, allow them to do so. / Do not make it mandatory to read what they have written. These are designed to be personal responses.
Have students hold on to their writing, as it may be required later on.
APPENDIX:
Night by Elie Wiesel
Lesson 2: Strand: Media Studies
These lessons on the strand of media studies, revolve around connecting the text (which has been read by this point) and the film “Life is Beautiful” together. Students will focus on the importance of establishing their understanding of characters effectively, so to be able to understand the point of view of anyone students were instructed to analyze.
Subtask One: Looking Through a Lens
This lesson will ask students to reflect on the film and the events of the Holocaust, by imagining to see it through the perspective or lens of different types of people. Students are expected to explore and understand how different types of people would understand, respond, be affected and “see” the events within the film.
EXPECTATIONS / STRATEGIES / TEACHER NOTESExpectations are taken from The Ontario Curriculum- English, Grade 9 Applied.
1.1 Purpose and Audience
explain how simple media texts and some teacher-selected complex media texts are created to suit particular purposes and audiences
1.4 Audience Responses
- identify how different audiences might respond to selected media texts
1.5 Critical Literacy
- identify the perspectives and/or biases evident in a few simple media texts and teacher-selected complex media texts and comment on the questions that may arise about beliefs, values and identity
2.1 Form
- identify general characteristics of a few different media forms and explain how they shape content and create meaning
/ Lesson will begin by hooking the students through watching two 3 minute clips of a Holocaust documentary, “Witness: Voices from the Holocaust.”
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leqkGOqyWMI
Purpose: Students see the perspective of the war through the recollection and perspective of several different people.
* The link or title of the clip will not be disclosed to the students due to parental warnings.
- Teacher will explain the power of films and perspective.
Part 1: Brainstorming (10 minutes)
- students brainstorm (at least 5) different types of people (audiences) who would see this film/events during the Holocaust and analyze and understand it , through the lens of each type of person they choose
- after, share answers with the class
- Modeling through provided example (i.e. child, father, mother, etc.)
Part: 2 Think/Pair/Share (15-20 minutes on think & 10-15 minutes on pair/share)
- students will take their list and write how each person would “see” the perspective of the film and the effects of the war.
- students will use the graphic organizer to write their ideas (Appendix 2.1)
- Students are expected to use their prior knowledge, their imagination and creativity
- afterwards, students will share their ideas and thoughts with a partner (Oral skills) and submit at the end of class.
/ Accommodations for ELL or identified students:
- Provide extra time for students who need more time to formulate their thoughts and be creative
- Less text and more visuals
- Provide modeling and examples to guide students,
- Students have time to think about their answers before speaking about them orally to their partner (Think/Pair/Share)
- Extra time for processing
- Repeat/Rephrase instructions
- reduced/uncluttered format
APPENDIX 2.1
Use this chart to help guide you with your answers.