Rationale

Summative Unit Rationale // World War II and the Holocaust: From a Child's Point of View //

With a population of approximately 112,920, many neighborhoods in the city of Ann Arbor reflect the United States' idealized cultural melting pot. With the city's population comprised of 75% white/Caucasians, 12% Asians, 9% African Americans, and 4% other, its schools are sought as a multicultural district. Even though these statistics may not seem that drastic, they are, in fact, different than other city within the Metro Detroit area (for example the cities of Saline and Plymouth are comprised of 96% white/Caucasian).

As a diverse community, educators of Ann Arbor Public Schools have made an effort to design a curriculum that reflects the city's student body. For instance, both Pioneer and Huron High Schools offer various types of English and Humanities electives. Currently, both African American and Women’s Literature are available for eleventh and twelfth grade students to take. Any school district would benefit from a multicultural teaching approach, but it is especially important for racially and socioeconomically diverse districts, like Ann Arbor, to follow this method.

While keeping in mind this useful information about Ann Arbor Public Schools, this district's students will greatly benefit from the thematic unit titled //World War II and the Holocaust: From a Child's Point of View//. This type of unit has been, and will always be, an important learning devise for student of any age. Through the exploration of various different themes, teachers give students the opportunity to explore communities that they may themselves, or may not be, familiar with. As a result, students expand upon their literary knowledge and come to understand the similarities and differences they share with other communities of people.

During this month long unit plan, students will read John Boyne's //The Boy in the Striped Pajamas//, excerpts from //Ann Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex//, and poetry from the collective book ...//I never saw another butterfly...//. Additionally, students will watch the film version of //The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas// and interviews with Holocaust survivors. While focusing upon World War II and the Holocaust, students will be able to explore the historical events that took place during the twentieth century in Europe. More importantly, however, students will be given the opportunity to explore the Holocaust through the eyes of a child; for all of the selected readings and films are told from a child's point of view. This perspective will enable students to (more directly) relate to the selected readings in class. When young students are given historical fiction novels to read, they often times lose sight of learning objectives because they do not relate to the characters' points of view. Characters like //The Boy in the Striped Pajamas'// Bruno will certainly demonstrate this, as he naively shines light onto the horrific consequences of the Holocaust.

Since this unit contains very emotional and disturbing themes, parents are encouraged to read these texts and further discuss the historical events from World War II and the Holocaust with their child. As always, parents are welcome to meet with teachers if they have any questions and/or concerns surrounding the unit’s content. Parental involvement would be especially beneficial for those students who find the content of this unit to be graphic and disturbing. In fact the intended goal of this unit is to illustrate to students that the Holocaust affected everyone, not just the Jewish population. Through the exploration of this theme, students will have a better understanding as to how they can independently handle social issues like hate, prejudice and injustice. With the development of these characteristics, students will have a much better understanding as to how they can positively impact their local communities.

Assessing students on this unit’s material can be a bit tricky. Ultimately, however, students need to understand how this theme is relevant to their lives and personal experiences. For the unit’s summative assessment, students will submit a final, cumulative essay. The topic of this essay will focus on the students’ experience with discrimination at school and in their personal lives. The following questions are ones that students may incorporate into their formal responses:

• How is the Holocaust relevant to our lives? • Generally speaking, kids in high school always feel as if they have to be better than others. Why is this? How does this mind set create social injustice? • What discrimination exists in the high school environment? • What can we do about changing stereotypes today? • Why do we make victims of certain groups of people? • Why people are treated the way that they are? • How are people mistreated in contemporary books and poems? • What similarities and differences do the victims from our everyday lives share with the ones that we encountered during our unit on the Holocaust?

These are simply guidelines for students. The purpose of this assignment is for students to apply the unit’s themes to their personal experiences.