We Remember the Holocaust
Katie O'Malley

Unit Overview

"I implore all the educators to please do not allow the Holocaust to remain a footnote in history.
Please teach this in your schools. There are 350,000 experts who just want to be useful with the
remainder of their lives. Please listen to the words and the echoes and the ghosts and please
teach this in your schools."
--Steven Spielberg Accepting his Academy Award for "Schindler's List"

For many years, teachers have avoided teaching this part of history that is too gruesome to tell. As a preservice teacher, it was an honor for me to take on this topic, but also a challenge. The Holocaust is a time in history that humanity would just as soon forget. However, as a race, we as humans need to learn from our past to correct those mistakes and above all we need to remember, for the 10 million victims who died in the Holocaust.

The Holocaust is an important time in history which must be remembered. It is our duty as teachers to tell the story of this frightening time in history and the consequences of harsh discrimination on man kind to other men(and women). We as humans can learn by looking through the past at the faults of previous men(and women). It is my belief that students need to question the issues and the learning that they are handed by their teachers. It is my goal in this unit that students will react and reflect on the lessons that we do. They are our future!!
Besides all of this, the Holocaust is part of the mandated curriculum proposed by the state for fifth grade. How we teach this to them, however, will distinguish between a mandated core knowledge curriculum and one that requires our students to take the history they receive and react to it. I want my students to critically think throughout the unit and walk away with a concrete representation of their feelings and reactions to the Holocaust.

At the heart of this integrated unit is the power of writing. The Holocaust is a very powerful issue; one that needs to be rethought by everyone. The activities and daily writing involved in the unit give the students the opportunity to react to the emotional aspect of the Holocaust. It is my own philosophy that students need to write often within the curriculum. We expect them to become proficient at it, but rarely give them something meaningful to write about: their own feelings. Besides giving the students a meaningful topic, though, I believe it is important to maintain consistency and practice. It is with this reasoning that students write on a daily basis in journals throughout this unit. However, to stimulate their minds and provoke a higher level of thinking, journal prompts will be given that draw from many of the lessons within the unit. Some of these include the novels, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry and The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen; others are: a documentary on Anne Frank and a speaker who survived the Holocaust, along with much much more. In my constant attempt at creating meaningful curriculum, I chose to envelop the students with issues and stories of the Holocaust. I did this by focusing every aspect of the day around the Holocaust. This included readjusting activities like Daily Oral Language, Current Events, Spelling, Mathematics and Reading. It also added a new item to the schedule, Total Literature; in which the teacher reads a novel aloud daily that becomes the central point or focus of student journals. Although this unit focuses strongly on writing, it by no means leaves everything else behind. Nearing the end of fifth grade, students need to be prepared for the different learning styles of middle school. Drawn toward a more verbal end of the curriculum, writing helps students to gather their thoughts and be able to voice them to the rest of the class. Discussion of books, videos, artwork, and documentary that requires critical thinking is evident in the unit and imperative to preparing for the next level of school. As a first time teacher of intermediate grade levels, I, too need to practice my own command and delivery of discussion periods. In conclusion, this unit is based on increasing and improving written communication (regarding very tough issues), however, remains open to the other angles of the spectrum also.

This is a comprehensive unit developed and designed specifically for a fifth grade class at Westview Elementary School in Champaign, Illinois. The class represents 23 very enthusiastic students who, for the most part, are willing to critically think about what the teacher and curriculum dictates to them. The classroom pedagogy reflects an attitude and environment of open and active centered learning. Specifically, though, social studies is taught on a unit by unit basis, mainly integrated within the reading areas. This typically involves reading a novel that serves as a background for the topic.

Room 111 is a heterogeneous group that is well represented in all of the following categories: gender, ability, race, and maturity. In writing this unit, a significant amount of emphasis was placed on the diverse ability category, however, each of them held their weight in the atmosphere of the lessons within the unit. Within the group, there is one student who is staffed Learning Disabled with an IEP that gets him help in language and literacy. Throughout the unit, and in the planning process, I have/will collaborate with her on his progress. He will be mainstreamed into the class for all subjects, with a pull-out program for spelling and reading additional help.
The flexibility of my cooperating teacher and my class has allowed me to be able to attempt new activities and teaching styles within this unit.

As stated earlier, an emphasis was placed on reflective writing in creating this unit. The unit topic is very powerful and needed to be explored through various means. One of the primary goals in the unit was to reach all students interests/learning styles at least once within the unit. By integrating at least four different subject areas, this goal may be met. Because of the nature of the topic, it is essential that students critically evaluate the events and people surrounding the Holocaust. It is so very important that we look into the past and learn from our mistakes. In doing the reflective writing, reading, inquiring, and discussing, we hope to truly "REMEMBER" the Holocaust. The journals, final projects, artwork, and "We Remember" notebook will be something that the students can take with them after the unit is over, something concrete to help them

remember
forever.

In a diverse setting, as in this one, students can learn so many things from their peers by just talking with them. This unit relies on students' feelings and reactions in developing and delivering its message. It is one that expands on student writing and discussion. If done correctly, small group discussions can often times be more fruitful than whole class for the simple reason that they allow more students to talk. For all of these reasons, the unit focuses a great amount of activities on group work, specifically, in reading areas. The cooperative learning style has worked well in a heterogeneously grouped setting. Prior to the start of the unit, the fifth graders at Westview were placed into truly heterogeneous groups so that learning and discussion might be more effective. In light of having a learning disabled student along with others who are specifically low in reading, the attempt to strategically place them with other high achieving students was for their benefit. It was in this area (reading) then, that I also chose to emphasize the cooperative learning style.

As a culminating activity the students have the opportunity to further their own learning (on an independent basis with guidance) of the Holocaust, through an exercise in social inquiry. Students will choose between projects such as reading a novel, interviewing a survivor or historian, watching a video/documentary, writing a story from further research, etc. However, throughout the unit, students are required to bring in a current event (or newspaper clipping) in which the issue or conflict parallels that within the Holocaust in some way.

Many of the activities in the unit are thought provoking, but rarely "active", per se. But, the unit is intentionally focusing its goals on enhancing communication, leaving little room for activity. Nevertheless, activity in a unit is very important. It is for this reason that the culminating activity is so independently structured. Fifth grade is a time of preparation for the middle levels. The librarian has been working with the students on research skills throughout the year. In doing the culminating project, students will actively take responsibility for their learning while, enhancing their research skills.
Overall, it is with my best effort that I use variety of strategies and instructional approaches, so that I can reach each student in my diverse class in some way at least once.