Framing the Course: 

Whose History?
Before beginning to teach this course, I spent two summers studying at the "Holocaust and Human Behavior Workshop" with Facing History.  The first year I participated in our local Cleveland branch workshop but the second summer (right before teaching this course) I went to the workshop in  Boston geared specifically toward teachers in a Jewish setting.  It is here where I got the inspiration for my first lesson: "how do we define history and memory" and more importantly, which dominates the study of Jewish history.  Is Jewish history something different compared to our other history courses?  How should we - as Jews - look at Jewish history?  In the classroom, this turned into animated conversation.  [It is also where I introduced the Open Forum discussions].  We also use this introductory lesson to immediately begin weaving in key literacy skills by using works of literature and other primary sources to enhance our study.
We do two readings of the poem.  The first asks students to just listen for meaning.  The second time students are asked to underline or highlight the words and phrases that stand out to them or speak to them.  After we complete our reading, they write an explanation of why they chose their passage.  We then do a quick wrap-around reading highlighting what each student took away from the poem.  Of course, we then have an Open Forum discussion on the meaning of Ha Jin's poem. 

Above: Student Workbook

Teaching Kids to ANNOTATE!
Text annotation is a tool that helps engage students with the material they are reading that leaders to a greater level of comprehension and analysis.  Annotating is like recording what you're thinking as you're reading it and helps students to break down complexities, ask questions and interact with the author.  It is a requirement in my class.  

At the beginning of the year it is a labored process of asking students to revisit their reading but as the year progresses I am often astounded - in a very positive way - by the commentary that students leave on the material we read.  Read more about purposeful annotations by clicking here.
Introducing the Keynote Project
What does it mean to be responsible for someone's story?  

The Purpose: To build understanding and empathy for the experiences of the people who are witnesses and/or survivors of the Holocaust.  In doing so, we will attempt to provide a sense of justice to those who suffered by giving voice to the legacy and memory of the Jewish experience in the Holocaust. 

Teacher Reflection:

Most classes work like this: you learn a bunch of material and then the teacher assigns a mega project at the end.  The project is graded and then either the unit is over or the class is over.  I wanted to challenge the system.  

That is the complicated element of this submission.  The project is built into the course and the course complements the project.  Neither should - or in my opinion can be taught without the other.  Together they take students on a journey through Jewish History.  That is the design thinking behind why I introduce the project on the second day of school.  Students begin to grapple immediately with the questions at hand, they attempt to create answers to the questions based on their opinions - before they have had time to investigate the various stories that will inform the eventual project.  

More importantly, I get to tell students that on this journey through Jewish history in their tenth grade year, we will be constantly thinking about how what we are studying will impact our creation of a documentary project in the spring.  Not only does it give students something to look forward to, but it has them visit each piece of history, each story, each historical event with a more analytical lens as they think how this impacts the broader question.  

In terms of classroom environment it helped to have students that were equally invested as me in covering a large amount of material so that we could all enjoy the project.  In fact, throughout the year they asked me "are we there yet?"  They were excited for their interactions with Holocaust survivors.  They were excited that this monumental project had been created for them.  They were ready for the journey.
Looking back on this project, I do not regret the decision to share what the journey would look like this early in the school year.  In fact, I believe that by showing the students the big picture, it helped us to be partners throughout the school year.  I think it made their written reflections deeper, their annotations more analytical.  And for me, I've never been so well prepared as an educator as having the big picture revealed to students before we start.  I knew where we were going.  They knew where we were going.  The transparency made this class a success.  
The Individual and Society: "The Bear That Wasn't"
This comical - yet poignant story - helps engage students in conversations about identity.  What do we do when others assign characteristics to us that we don't believe define us?  Who gets to define us?  The great thing about this story is that it is really great for multiple ages.   When we finished we built an identity chart for the "Bear".  Read more about identity charts in the yellow column to your right.
Picture
This student is a power annotater!
Creating our Identity Charts
An identity chart represents student brainstorming of their ideas when thinking of the question, "Who am I?".  Student responses are asked to address their roles in their families, their hobbies and interests, their background, their physical characteristics.  This is often hard for students so we begin by creating an identity chart for "The Bear" first (see left column).  After students create their own charts, we then participate in a "Talk and Turn" activity to learn something new about our classmates!
Jewish Identity
Very early in the course we move from conversations around our identities as individuals to our identities as Jews.  To the right is a text from Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (used many times throughout our course) who explains that the conversation around identity as an age-old issue dating back to the times of Moshe.  We use this story to start the classroom conversation on how identity has defined Jewish history throughout the ages.  

The reason I chose this reading selection is that it is at this time that I explain to the students my intentions for our course of study this year.  Rabbi Sacks' reading selection ends with the quote stating that "To be a Jew today, as in the days of Moshe, is to hear the call of those who came before us and know that we are the guardians of their story."  I read this in my early days of planning this new course and was incredibly inspired.  For me the entire study of history is the study of the stories of individuals throughout time.  The following are the questions that I raise in the classroom discussion of this quotation (and you can too):
  • Therefore, what does it mean to be the guardian of a story? 
  • What does it mean for us as Jews to be the guardians of the Jewish story? 
  • What does this responsibility mean?  
  • What can we do to honor the stories of the past? 
  • How does guarding these stories force us to act today?
The first question Moshe asked of G-d was mi anochi, “Who am I?” On the surface, this was an expression of doubt as to his personal worthiness to lead the Israelites to freedom.  But there is also an echo of an identity crisis, rare in those days though all too familiar now.  Who, after all, was Moshe?  A child hidden in a basket of reeds, found and adopted by an Egyptian princess, given an Egyptian name and brought up in Pharaoh’s palace.  Many years later, when circumstances force him to leave Egypt and take flight to Midian, he comes to the rescue of Yithro’s daughters, who tell their father, “An Egyptian man delivered us.”  Moshe looked, spoke, and dressed like an Egyptian.  Yet the text tells us that when he grew up he “went out to his brothers and saw their burdens.”  Somehow he knew that the enslaved Israelites were “his brothers.”  By upbringing he was an Egyptian; by birth he was a Jew.
 
The mind reels at such a choice.  On the one hand lay a life of ease, position, and power as a prince in Pharaoh’s court; on the other, the prospect of years of struggle and privation as a member of a nation of slaves.  Yet when G-d tells him, “I am the Lord, the G-d of your father, the G-d of Abraham, the G-d of Isaac, and the G-d of Jacob,” Moshe’s crisis is resolved and never reappears in that form.  He now knows that he is part of an unfinished story that began with the patriarchs and continued through him.  He may wear the clothes and speak the language of an Egyptian, but he is a Jew because that is who his ancestors were, and their hopes now rest on him.  The modern Jewish question is unusual but not unprecedented: we are each faced with Moshe’s choice.  By culture and upbringing we are part of the liberal democracies of the West, but by birth each of us is heir to the history of our ancestors and a destiny that joins our fate to theirs…
 
To be a Jew, now as in the days of Moshe, is to hear the call of those who came before us and know that we are guardians of their story."
Defining and Understanding Stereotype
As we begin to introduce the Facing History philosophy, we take the time to listen to a Poetry Slam about "stereotypes" written by a high school student who had completed a Facing History course.  The reason I use this clip is because 1) it's a student from our Cleveland Network of Facing History schools; 2) it shows our students the incredible performance that they too can be capable of; and 3) it helps them look forward to the content of the course ahead.
"The Danger of a Single Story"
Chimamanda Adichie is an incredible writer and speaker who brilliantly depicts the complexity of history.  She introduces our students to trying to see multiple dimensions to a single event - how do we allow for the history we are studying to be complex?  How can different viewers interpret history from various perspectives?  By using her personal experiences and humor to teach students this important lesson.
US versus THEM
This incredible documentary helps students understand the concept of "us" versus "them" in the microcosm of a third grade classroom.  Teacher Jane Elliott aims to teach her students about racism in her "Blue Eye, Brown Eye" experiment and just watching this documentary leads to considerably dynamic conversations in your classroom.
Universe of Obligation
The Universe of Obligation is a core principle within the Facing History Scope and Sequence.  It asks students to identify who they feel responsible for.  Once they complete these circles, we have a classroom conversation about how our feelings of responsibility to certain individuals and groups influence our actions.  

Teacher Reflection:

The essence of this unit is building a framework for study that will define the deeper questions, perspective and model that we will continuously be returning to throughout the year.  Years ago I didn't think that this was a necessary step.  I was so scared that I wouldn't have enough time to cover everything I wanted to within my curriculum that I just got to work and started to study the "material".  Working with my awesome Program Associate at Facing History and Ourselves is what helped me see the need for spending time to frame the course.  Basically the problem was this:  how do we have deep conversations about why individuals chose the actions they did during Israel's wars, the Holocaust, or immigrating to Palestine if we do not first discuss the basic ideas of "universe of obligation" or "us versus them" or the multitude conversations around identity that we have.  We look at who we are first and then we study the history.  We end with how does the history we learn now affect who we are - how does the material that we are going to learn this year help impact the people we are.  So if I can offer one piece of advice to any fellow teachers, its take the time to frame your course.  Talk about identity.  Talk about the underlying ideas of your course.  Because your students will naturally come back to these ideas throughout the course in ways that will surprise even you.  It's so worth it!