Part of teaching 8th grade, I'm told, is that I am required to do a unit on the WW2 Holocaust. I put this off until the very end of the year because I had a difficult time deciding just how to present the topic in an unbiased way. The heart of my teaching method is showing my students how to find facts in emotionally charged arguments and form their opinions based on the facts.
I finally decided to let them read "The Diary of Anne Frank." The play presents a perfect opportunity to discuss how dramatizations are adapted. We've watched interviews with survivors and will be reading some of Anne's essays that are not part of the diary. Next week we will wrap it all up with a exploration of genocide around the world and more discussions about free speech.
We all really needed a break the last few days; this topic is draining. Yesterday and today I showed them the black and white "Diary of Anne Frank" movie. You know the one. I have quite a personal history with the movie beginning in the 6th grade when I saw it at school. In 8th grade, I read the play and watched the movie again. That same year, I taped it off the Disney Channel (back in the day when it was a subscription channel and they ran those free weekends for you to preview the quality programming). I LOVED that movie, and for the following year, I woke up just about every Saturday morning to watch the tape and write in my own diary. The story captivated me.
It's fun to see that kind of love spread to another person. Five of my girls--the tough, street wise ones--spread out on the floor and violently "shhhd" everyone during the movie. They were captivated. Their mouths curved into smiles as the love story between Anne and Peter progressed. Their eyes grew wide and mouths gaped when they thought the families had been caught by the police. They laughed at Anne's antics and screamed at her when she was mean to her mother. I think I almost saw a few tears.
The afternoon was just as much fun. It's a large group filled with such a wide array of characters that I could never completely describe them. Like me, they are verbal...and quick...and downright funny. Here's some of our exchanges:
During the scene of Anne and Peter's first "date".
"What's he doing to her hand?"
"Um, isn't he holding it?"
"No, he's moving the pen across it."
I had to get up and see just what was going on. "Oh, come on, that's the poor boy's move!"
Burst of laughter. "What kind of move is that?"
I look around to see a few of them experimenting with this technique and reporting to me that it didn't work. The scene ends shortly after this. One boy exclaimed, "THAT was a date? That's the shortest date I've seen."
I couldn't resist. "Really? And just how many dates have YOU seen?
We laughed even more just a few minutes later when just as Anne and Peter were about to kiss (all I heard today was, "Are they going to kiss?"), someone on the floor adjusted the backpack under their neck and unplugged the t.v.
On top of all this, three girls ran up to me between classes, just bursting at the seams, with comments about "To Kill a Mockingbird." This is my all-time favorite book, and it was so much fun to get into such fascinating discussions as how much we dislike Aunt Alexandra, Atticus' parenting styles, and the creepiness of Boo Radley wrapping a blanket around Scout during Miss Maudie's fire.
There's my bliss today...my hope for next week. And I so desperately need these moments in the midst of my chaos.
I finally decided to let them read "The Diary of Anne Frank." The play presents a perfect opportunity to discuss how dramatizations are adapted. We've watched interviews with survivors and will be reading some of Anne's essays that are not part of the diary. Next week we will wrap it all up with a exploration of genocide around the world and more discussions about free speech.
We all really needed a break the last few days; this topic is draining. Yesterday and today I showed them the black and white "Diary of Anne Frank" movie. You know the one. I have quite a personal history with the movie beginning in the 6th grade when I saw it at school. In 8th grade, I read the play and watched the movie again. That same year, I taped it off the Disney Channel (back in the day when it was a subscription channel and they ran those free weekends for you to preview the quality programming). I LOVED that movie, and for the following year, I woke up just about every Saturday morning to watch the tape and write in my own diary. The story captivated me.
It's fun to see that kind of love spread to another person. Five of my girls--the tough, street wise ones--spread out on the floor and violently "shhhd" everyone during the movie. They were captivated. Their mouths curved into smiles as the love story between Anne and Peter progressed. Their eyes grew wide and mouths gaped when they thought the families had been caught by the police. They laughed at Anne's antics and screamed at her when she was mean to her mother. I think I almost saw a few tears.
The afternoon was just as much fun. It's a large group filled with such a wide array of characters that I could never completely describe them. Like me, they are verbal...and quick...and downright funny. Here's some of our exchanges:
During the scene of Anne and Peter's first "date".
"What's he doing to her hand?"
"Um, isn't he holding it?"
"No, he's moving the pen across it."
I had to get up and see just what was going on. "Oh, come on, that's the poor boy's move!"
Burst of laughter. "What kind of move is that?"
I look around to see a few of them experimenting with this technique and reporting to me that it didn't work. The scene ends shortly after this. One boy exclaimed, "THAT was a date? That's the shortest date I've seen."
I couldn't resist. "Really? And just how many dates have YOU seen?
We laughed even more just a few minutes later when just as Anne and Peter were about to kiss (all I heard today was, "Are they going to kiss?"), someone on the floor adjusted the backpack under their neck and unplugged the t.v.
On top of all this, three girls ran up to me between classes, just bursting at the seams, with comments about "To Kill a Mockingbird." This is my all-time favorite book, and it was so much fun to get into such fascinating discussions as how much we dislike Aunt Alexandra, Atticus' parenting styles, and the creepiness of Boo Radley wrapping a blanket around Scout during Miss Maudie's fire.
There's my bliss today...my hope for next week. And I so desperately need these moments in the midst of my chaos.
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