Like Anne, I enjoyed reading The Book Thief and I was surprised that I hadn't read it before this class. It's just the kind of novel that I'd pick up when browsing the shelves of Borders. I also was distracted by the narrator cutting in all the time, but I learned to embrace the omniscient nature of Death and actually look forward to what he would tell me next. I was first intrigued by the character of Liesel because she didn't give me a lot of information about herself, as I'm used to with a protagonist character. I was glad my buddy, Death, was always there to fill in the gaps. I think the only way to teach this novel is to pair it with other WWII and Holocaust pieces. I liked the new perspective from the traditional Diary of Anne Frank and even Night, but I think this story is best paired with a non-fiction piece to help hammer some of the main ideas home. I also loved the color references and how Death gave me a snippet of how and why those colors were important to various upcoming scenes.
I first saw A Class Divided during another graduate class. I was equally horrified and intrigued. It really made me think about how discrimination affects people to their core, forever. I don't know that this experiment would be permitted in a third grade classroom today, but I applaud Jane Elliot for her success with the eye color experiment. She's secretly one of my educational heroes and I can appreciate not only the experiment, but the planning, thought, and preparation that went into it. What an awesome teacher she must have been! I felt the need to see what others thought of her experiment, so I looked her up on Wikipedia (I know...not the best source, but certainly the fastest!). If I believe what is sourced there, Jane Elliot is no longer welcome in her small town of Riceville, Iowa. If you're wondering about the other side of the coin, check out the "Legacy of the original exercise" on Wikipedia. I think she's awesome, but I can appreciate why not everyone would, especially in 2009.
The first thing I noticed about the "Teaching Holocaust Literature" article was that it was written by a teacher who works in Chambersburg. I love that. The sentence completion exercise was the first point that made me go, "Hmmm..." I think it's a valid exercise, and I can appreciate the ways it makes students analyze their own discriminatory patterns, but I would definitely have to rework it in the middle school classroom. What I liked the most about the article was how the author works to make the literature she teaches relate to her students, whether they believe it does or not. Half the battle is convincing the kids that it's worth their time and that they DO have something to gain by reading text outside their comfort zone or depth of knowledge and awareness. I was shocked that kids swore at her based on her lesson, but maybe that's the difference between school districts and grade levels. For those of you who wondered what I thought about that, I was equally horrified. I'm glad my students would not think to utter such words, much less direct them at me.
Thanks for the suggestion about the wiki link on the controversy of her experiment. For some reason I didn't think to look it up, even though I was so curious about what parents of these kids would think. It seems to say that the kids who went through it, while they felt it was beneficial, would not let their own kids go through it, today. I think the timimg has a lot to do with that (I can't imagine an administration or community backing up a teacher who did it nowadays), just because things were different then. There are so many hang ups(read: politics) in schools now, to try and do it is unbelieveable. However, the fact that she could get away with it in a time where racism was such a huge controversial issue, is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI love the documentary "A Class Divided". Any excuse I'd have to show the film to a class, I'd take it. I didn't think about using it with this book, but it would work great. I almost wonder if you could do a watered down version of the experiment on the class.
ReplyDelete"I was glad my buddy, Death, was always there to fill in the gaps."
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way when i was rading the book. At times I completely forgot that Death was the story-teller. Then, of course, he would abruptly remind me. I loved the perspective, and as Josh says, the gentle "soft" nature of Death as presented by this text.
Also, I'm so glad you noticed the article was written by a Chambersburg teacher! I was hoping you might make the connection that even your own local teachers are grappling with these same issues in their own small way.
I'm also glad that you saw the teacher who wrote the article was from Chambersburg!! I find it so terribly disturbing that nothing has really changed in 18 years around here. In fact, I think it has just gotten worse with the influx of immigrants to this area. The teacher in this article mentions that her "small, rural town" has issues of racism "just like an inner city." Well, I lived in NYC and I can tell you this-- Chambersburg/Shippensburg is WAAAAAAAAAY more of a racist area that NYC was! Sad....
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