Holocaust [8th grade]

In this unit students will read Night by Elie Wiesel as a means for discovering the atrocities of the Holocaust. Our study will provide them with the opportunity to uncover the following understandings: prejudice generates powerful feelings which can lead to violent consequences and human suffering, suffering produces significant change in humans, and effective communication of the change in an individual can promote the growth of human society. As students read the nonfiction book and conduct research on the historical events surrounding the Holocaust they will answer the questions why does different matter? and can hope and despair coexist? Through a study of atrocities recently committed which have caused significant human suffering, students will explore the question is it ever right to do the wrong thing? The unit will conclude with a project which will allow students to apply what they have learned. After our study of current events which have been compared to the Holocaust, students will have the freedom to create a product which applies their understanding of prejudice, suffering, and effective change to one of these situations. Their projects will be constructed for the purpose of expressing the prejudice and suffering which has been silenced by others, educating people about current atrocities committed against humanity, and fulfilling the call to moral activism which Elie Wiesel makes in his most famous work