Theme The overall theme of this invitation is to provide students with knowledge of the Holocaust, while comparing today’s bullying crisis in schools to the monstrosities felt in Europe during WWII. This will be used as an invitation into the reading of Number the Stars.
Overarching Question
What does the Holocaust show about bullying, how is it similar today and what can we do to change it?
Four Critical Literacy Quadrants
Disrupt the Commonplace The first disruption occurs during the gateway invitation. The students will be shown graphically disturbing images from the Holocaust. Some of these images will provoke emotions for the students. During the first invitation, the students will be asked to look up facts surrounding the Holocaust. Since this event caused great devastation, some of these facts will be very disruptive to the common place. For example, six million Jews were killed. The next disruption will occur during the video Bullying Starts and Ends With Us. This is a powerful video that shows physical bullying, few people help but many walk away or say nothing while a young man is being punched and kicked. During each of these activities students will be asked to share their own thoughts and opinions of the matter.
Multiple Views The students will be exposed to various types of media
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They will be asked to recall a few events from their own lives about a time they have been bullied or have bullied someone else. This activity will allow students to draw connections between what has been discussed thus far, in relation to their own experiences. Posting each experience on the board will allow the class to see that bullying affects everyone. This will unite the students, and make them each feel a little vulnerable. Since students can write anywhere from one word to a whole paragraph on the post it, ELLs will not feel completely out of their element by being asked to write too