Lesson #2

Grade: 12th

Subject: WWII

Topic: Germany

Strategy: GIST

Lesson fulfills Standard 41, L-IV, 2 www.mcrel.org

Before Reading

I. Motivation: (Distribute book - Wiesel, E., (1960) Night. Union Square West, New York. Bantam Books). "Today we will begin our study of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is one of the most terrible moments in human history. All the evils of the world were unleashed on the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and others during this horrific time. This book displays the agony of these persecuted groups in terrible detail. It also gives us some insight into this time period."

II. Prior Knowledge: "We already know from our past experiences and from what I just said, that the Holocaust was a terrible event. What else do you know about the Holocaust? Who were the victims and the perpetrators? Who is Elie Wiesel? Is his book a fictional narrative or a first hand account?"

III. Purpose: "The purpose of reading this book is to give us some insight into what the Holocaust was like for the victims. Night gives us a first hand look at this horrific time through the eyes of someone who was fortunate enough to live through it."

During Reading

Chapter 1

Readability: The Flesch-Kincaid readability scale rates the first chapter at 6.1 grade level. This readability level is lower than what would typically be used in a 12th grade classroom. However, the use of Night in this class is defensible. The book does not contain a single picture, this is something that the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale does not take into account. Another aspect of the book that would raise the readability that the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale doesn't consider is the small text size and small font in the book. The text size and font of Night is considerably small to be thought of as a 6th grade book. Elie Wiesle's has a Jewish background, therefore he often uses words that are of Jewish origin These words include "cabbala","Temple","synagogue","Zohar," and many others that are pervasive throughout the book. These words may be foreign to the students, which would increase the readability. Students are often coming across words they do not know when they read Night. The last part of the book that would significantly raise the readability level is the historical references Wiesel uses. For example, on the first page Wiesel writes, "Such snatches as you could hear told of the suffering of the divinity, of the Exile of Providence, who, according to the cabbala, awaits his deliverance in that of man." This is a reference to the Israelite exile mentioned in the Bible. This event is something that some students might not know about or they may not understand the reference. Another historical reference that students might not understand is when Wiesel writes, "During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple." This is referring to the destruction of Herod The Great's Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 77 C.E. Students may misunderstand this historical reference, and place the destruction in hte contemporary context of the book. These two historical passages are not going to be familiar to many students. These references occur throughout the book. Using this text will require a great deal guidence from the instructor. Considering all these points, the lack of graphics, font size, text size, difficult vocabulary, complex content, and unfamiliar historical references, the readability of the book would dramatically increase.

IV. Text Structure: The text in this book is narrative. It is a first hand account of what happened during the Holocaust from Elie Wiesel's perspective. The book contains a great deal of recounting moments and events, as well as dialog.

V. Vocabulary: "He made people smile, with his waiflike timidity." p.1

1 : a piece of property found (as washed up by the sea) but unclaimed

"One day I asked my father to find me a master to guide me in my studies of the cabbala". p1

1 : a medieval and modern system of Jewish theosophy, mysticism, and thaumaturgy marked by belief in creation through emanation and a cipher method of interpreting Scripture.

"During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple." p1

1 : the authoritative body of Jewish tradition comprising the Mishnah and Gemara

Differentiated text

VI. Content: "Who is Elie Wiesel in Chapter 1? He is a Jewish child from Transylvania. He is just beginning to experience the Nazi occupation. "What does Wiesel tell us about this time?" It is a time of fear, terror and turmoil."What things has Wiesel talked about that we have previously discussed?" Wiesel describes the German soldiers, ghettos, how Jews were stripped of valuables like goals, jewels and silver.

After Reading: Strategy: GIST

Modeling: Distribute GIST template - "Now that we have finished the selected reading from our book, we will now use the GIST reading strategy. The GIST strategy will help you focus your ideas and reflections about the reading. The first step in the GIST strategy is to describe the whole book in general terms such as who, what, when, where, why, and how. In the second steop of the GIST strategy we are going to write a 20 word summary of each page we read. We only get 20 words to sum up an entire page of text, so we are going to be writing about the main ideas, themes, characters or big events that you come across on each page. Thee main ideas, themes, characters and events should include apsect of the who, what, where, when, why, and how we wrote earlier. The summaries should be no more than 20 words and no fewer than 20 words. Make sure you are writting a summary and not a description of what you read. For exampe I have used the GIST strategy for the first page." - Show GIST example - "I have written a GIST summary containing the main ideas, themes, characters and events found in the first page. When you finish summarizing each page of the reading into a 20 word or less section, move on to the final step of the GIST strategy. The final step of GIST is to condence all the 20 word summarize we have made into one, consice 20 word summary. So you should finish with a 20 word summary of the entire reading, made from the 20 words summarize we made of each page. This final summary should give you a good "gist" of the entire reading."

source for GIST - http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=290

GIST template

GIST example