Teacher Candidate: Caitlin Teetor

Date: November 11, 2014

School: Stonewall Jackson Middle School

Grade/Subject: 6th grade social studies

Lesson Topic: Holocaust

INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES/STUDENT OUTCOMES
1. Students will look at first-person sources of people affected by the Holocaust.
2. Students will understand the lack of diversity and human rights as a driving force behind the
Holocaust.
3. Students will make connections between the text and the topic of the Holocaust.
4. Students will be assessed to see what was learned from a video discussing the Holocaust.
5. Students will understand the authors purpose for writing the text.
6. Students will be able to make real-world connections after reading the text.
WV CSOs
SS.6.H.CL3.6 Cite evidence of the deprivation of human rights violations during times of war.
SS.6-8.L.6
Identify aspects of a text that reveal an authors point of view or purpose (e.g.,
loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).
SS.6-8.L.13 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and
style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience.
MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
Overall time- 60 minute lesson
Time Frame- 10 min. watch Holocaust BrainPop, complete sponges
10 min. take Brainpop quiz
5-7 min. teacher intro and instructions
30 min. student activity
5 min. closure

STRATEGIES
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Indirect instruction, guided instruction.

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION/ADAPTATIONS/INTERVENTIONS
Differentiated instruction for three hearing impaired students in the first of four social
studies classes will be met by using a microphone located in the classroom as well as utilizing
subtitles (if available) on BrainPop. The instruction will be adjusted in order to fit visual,
auditory, and kinesthetic styles of learning for all students. The lesson will help visual learners as
they read the excerpts in textbook in order to have an understanding of the lives of those that
experiences the Holocaust first hand. The instruction will help auditory learners with directions
being verbally given and as students read aloud. Kinesthetic learners will be met as they are
physically working with the textbook and as they write down questions to ask Elie Wiesel.
Multiple intelligences addressed (check all that apply):
___X___ Verbal/linguistic

______ Naturalist

______ Spatial

______ Interpersonal

___X___ Logical/mathematical

______ Intrapersonal

______ Bodily-kinesthetic

___X___ Existential

______ Musical

______ Others (explain):

Verbal/linguistic intelligence will be met by the students expressing how reading and
hearing the excerpts make them feel. Students will be able to read text and express how the story
made them feel. Logical/mathematical intelligence will be met by the students understanding
what caused the Holocaust as well as what happened during the horrific event in history.
Existential intelligence will be met by simply discussing the life and death situation of the
Holocaust.

PROCEDURES
Introduction/Lesson Set
Students will watch the BrainPop on the Holocaust. After watching the BrainPop and
completing the sponges, students will take the BrainPop Holocaust quiz together as a class. A
student may volunteer to stand at the front of the class, read the questions out loud, and then
choose the most popular answer (as determined by the other students) for each question.

The teacher will introduce the activity by asking students what is the Holocaust, who was
responsible
Body and Transitions
The teacher will ask for one or two volunteers to read the excerpt from The Diary of
Anne Frank by Anne Frank on page 830. After the students are done reading the excerpt from
The Diary of Anne Frank, the teacher will ask students to imagine what it would be like to grow
up during the Holocaust. Students will write the first reaction after hearing the excerpt from The
Diary of Anne Frank. Students will then read Night by Elie Wiesel on page 831 of their
textbooks. The students will write three questions to ask Elie Wiesel about his life during or after
the Holocaust.
Closure
The teacher will ask a couple of students to share what they wrote down to ask Mr.
Wiesel. After this, the teacher will summarize the lesson and students will prepare for dismissal.
ASSESSMENT
Diagnostic (objective 2)

Diagnostic assessment will be met by asking the students of their prior knowledge of the
Holocaust at the beginning of the lesson. Students will be asked what they already know
of the Holocaust such as what happened, who caused the issue, and what was the result.

Formative (objectives 1, 4, 5, 6)

Formative assessment will be met by the teacher walking around and making sure that
students are on task working toward the lesson objectives. If students are off task and not
meeting the objectives, the teacher will refocus the students attention on working toward
the lesson objectives. Formative assessment will also be met by the students taking the
BrainPop Holocaust quiz after watching the video.

Summative (objective 3)

Summative assessment will be met by the teacher summarizing the lesson at the end of
class. The teacher will ask questions to see what the students learned by reading the two
excerpts and also what they learned by watching the BrainPop and supplementary quiz.

MATERIALS

Classroom textbook (ISBN- 9780547484709)

Paper
Use of SMART board and computer (for BrainPop and quiz)
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EXTENDED ACTIVITIES
If Student Finishes Early

If a student finishes early he or she may get their assigned laptop from the mobile laptop
lab and get on the program Achieve 3000. Achieve 3000 helps students to increase their
skills in the areas of reading and writing. Students are allowed to choose whatever
activity they want on Achieve 3000 and to work on the program until the end of class.
This fits under the concept that students are to try to work on Achieve 3000 for at least
ninety minutes a week.

If Lesson Finishes Early

If the lesson finishes early, students will have the option to either work on a World War II
article on Achieve 3000 of their choice or collectively as a class, the students can watch
the BrainPop on Anne Frank and take the quiz following the video.

If Technology Fails

The only part of the lesson that would have to be changed would be the sponges. Students
would have an alternative method of completing a sponge such the teacher writing a
quote from The Diary of Anne Frank and having students write a short paragraph about
what they think of the quote and how it is applicable to World War II.

POST-TEACHING
The main issue that I ran across in teaching this lesson was timing. The students finished
the activity far more quickly than I had anticipated. At the time that I was teaching I ultimately
made the decision for students to work on Achieve 3000. I found two articles on the website for
the second through fourth classes to read entitled Learning More about Anne Frank and
Remembering the Holocaust. This was my first semester teaching lessons so working on timing
has been one of areas that I know that I need to work on.
Another issue that I notices when I collected the questions from the students was that
they were mixing up Elie Wiesel and Anne Frank as knowing each other and combining their two
stories into one. I asked the students to write questions that they wanted to ask Elie Wiesel, not
Anne Frank. I have noticed that during my time at Stonewall Jackson Middle School that some
of the students seem to have trouble listening to instruction and then do not complete the
assignment correctly even after the instructions have been explained numerous times. To the best
of my ability I tried to explain the instructions so that all students could have a grasp on the
topic, but some still seemed to have trouble. Students also had trouble with the Holocaust
BrainPop. Students stated that the video went through the information too quickly and I had to
repeat the video twice for the first class.
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I allowed two students in the first class to read the two journal entries from The Diary of
Anne Frank excerpt. I ended up changing this for the following classes because the students
seemed to struggle with some of the terminology and also because of timing. I wanted to make
sure that the students had plenty of time to complete the activity.
DATA BASED DECISION MAKING
The data collected for this lesson comes from the students answers to the Holocaust
BrainPop quiz. One student would go to the front of the classroom and read each question aloud
and then pick the most popular answer for each question. The data comes from how many each
student raised their hand for each answer option for the questions.

12
10
8
6

Option A
Option B

Option C
Option D

2
0

Concerning the data presented above in the chart comes from the answers that each of the
students chose by raising their hand. I counted their votes for each question. Some questions the
students clearly understood what was being asked or they could remember the answer from the
video. On question ten, most students understood that the answer to the question What other
groups did the Nazis target for extermination? was gypsies and Communists. However on a
question such as number three that states Which of the following is an example of genocide?
students had a more difficult time coming up with the answer. Many students believe the answer
to be B or that when a person is murdered because of his ethnicity as an example of genocide
instead of the correct answer of C which states that genocide is when an entire ethnic group is
wiped out. If the question or any of the answers had a word that the students did not understand,
I would try to look up the definition on the board for all to see. However, students still struggled
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with understanding some of the answers. Question nine asked what persecuting means. Many
students did not understand what the word meant and I could not look the word up to help their
understanding as it was asking for the definition.
Looking at the data taken from this quiz, I can say that some students did not vote (which
is why there is any uneven number for one or two questions). Some students also did not
understand what was being asked, despite watching the video directly before taking the quiz.
Some students knew the correct answer, but were overruled by the majority vote for what was
perceived to be the correct answer. If there is a clear answer choice for a question, then I can
deduce that most of the students understood the question and the content. The questions that
were closely tied for different answers presented a challenge for some students as they may have
not understood the question, a word, or an answer option.