The last time I was cruising through, I found one lonely Hot Wheels car from the 1940s. I walked by it the first time, but I backtracked once I decided that I really did need that $1.99 toy.
We're wrapping up The Diary of Anne Frank in my advanced language arts classes. Each child is completing a reading guide in order to get the big picture of Anne's diary without reading the entire work. As an incentive, I offered this brand new car to the first child to pass the optional open book Accelerated Reader test on the entire diary.
Here's LG with her sparkling new ride!
If you want to see my collection of online resources related to this unit of study,
It was a while back when I first told you about Chalk Talk, a great technique I picked up from the Eastern Virginia Writing Project. Students love it, and it's the main reason I tried to make sure that I had massive amounts of white board space in my new classroom.
Students in my advanced language arts class read Gentlehands on their own,
and this is how we held our book discussion
...in silence.
It started with me writing "Grandpa Trenker is..." on the center of the board
and making lots of markers available for students who were ready to write.
As you can tell, it can be difficult to follow in places.
Every now and then, you will need to ask that all students have a seat
and take a moment to examine the board.
Otherwise, the clusters of children at the board will obscure the responses for others to see.
That is, unless you have a class of 10 kids.
Oh, you do?
Aren't you lucky?!
I'm always surprised at how much some kids love Grandpa Trenker. He's on my list of literary characters I'd like to punch in the throat.
If the discussion is not automatically getting the depth of thought you were looking for,
you can also write questions periodically to spark critical analysis.
With advanced readers, usually the discussion runs itself,
After teaching "Anne Frank" for 13 years, I finally feel like I'm getting into my groove. What's that? Slow learner? Well, maybe. In the case of teaching real life stories that are enveloped in so many complexities, there's always room for improvement.
If you read the first edition of The Real Anne Frank, you will remember my frustration with the Goodrich/Hackett and Kesselman texts. In short, that which makes Anne of the real diary so compelling never seems to surface. You'll also remember my excitement over the BBC miniseries.
This year I decided to mesh the two and add in a bit from the 1959 play. This should work for you in classes where students read at or above grade level. You will need to simplify it further for students who are are struggling readers.
In short, I introduced Anne by way of the BBC. We watched the miniseries up to the point of the bathing scene. I chose 10 of Anne's early diary entries for students to read, focusing on identifying conflict. Students wrote a friendly letter to Anne offering advice on navigating her personal relationships with her family and the VanPels. 10 more entries were selected for a vocabulary exercise. Each entry also represented an important plot point. Students then used our laptop lab to visit the Secret Annex.
We read the play from the cake scene to the date scene, because it's middle school. Kids love the big date. Okay, maybe I love it more. That awkward first kiss is exactly the type of romance that some teenagers need to see, so they can relax a little. This is the moment in the play when students really see themselves and their friends. After this scene, writers draft a journal entry that Peter could have created to sum up the evening's experiences.
You may have also read the two sentence journal blog entry. That's what we did with the last 10 teacher-selected diary entries. Again, I chose 10 diary entries with important plot points. The students stepped into Anne's point of view, determined the most important topic of the entry and condensed it into two sentences, capturing Anne's voice.
We then returned to the end of the play. Students read Anne's real last diary entry. I read aloud from Miep Gies's account of the capture and the return of Mr. Otto Frank to the Annex.
Students spent a second session with laptops to Google questions that still lingered. I also provided a list of 20 names, places and events related to World War II and the Holocaust for additional research.
For the duration, I kept a variety of books on related topics in the room for students to peruse during independent reading time. Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle, Maus, and this year I added Andrew Clements's A Million Dots. No, it's not really about the Holocaust, but you've probably figured out where I'm going with this. By the end of Clement's picture book, you will have seen, yes, a million dots. Imagine that each dot is a person's life. Multiply the dots by at least six. It helps quantify the incomprehensible.
Throughout our Anne Frank unit, students read M.E. Kerr's Gentlehands independently. When they were finished, they wrote a paper in which they argued whether Grandpa Trenker was a static or dynamic character using support from the text.
Soon we will most likely watch Paper Clips for another perspective, but that's probably another blog entry.
Isn't it great when we can broaden our writers' audience? If we want to nurture passionate writers, it's a good idea to send their writing outside of your classroom from time to time, with their permission. Owl magazine sponsors a variety of creative contests. If you are a Virginia high school teacher, check the Superintendent's Memos every Friday for occasional scholarship opportunities. The local newspaper may run seasonal contests with categories based on age. The public library may also do the same.
I am fortunate that the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula sponsors an annual Holocaust essay contest for school-age children. In addition to recognizing winners with a certificate and check, the winners are honored at the annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance) ceremony. The UJC even sends congratulatory letters to students who were picked as finalists. AND they send the teacher who submits at least a class set of entries free books. Yes, free books. Teachers choose from a list of titles. Those books then become part of your school's library. If you talk other teachers into participating, with a little patience you can build up a set of Holocaust-themed levelled books. If you don't see the title that you want, e-mail the sponsors. They will seriously consider your request. http://www.ujcvp.org/holocaust_ed.php
One year, after we watched the Paper Clips documentary about Whitwell, Tennessee's 8th graders' ongoing Holocaust project, my students wanted to do something special for their school. Using the Internet, we found out that they were moving into a new building with a new library. We e-mailed the UJC to see if they would send us a "sampler" of all of the middle school titles instead of a class set for us, so we could donate them to Whitwell Middle School. They enthusiastically agreed. We packed them up, decorated the box with watercolor butterflies and paid it forward. Find out about the paper clip project here http://www.oneclipatatime.org/
And let me tell you this. After the tornado relocated my classroom to a new school, two members of the UJC stopped by the front office with the books my students earned this year, Han Nolan's If I Should Die Before I Wake. On the box was a handwritten note wishing us well. Writing creates communities.
If publication is something that you feel strongly about, get a copy of the latest Writer's Market. The amount of information in that resource will be more than you could ever need.
Finally, if you ask your students to enter a contest that has an adult writers category, enter! They will love to see you workshop your piece. Take it from start to finish in front of them. Let them give you feedback. What a great opportunity!
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How about dusting off some of your writing skills and entering a current contest?
If you are teaching 8th grade language arts, there's a good chance that Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett's two-act play "The Diary of Anne Frank" is in your textbook. Hello, 1959.
Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful that Goodrich and Hackett dramatized this important primary source, but it could use an overhaul. Writer Wendy Kesselman thought so too when she published an adaptation of the play in 2000. She also organized the play into two acts, but she did not further divide the text into scenes. Having scene breaks makes a play easier to negotiate in a classroom setting. Additionally, Kesselman opted to get rid of the flashback structure of the previous dramatization. The adaptation remains truer to Anne's diary and historical facts, but the play still lacks the dynamic nature of Anne's diary.
In teaching the 1959 version, I find myself interjecting constantly to point out changes that the playwrights made to fit the diary to the stage. Most of the changes were probably to simplify a comprehensive and complex text for a wider audience.
The last two scenes frustrate me the most. Mr. Frank's brief explanation of what took place after the inhabitants of the annex were taken to camps leaves too many questions, and some of the information is simply not in line with historical fact. Kesselman does a better job explaining what happened to each "character" in her version.
Additionally, when the Nazi officers enter the annex to force the families out, Kesselman's Anne does not write a final entry in her diary. What does Anne's real last diary entry look like? You should share this with your class. Many of the ideas that run throughout Anne's journals are present in her last letter to Kitty, but it's not the concocted wrap-up in the 1956 play, "And so it seems that our stay here is over. They are waiting for us now. They've allowed us five minutes to get our things." Can you imagine your teenage self writing anything while you are in such a dangerous position? Anne knew what was happening in the outside world from listening to radio broadcasts. She was very aware of the horrific possibilities that resulted from their discovery. She did not write a pat goodbye note to her diary. Who would?
Finally, both plays are missing a key "character" in the discovery scene. Miep Gies was there! This is incredibly important to understanding the full heroic nature of this amazing woman. Read a captivating Scholastic interview with Miep Gies.
I should probably confess to you that I am not a big fan of historical fiction that morphs the carefully documented thoughts, feelings and experiences of a real person for dramatic purposes. Real life is dramatic enough. I like my history to come from the non-fiction section of the library. Primary sources are preferable to me. When it comes to the Holocaust, I feel an additional responsibility to point students to firsthand accounts due to the fact that there are some people who still deny that the Holocaust occurred. I won't spend any time giving those folks any press here.
Anne Frank was a real girl. Also, the Anne of her diary is endlessly more engaging, irritating, witty, curious and vibrant compared to the 1956 characterization. If you use either play, supplement it with the actual diary entries that Anne wrote. Why not use the whole diary? You could, but it's a diary. It will not appeal to all of your readers based on structure alone. Also the length and vocabulary level may put it out of range for some of your students.
The BBC has released a terrific dramatization of selections of selections from Anne's writings. Please preview it before showing it to your class. I start from the beginning and stop before the bath scene. The Anne of this series matches the spirit of the real Anne.
Find photographs to enhance your study of Anne's life.
As of today, here's the latest edition of Anne's diary, but I've heard that more material is yet to come.
The Anne Frank House provides many resources for you here, including a virtual, narrated tour of the Secret Annex. You could easily spend hours on this site. Let your students know ahead of time to bring in their earbuds on the day you let them tour the Annex.
Note: There's a part in Anne's diary that causes teen readers to show it to at least 10 of their closest friends. January 5, 1944 goes down in Anne's diary as a day of raging hormones. After all, she is a teenager. Goodrich and Hackett subtly allude to this entry at the beginning of Act II. Kesselman includes a bit more. Use your judgment in how to negotiate this passage with your students.
Thank you to educator extraordinaire Michelle Crotteau and all of her colleagues who rounded up book donations for my classroom.
Nestled in one of the boxes was a copy of Anne's diary which I immediately set aside to read...again.
