Name: ________________________________ Per.

___ Date: _______

Holocaust Unit Reflection

Instructions:

Today you will begin writing a reflective essay about the Holocaust Unit that we
just completed. This information will be used in two ways – first, to assess your
expository writing skills (writing to explain) and second, to help me understand
which activities and materials were most helpful to you and which ones I may
need to change for next year.

You will be writing a five paragraph essay over the next three days – you must
create a pre-write (4-Square, bubble chart, list, etc) that lists your subtopics,
details, AND vivid descriptions. You will write a first draft that you will edit with
a partner and then you will create a final draft to turn in. Final drafts must be
double spaced, written in ink, and following proper writing mechanics (spelling,
grammar, etc.).

Possible topics for your paragraphs:

Activities from the unit:
Practicing Prejudice (where you drew
roles out of a bucket and either sat
against the wall or got extra privileges)
Urban Dictionaries
One Survivor Remembers Packet and
video
KWL Chart (Know, Want to Know,
Learned)
Double Journal Entries
Darkness Over Denmark Chapter 11
“Concentration Camps”
YouTube Videos
Propaganda & Political Cartoons
Artwork & Poetry
Personal Reflection (journal entry from
the perspective of a 15 year old
German)
The Terrible Things Allegory
(Children’s book)
Character Webs
Schindler’s Choices Interactive Website
Torn Thread Novel
Note Card Summaries
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas DVD
1. The most interesting/surprising
thing I learned…
2. Activities that I like the
most/least…
3. A book review of the novel Torn
Thread
4. A movie review of the DVD The
Boy in the Striped Pajamas
5. What I would have liked to have
done/talked about/learned more
about…
6. Suggestions for next time…
7. This information will help me in
my life because…
8. It’s important to learn about
history because…
9. I think it would have been fun to
do ____ for a project with this
unit.
10. Other suggestions/ideas/criticism
about the unit.
11. Anything else you feel is
important (related to this topic
and unit)
Your topic is going to be “My reflection on the Holocaust Unit” so you could start
your essay off (first paragraph) with something similar to this (don’t copy me!!)

“I really enjoyed the Holocaust unit in Mrs. Tweedy’s class for several reasons.
First, I learned a lot of information about WWII that I didn’t know before.
Second, we read a novel as a class, Torn Thread, which I really liked. Finally, we
watched a movie called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas that had a surprising and
sad ending.”

Example of a 4-Square box filled in correctly.

The first thing about the Holocaust Unit that I enjoyed was… 2
_________________________
Connector (Transition)
Learning about World War II
________________________________________
(Subtopic – Main Idea)

D: I had no idea how many people died during the Holocaust.

V: Over six million Jews were killed and more than 30 million
people died in the war overall.

D: I learned about the conditions in the concentration camps from

the chapter that we read out of “Darkness Over Denmark” and
from the videos we watched on YouTube.

V: The “Band of Brothers” video on YouTube was the most

fascinating to me – it was amazing to see how emaciated the
prisoners were and how awful the camp conditions were.

D: I also learned a lot from reading about Gerda and watching her
video, “One Survivor Remembers” about what life in the camps
was like.

V: At one point, she talked about being on a death march and

girls were so frostbitten that they were able to snap off
their toes like twigs!

E: Learning all of these facts about the war really helped me

understand the novel that we read in class and sympathize with
the characters in the book.