Elie Wiesel's Night: Out of the Darkness - College of Education

Spring 2011
� Work on body biographies (60-70 minutes)
o Students will spend most of the period working on their groups’ body biography.
o I will walk around the classroom throughout the period to monitor work and
participation, which is a factor in each student’s grade for the assignment.
� Complete activity reflection (10 minutes)
o Students will each respond to a prompt about this activity once their group is done
working.
� Complete a reader response entry (remainder of class)
o Students should complete their forth reader response entry.
Assessment: (APS 3) NCTE/NCATE 4.10
� Produce a response to literature. (E1-1.6)
o Body Biography
o Reader Response entry
� Create a work for a specific audience. (E1-6.5)
o Body Biography
English I Course Standards Addressed: (APS 2, 4, 7)
E1-1.6 Create responses to literary texts through a variety of methods such as written
works, oral presentations, media productions, and the visual and performing arts.
E1-6.5 Create written works and oral and visual presentations that are designed for a
specific audience and purpose.
Follow-up Lessons/ Activities: (APS 7)
We will continue to discuss the treatment of concentration camp victims and slaves as we
continue through the unit. The body biographies will be hung around the room so that students
may refer back to them during these discussions.
Lesson Reflection: This lesson completely surpassed my expectations for both the students and
the assignment itself. I was honestly very nervous about this lesson at first; I was concerned that
the students would not take it seriously and would think that they were just taking a day off to
draw and color pictures, but I stuck with my plan to see how things would go and I am so glad
that I did. The students got into a flow from the moment that they began working on the body
biographies. I think that introducing the activity in the previous class and allowing them to
choose their groups and begin finding quotes before coming into class for the actual assignment
allowed the students to completely understand what was going on and what I expected from
them. The students were in a flow because of their social interaction, control over their own
learning through this activity in choosing the quotes and things to draw, the immediate
experience of creating this “person” for other to see in order to understand what the people in the
concentration camps went through, and my feedback throughout the process. This activity was
also challenging for the students but confined enough so that they could complete it in one class
period. The products are the proof of this flow, as well as the proof that the standards and
objectives for the day were met. The students created products of a high quality that put them in
32 Spring 2011