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

appreciation for the African American culture that was so greatly influenced by slavery. As a
way of depicting their understanding of this culture, the students will create a Body Biography of
an American slave.
This unit also fulfills many of the state standards, especially in writing and research.
Throughout this unit, students will exercise their writing skills through various assignments, such
as the Reader Response Journal, Personal Narrative, and free-verse poem, each of which will
receive with direct modeling from the instructor or modeling through the literature we read in
class. Students will also have a great deal of exposure to research and the process of gathering
information, creating an argument, and defending that argument. Assignments such as the “What
it Means to be Human” research project will allow students to question and research the themes
we discuss in the literature throughout the unit to arrive at an answer for the overarching question
of this unit: what does it mean to be a human being?
Philosophy for Teaching English
The design of this unit depicts my philosophy for teaching English in a constructivist manner.
The assignments of this unit are student centered and allow for student expression and creativity
through exploration of the literature. Rather than simply reading Night, which is the core focus of
the unit, the students will explore literature of similar theme and circumstance that will deepen
their understanding and appreciation of moments in history in which human rights were violated.
In addition, the reading of the texts in this unit will be supplemented with videos and images that
relate to those texts. Students are put in charge of their learning in this unit. There are no formal
tests during this unit, rather there are assessments that draw out student creativity and allow for a
deeper level of learning than they would get from simply taking a test. Upon completion of this
unit, students will not only have knowledge of the texts they have read and the historical events
to which they relate, but they will also have a greater ability to make educated decisions and
justify those decisions.
6 Spring 2011