9.16 - Cultural Discussion of WWII and The Holocaust

We started today's class with the following writing prompt:

Look at the prior knowledge wall at the back of the room that we have created for WWII and The Holocaust and identify some clarifying questions that would help you better understand the facts we have identified about this topic.

Everyone had 5 minutes to look at the back wall and generate questions. We then shared out the questions and noted them. A former student of English 09 who knows a lot about WWII and The Holocaust is going to look at our list of questions and respond to them. The questions we generated were as follows:

These questions lead to a discussion of the causes of The Holocaust and how the subject is addressed in modern day Germany. We will address these subjects more with some of our coming topics.

We then transitioned to our round of "Creeper or Keeper" for the day. We briefly reviewed what people chose for songs and whether or not they felt the speaker of their song was a creeper or keeper.

Today's song was "Dilate" by Ani Difranco. This song, much like "Every Breath You Take," is told from the perspective of someone who has just broken up with the person they were dating. This means we were deciding whether or not they were dealing with their emotions in a creepy way or in an emotionally responsible way (the way a real keeper would). Since our discussion of our background knowledge around The Holocaust went a little longer than expected, we only had time to listen to the song. Everyone should complete their annotations and responses for homework.

Homework:

Finish annotating Ani Difranco's song "Dilate" and write your "Creeper or Keeper" response for tomorrow.

ontinue to read in Night according to the class reading schedule.