Reply to Diary of Anne Frank

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid's class devoted a whole class period to discussing the historical context around the Diary, including geopolitical events, WWII, and the Holocaust. I think they're also getting to watch a play or movie on Anne Frank next week. [/quote]

A whole 45-50 min to cover the geopolitical events, WWII, and the Holocaust????  I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.[/quote]

It's 7th grade. A class period seems like a good introduction. They'll cover these topics again in high school US History and World History.[/quote]

Wow, different poster but I think it's time to cry. 45 minutes to cover all the geopolitical events, WWII and the Holocaust then watching a movie which probably will be condensed into 1 class period but let's say it is two. So 3 classes of 45 minutes and nothing said about actually reading anything or any assignments. So much is wrong with all of this.[/quote]

I mean, on the one hand, I understand where you're coming from.  But on the other hand, English teachers are not history teachers, English class is not history class, and English teachers have, what, 3 or 4 weeks of classtime they need to spend teaching the Diary (or Tales from the Secret Annex) itself, right?  How many days or weeks of Holocaust history classes do you expect them to add on top of that while still getting to the next unit on time?

Really, the right way to address this is to have a more integrated cross-disciplinary approach where kids learn about this in their actual history classes around the same time they study the book in English.  Because you are right that the context is incredibly important.  But it's not fair to blame English teachers who are already dealing with being required to teach more lessons than they can fit into a single year, for not coming up with and teaching enough history content to students (on an incredibly sensitive topic that I'm sure many teachers are hesitant about figuring out how best to teach...)[/quote]

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