Using The Giver to Teach The Importance of Recorded History

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Outcome:
1-      Students will be able to respond to the materials from a personal, creative, and critical points of view.
2-      Students will be able to adequately demonstrate the ability to apply key concepts to humanity.
3-      Students will begin to write their own personal memoirs.
Procedure:
  1. Homework from the night before: Students will need to bring in pictures and stories from their lives to share in class.
  2. Attention Getter: Students will come in and free write their response to this question: What is the importance of having a recorded history of humanity?
  3. Students will be asked to get in groups of three of four students each to discuss their answers with one another. They will also be asked to tie their answers to The Giver
  4. Bringing the group back together, groups will be called on to tell the rest of the group their ideas to the questions. We’ll discuss the importance of keeping history about things like the Holocaust, September 11th, and Darfur.
  5. Students will use their pictures and ideas from homework to write a descriptive story in the form of a memoir for their personal history. First, students will use this time to share with someone next to them the pictures they brought in and tell them details from the moment that they want to describe for their memoirs.
  6. Students will use the remainder of class time to write their own personal memoirs including three stories. They will be asked to do finishing touch ups at home to turn it in the following class period.
  7. Students will understand that since it is important to remember the past, in order to not repeat the same mistakes, it is important to write down our own stories in order to learn from them ourselves or allow others to learn from them when they read them. Just as it became a horror in Jonas’ society not having the memories, it can prove to be our downfall not remembering the stories from our lives.
  8. The assessment for the day will be the memoirs that they will be asked to turn in the following day. The memoirs should include valuable stories in their lives, with pictures, and other details to make the stories a wonderful personal artifact.