EDUC4729

Curriculum Specialisation History Senior Years

Assignment 3 Construction of a Unit of Work

Unit Plan

Year Level: Curriculum Area: Focus Topic: Curriculum Framework: Unit Length: Allocated Time:

11 History The Holocaust Stage 1 SACE 4 weeks Three 45 minute lessons and one 90 minute double lesson

Cohort/Context Description:
The students participating in this unit are from an outer-metropolitan public high school. Whilst the school does have a higher drop-out rate than most schools, those who persist with their studies beyond 10th grade tend to apply themselves well academically. In order for students to join this class, they must have completed the 10th Grade History topic as a prerequisite in the previous year. Therefore the majority of students have the fundamental skills to participate in many of the activities and tasks required in the field of History. The students have themselves nominated to do this topic, which would suggest they would have a genuine interest in the discipline. A few of the students have minor learning difficulties such as dyslexia, and will be given further instruction to clarify they understand the ideas and concepts.

Learning Goals:
By the end of the unit, students will Know Understand - What the - Why the Holocaust was, Holocaust and how it came happened to happen - How the social - The events and and political decisions that led environment to the Holocaust allowed for such taking place an atrocity to - The key occur contributors and - What life would victims have been like for - The ways in which Jews during the the Jews were reign of Hitler persecuted prior to and throughout the Holocaust Be able to - Analyse sources that have information on the Holocaust - Explain the events leading to and culminating in the Holocaust - Write an essay on a subtopic surrounding the Holocaust

Unit Outcomes:
Knowledge and Understanding KU1 - Explanation of how particular societies in selected periods and places have been shaped by both internal and external forces. KU2 - Identification and explanation of historical concepts. Inquiry and Analysis IA1 - Application of hypotheses and/or focusing questions to guide historical inquiry. IA2 - Analysis and evaluation of sources. Reflection Communication R1 - Understanding and appreciation of the role of particular individuals and groups in history. C1 - Communication of informed and relevant arguments. C2 - Use of subject-specific language and conventions. To see how these outcomes will be met, go to Assessment Overview

Program Design:
The learning program has been designed so that the unit will cater to several different types of learning profiles. A mixture variety of written, visual and oral sources will be used, which will cover the different learning styles that students may have. Information presentation during teacher instruction will be varied to allow for greater student engagement. Video excerpts will be used to justify and highlight important ideas. This will be of particular benefit to those with minor reading difficulties, as they will be able to visualise information instead. Schindlers List has been included to capture the imagination of the students, and to help them understand the severity of this important part of history. There are several scenes which will help them empathise with the Jewish struggle, which is much more emotive than simple facts and figures. The program will be delivered using a variety of methods. A combination of direct teacher instruction, film, reading, and student-centred exploring will be used to help the students learn the required content. This variety will also help cater to differences in learner profile. Due to the Holocaust being a focus topic, the students will have to work within this area. However for the Folio task, they are able to design their own essay question. This will enable them to study something that is of personal interest while the content is being delivered.

Capabilities, Literacy and Numeracy Opportunities:

Capabilities: This unit of work will lead to students having much stronger in all of the Capabilities fields. Through writing their essay and participating in class discussion, students will receive an opportunity to express their views and arguments in a variety of ways. Citizenship is arguably the most important Capability that students will engage

with. Due to the nature that society played in the Holocaust, students can look at the roles of different stakeholder within Europe at the time. They will also be able to compare and contrast Nazi Germany with the current society that they live in. Through engagement with a variety of sources, students will continue to learn how to discern information and gain an understanding of the situation and events that occurred. They will also be given an opportunity to be empathaise with the Jewish people with some of the resources that will be explored. Whilst researching for the essay, and studying for the test, students will participate in work that will strengthen their opportunity for vocational work after their schooling. Through engagement with a variety of resources, lecturing, independent research and reading; students will develop their learning skills. Their level of learning can be measured through performance in the summative assessment pieces. Literacy and Numeracy Skills: The discipline of History is one which is very Literacy infused. Throughout this unit, students will develop their Literacy skills through a variety of mediums. They will need to communicate, both through writing and in discussion. They will be encouraged to use subject-specific terminology when communicating their knowledge. Literacy skills will also be important for students to independently research and link ideas and concepts with what they have already learned. Numeracy is also an important factor in the field of History. In order for nearly all sources to be understood, students must develop their mathematical and spatial understandings. In order to engage with resources that have diagrams, tables, graphs, maps and other forms of numerical information; students must have an understanding of how to interpret them. Even placing events sequentially in a timeline requires the use of Numeracy skills.

Reflection Report:
This Unit of work on the Holocaust will provide students with the opportunity to learn about an important event in the history of modern civilization. The outline of the unit and the assessment pieces created will guide students to a better understanding of this event, and improve their skills within the discipline of history. The teaching strategies to be used will also help students with different learning styles, and make it more interesting to increase motivation. Due to the complicated nature of understanding the Holocaust, the unit has broken the event chronologically. Lesson time will be spent learning about the time before and after the event, because an understanding of how it was able to happen and the implications of it today are just as important as when it took place (Campt, 2004). The assessment pieces are comprehensive because combined, they cover all the assessment criteria within the domain of Stage 1 History (SACE Board of SA, 2013, p. 12). They are also a great tool for assessing key skills within the History discipline such as source analysis in the test, and creating and researching a hypothesis as seen in the essay (Haydn, Arthur, Hunt, & Stephen, 2008, p. 96). Furthermore, the assessment tasks focus on higherorder thinking skills rather than simply remembering and reciting facts. According to Blooms Taxonomy, the students will be work at Synthesis and Evaluation levels of cognitive development (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 3). A student is going to end this unit with a greater understanding of the topic if they are able to describe how one man was able to turn a nation against a religious population than if they were to be asked the exact date that Gas chambers came into use. In Appendix I it can be seen students will undertake a short preassessment on the Holocaust. This is to allow the teacher to understand how much the students know about the topic, and to select the content they wish to use accordingly. There is no point teaching the students something they learned about the previous year, whilst there is also no point assuming they even know what Holocaust means.

As can be seen in Appendix II, there is an example of an exit card. These will be used throughout the unit, particularly at the end of instructional lessons, to guage the level at which the students have understood the content. If there is a high proportion of students who have not or misunderstood the key ideas and concepts, then more lesson time will be spent focusing on that certain area. This will ensure that students dont fall behind, and the teaching pedagogies are effective. It should also be noted that these will be used for student feedback too. They will be asked about a resource they engaged with, and if there is negative feedback, then a new source can be used the next time the unit will be used with another group of students. Throughout the unit and through writing the Essay, learning will be scaffolded to allow students to work within their zone of proximal development1 (Vialle, Lysaght, & Verenikina, 2005, p. 52). In the essay, students design their own question to answer, which means the level of complexity can be altered according to their level of comprehension on the topic. Within lessons, the teacher will select four different readings, at different levels of complexity, to ensure students are understanding the work they are engaging with, yet still finding it the appropriate level of challenge. The different ways in which students prefer to learn have been taken into account when designing this unit. Elements of both teacher instruction and student-centred learning have been included. As well as this, the types of resources provided for students to engage with are mixed; including film, readings and images among various other types. Over the four weeks that this unit runs, the students will learn much about the Holocaust whilst also developing their History skills. With a variety of sources to work with, comprehensive assessment tasks and an in depth focus on the topic, this will also be a topic that students will find interesting whilst engaging with it.

(Vialle, Lysaght, & Verenikina, 2005) p52

Bibliography
Anderson, L. W., & Sosniak, L. A. (1994). Bloom's Taxonomy: A Forty-Year Retrospective. Chicago National Society for the Study of Education . Campt, T. (2004). Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. University of Michigan Press. Haydn, T., Arthur, J., Hunt, M., & Stephen, A. (2008). Learning to Teach History in the Secondary School (3rd Edtion ed.). Milton Park, Oxon: Routledge. SACE Board of SA. (2013). History 2013 Subject Outline: Stage 1 and Stage 2. Adelaide: Government of South Australia. Vialle, W., Lysaght, P., & Verenikina, I. (2005). Chapter 3: The socio-cultural view: Vygotski. In Psychology for Educators. Southbank: Thomson.

Appendices:
Appendix I: Preassessment for unit on the Holocaust
This information below will most likely be presented on the whiteboard On a blank piece of paper, write everything you know about the Holocaust. What was it? Who was involved? Where did it take place? When did it happen? Why did it happen?

Appendix II: Example of an Exit Card to be used

The information below will most likely be presented on the whiteboard On a scrap piece of paper, answer the following questions. Once finished, hand over to the teacher and you may go off to lunch 1. Who was the leader of the Nazi Party 2. In what ways did the Nazis show anti-Semitism towards the Jewish people? Give three examples. 3. On a scale of 1-10, how difficult was the documentary you viewed to understand. 1 being really easy, 10 being extremely difficult

Appendix III: Essay for Student Folio

Summative Assessment Essay

Over the next two weeks, you will design a question based on a topic focused around the Holocaust. Once an appropriate question has been created, you will then independently research and attempt to answer your question in an essay. Before you begin writing your essay, you MUST double-check with the teacher that it is appropriate for the task. You will be expected to include a bibliography with at least 5 different sources, using the correct formatting that we focused on in the previous term. On the following page you can see the assessment criteria sheet for this task. The criteria you will be assessed to are highlighted in bold. You will be given lesson time to work on researching and drafting your essay, but you will be expected use you own time too. If you are struggling to design a question, then ask the teacher for guidance. Due date: End of Lesson FRIDAY WEEK 4

Appendix IV: Summative End of Unit Test

Year 11 History: Holocaust Test

Question 1: How accurately does the film Schindlers List empathise with the Jewish struggle? Give evidence.

Question 2: Prior to the use of Ghettos and Concentration camps, how did Hitler and the Nazis discriminate and show anti-Semetic behaviour towards the Jews?

Source A:

Question 3: What does Source A reveal about the treatment of Jews in Concentration Camps?

Source B:
Speech delivered by Hitler in Salzburg, 7 or 8 August 1920. (NSDAP meeting) The following quotation is from a shorthand transcript. "This is the first demand we must raise and do [reversal of the Versailles Treaty provisions]: that our people be set free, that these chains be burst asunder, that Germany be once again captain of her soul and master of her destinies, together with all those who want to join Germany. (Applause) And the fulfillment of this first demand will then open up the way for all the other reforms. And here is one thing that perhaps distinguishes us from you [Austrians] as far as our programme is concerned, although it is very much in the spirit of things: our attitude to the Jewish problem. For us, this is not a problem you can turn a blind eye to-one to be solved by small concessions. For us, it is a problem of whether our nation can ever recover its health, whether the Jewish spirit can ever really be eradicated. Don't be misled into thinking you can fight a disease without killing the carrier, without destroying the bacillus. Don't think you can fight racial tuberculosis without taking care to rid the nation of the carrier of that racial tuberculosis. This Jewish contamination will not subside, this poisoning of the nation will not end, until the carrier himself, the Jew, has been banished from our midst. ( Applause) Source: D Irving, The War Path: Hitler's Germany 1933-1939. Papermac, 1978, p.xxi

Question 4: Does Source B suggest that Hitler had planned the Genocide of the Jews from the outset of his political career? Why/why not?