"Night" by Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesel’s Night is probably one of the most touching stories I have read about the Holocaust. I think that this is a text that I would definitely use in my future classroom. I think that I would also pair this text with Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl because he too is a survivor but he takes a critical and psychological perspective on his survival while Wiesel looks simply at his own journey. I would choose to incorporate this text into my classroom, because of impactful and important learning about and reading about the Holocaust is for students. WWII is discussed thoroughly within schools, but reading texts written by survivors makes the facts and details more real and impactful for students.

Some of my teaching ideas for this text would be to again pair it with Man’s Search for Meaning. By pairing these text students would be able to compare experiences or perspectives on experiences within the texts. There are also interviews with other survivors online that could be incorporated alongside the texts to again show more perspectives as well. Pairing with the history teacher would also be a useful tool. While students are learning the timeline of WWII and the Holocaust the students can pair the events happening to Wiesel in the novel. Something that I think would be important is for students is to keep a reaction journal as they read this novel because there are some very intense events happening. While I was reading the novel at times I had to put it down in order to process what was happening and rationalize how these events actually happened to someone.


The biggest obstacle with this text would be the violence of the reality of the Holocaust. But the Holocaust is such a large and important topic in schools, I don’t think that parents will object to reading this novel. 

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