Book Talk

MAUS

-Art Spiegelman-

Summary

            Maus is a two-part graphic novel finished in the early 90’s that was originally published episodically in a magazine. This is the story of a son, Art Spiegelman, who interviews his father, Vladek, about his experiences in the Holocaust. The story runs in two tiers: one; where the reader is able to see Art interacting with Vladek and interviewing him; the other, where the reader sees Vladek’s experiences in Nazi controlled Poland, the war, and the concentration camp. In the graphic novel Jews are portrayed as mice, Nazis as cats, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs.

            In the modern timeline the reader learns very quickly that Art and Vladek have become very estranged, especially since the suicide of Art’s mother. This timeline shows the interactions Art actually has with his father and depicts him interviewing his father. One of the themes in the book is how lingering effects of the Holocaust have destroyed families, and in a way Art has survivor’s guilt despite not being born until after the war. While the description of the current day timeline may sound boring, it is actually a story about how Art can cope with his estranged father who has been completely ruined by his Holocaust Experience.

            The second timeline takes place between 1935 and 1945, and shows the story that Vladek is telling Art. This story describes the rise of the Nazi party in Europe and the gradual mistreatment of the Jewish people all across Europe. It shows Vladek’s participation in the war and his time in a German POW camp. After his release by the Germans, he sneaks back into Germany controlled Poland to be with his family. His journey from Ghetto to death camp is described after the war. The second timeline is rife with many themes: trying to figure out who he is whether that is a Jew or a Pole or if it can be both, watching the humanity being stripped from such a large group of people, and dealing with the consequences of survival in such brutal conditions

Rationale

            This is a very powerful text about a subject that is required teaching not only in Social Studies Classes but also English Language Arts. It is told a unique medium compared to most other literature about the Holocaust without losing the deeply personal touch of a celebrated work like Night. Furthermore, the reading is simple and the artwork opens a whole new level of discussion for students. Also, graphic novels sometimes appeal to reluctant readers because they don’t think of it like reading.

Teaching Strategies

- Could be used as an alternative to a more difficult text to read if the class reading level is on the lower end while still meeting state curriculum standards

- Could very easily be used as a supplementary text in a Social Studies room during WWII or Holocaust Lessons

- Can easily be used to breach difficult subjects like racism (Why are Jews mice?)

Difficulties

            One difficulty with this text (especially compared to texts with similar subject matter) is that it can be easy to lose the power of the Holocaust because it is done in such an artistic fashion. With any graphic novel the teacher must be careful to not let the class get distracted from the actual subject matter.

            Another difficulty with any graphic novel is that many people look down on them as a form of literature (this could include principals, other teachers, or parents) so when writing a lesson plan to include one in the curriculum the teacher must have a very good rationale built in.

TPA Lesson Planning

Creating Lesson Plans: The TPA Way

            Typical response to the TPA lesson plan format is that it is too long, too complicated, and that no teacher in their right mind would spend 75 minutes trying to write a TPA lesson plan for a 50 minute class. I feel that this type of thinking has caused an egregious overlook of the important facets of the TPA.

            One of the things that the TPA format requires is a context for learning, which is incredibly important as a teacher to be aware of. Every year, each class will be full of different students that learn in different ways. The TPA format requires you to think about whom the students in the class are, how they best learn, and additional needs the teacher may need to consider. This is especially important in a highly diversified setting, and since the general population of America is very quickly growing more diverse, the numbers suggest that school settings will too. In addition to understanding the students, the TPA also asks what will impact the delivery of the lesson, which means that teachers must account for pacing, style of teaching, and management of a classroom. All of these things are very good features of the TPA.

            There is however one feature that I think is the best in the whole system and that is the formative assessment that occurs during the lesson. The TPA format asks teachers how they will judge student progress during the lesson, what they will be looking for in students, how they will monitor learning, and ways to use and provide feedback for students. Summative assessments at the end of a lesson or unit are important, but more important is being able to realize flaws in your lesson as they happen. In other words, the TPA encourages teachers to be actively participating the classroom as they teach their lessons so that they can make real time modifications to their lessons as they teach them. Being able to adjust moment-to-moment and period-to-period is essential for being a quality teacher.

            The point is that the TPA asks for a lot of really good things from teachers and they shouldn’t be ignored just because of the sometimes-tedious process of writing them.

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated Instruction

            The most important thing to remember about differentiated instruction is that kids notice when you treat certain students different, so integrated differentiated instruction into the classroom must be done very carefully.

Differentiated instruction tends to stand out as a way of modifying lesson plans or activities to fit students who might struggle, such as English language learners or disabled students. But I think it goes further than that, as educators we must understand that all students do not learn in the same way, not even based on styles of teaching, but the content too. Differentiated instruction is part of the mandate of a teacher to try and teach every student to the best of their ability.

            With this is mind I think that it is incredibly important to always be trying new activities, new styles of teaching, and new means of learning. By only teaching in the way that you are comfortable with, you may not be benefitting the students at all. As a teacher, you have to be as comfortable with being outside your comfort zone as you might be asking students to be.

            One thing that I agree with is the limiting pointless activities or tasks that help to ease the transitions in the classroom. By having students do tasks that are meaningless to the learning just reinforces the act of not learning, which is something that teachers need to avoid.

            Another thing that typically is ignored when discussing differentiated instruction is a high achieving student, they need differentiated instruction to continue achieving at that level. That might mean subtly pushing them to do more work, or implying that more work might benefit them.

Tovani Activity: Appendix B - "Silent Reading Record"

I was compelled to do this activity because I think too often self reading goes unrealized. I often times zone out when I read and forget some of the things I read only seconds ago, so making a record of it was an interesting proposition for me. In reflection, I think it helped to really seal the information that I read into my mind and give a relevance because I was encouraged to not only summarize what I read but also what I was thinking about.

Silent Reading Record

Name: 

1.    What did you read? Include titles and page numbers.

Night, by Elie Weizel – pages 1 – 28

2.    In four or more sentences summarize what you read.

I read about a boy who struggles to understand the rapidly changing world around him at the height of World War II and the Nazi empire. As a young child in Hungary during the Nazi occupation, he struggles to understand why people of the Jewish faith are slowly losing rights and being treated so poorly. The treatment of the Jews continually gets worse as they are forced into ghettos, terrible living conditions where they are forced to live in great numbers in very small areas. During his time in the ghettos, the boy hears many rumors of what is happening to Jews all around Europe, but most of the elders refuse to believe that such atrocities could be committed. The portion of the book I read culminates with the boy, his family, and the other Jews of his town being loaded into cattle cars and shipped to a place called Auschwitz, where they quickly learn that the only way to survive is to be useful. They can see and smell the flames of the crematorium that is burning thousands of bodies a day. Only once he is here does the young boy realize that the rumors were true, and he will have to fight to survive.

3.    As you were reading, what were you thinking? Write at least four sentences. Did you make any connections? What were you wondering? What opinions do you have about what you read?

As I read, I was thinking about how even though I know the likely ending to his journey, I still cannot believe that atrocities that he witnessed as a child. I was thinking about how hard it would be to have any faith in humanity as you witness an entire group of people being persecuted so fully and by a well-established government. I can’t help but wonder when I read this how so many people were able to turn a blind eye to the events unfolding around them and how people didn’t reach out to help the Jewish people. One opinion I have is that the author, who is telling an autobiographical story, is an incredible testament to the willpower of humankind to survive such an atrocity, but then to relive it every day as he tries to make a difference and stop genocide around the world.

Tovani Chapters 1-5

Tovani Text: Chapters 1-5

            There are a great deal of things that really stand out in the text, which probably explains Cris Tovani’s prominence in the educational circuit, but a few things especially caught my eye either because I have used a similar method that didn’t work as well, or it is something that I believe is important to incorporate into my classroom.

            The biggest standout to me was the Marking Text section. Marking text is a strategy that I feel is completely underused in public education (I believe because of the textbooks being school property dilemma), and when it is used, I think it is used as a cheap way out of helping kids to understand. In my experience, sometimes students are told to highlight certain portions of the text or highlight some subjective portion of the text (such as: what stands out to you?). The bottom line, as Tovani explains is that simply having students highlight things doesn’t help them to understand, instead, they need to be given a purpose to highlight. Tovani suggests using color codes to highlight different pieces of information. The biggest thing that I appreciated from this section though was to have students highlight information that they don’t understand and have them work to clear it up in their own words in the margins. This will help students learning while simultaneously teaching critical reading skills.

            Furthermore, Tovani advocates for marking text with certain visual codes that are designed to stimulate certain type of thought in the students. The one she uses as an example is background knowledge, so whenever students see “BK” in a highlighted portion of text, they have to bring in a personal experience to help explain the text or demonstrate their understanding of the text. For example, you might hand out a photocopied article for reading with a highlighted section with the letters “BK” next to it, and in response students should start with “This reminds me of…” or “In the past I have seen/heard/read about something similar…” In addition to actively pursuing critical reading skills, it also creates a sense of relevance. Relevance is one of the biggest thing an educator can bring to the table, because unless there is a reason for information to mean something to the students then they simply wont feel the need to learn it.