Reflecting on Testimony
This section reflects on the testimony viewing. This is a reminder to teachers to adopt a trauma-informed approach to pedagogy.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
- engage meaningfully with Holocaust survivor testimony.
- understand the importance of testimony in learning history.
- check in with themselves to assess how they are or are not processing certain things they are learning.
Guiding Questions
- Why are personal stories important in learning about historical events?
- How do personal stories help us learn and broaden our perspectives?
Introduction
Begin the the “mood meter”. Remind students that regular emotional self check-ins are an important part of safety.
Lesson Activities
Video Viewing on the Artists and Survivors
Watch the three short videos. Each highlights a Holocaust survivor, and the process of creating a graphic narrative based on their stories.
- “But I Live,” Emmie Arbel and Barbara Yelin
- “If We Had Followed the Rules, I Wouldn’t Be Here,” Miriam Libicki and David Schaffer
- “The Making of 13 Secrets,” Rolf and Nico Kamp and Gilad Seliktar
Thinking about the relationship between artist and survivor
After watching these videos, the class will engage in an informal discussion about the artists process, led by the teacher.
How does the artist and their style influence how the testimony looks and feels?
Students should read the Afterword of But I Live to review the artists’ process. Additional information from an interview with Miriam Libicki is avaialble here..
Conclusion
Personal journaling: Students should take 5–10 minutes to write a short reflection on their experiences in class. We will circle back to our reflections to create our personal-response graphic narratives.
End-of-Lesson Journal Prompts
For each lesson in this unit, students will have the opportunity to engage in reflective journaling. This practice aligns with taking a trauma-informed approach to teaching the Holocaust. The self-reflection journal prompts students will do at the end of each lesson will allow them to unpack and reflect on how they felt during that lesson, what they learned, what they may be curious about and more. When given the opportunity to self-reflect, students are encouraged to dive into their feelings, enacting brave spaces by writing out their thoughts and reflections.
The following are some journal prompts students can use to inspire their reflections if they find they are having trouble writing. These journal prompts are meant to be detailed so students can write detailed reflections.
- Do you have specific questions for the artists or the survivors? What are these questions?
In closing this lesson, preface tomorrow. Students should decide which Holocaust survivors’ story they would like to read into more via graphic novel. This will lead us into the next activity in which we learn about how to read and decipher graphic novels and their roles in the narrative art genre.
