The Terrible Things

I Can Statement:

I can Determine a theme or central idea of a text.  

Allegory:

• Allegory: a story that is meant to represent something else. Think of it as an extended metaphor, where all the characters, locations, and events mirror something else that has happened in politics, history, life, etc. 

Read/Annotate (optional)

The Terrible Things Text

Activity:

• In groups, students discuss the Theme of The Terrible Things and illustrate the theme.

Resources:

• Rosenfeld Community of Practice Jewish Learning Matters

• The Terrible Things by Eve Bunting VIMEO Animated Reading

See Also:

• The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

• Holocaust Background

• Night by Elie Weisel

• Read if you like books about the Holocaust

• Read if you like Night by Elie Wiesel

• Anne Frank Middle School Lesson

• Anne Frank Censored Poetry

Key Ideas and Details:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. 

Application for Today's World:

2016 Response to "First They Came" by Rabbi Michael Adam Latz

In response to Martin Niemoller

First they came for the African Americans and I spoke up—

Because I am my sisters’ and my brothers’ keeper.

And then they came for the women and I spoke up—

Because women hold up half the sky.

And then they came for the immigrants and I spoke up—

Because I remember the ideals of our democracy.

And then they came for the Muslims and I spoke up—

Because they are my cousins and we are one human family.

And then they came for the Native Americans and Mother Earth and I spoke up—

Because the blood-soaked land cries and the mountains weep.

They keep coming.

We keep rising up.

Because we Jews know the cost of silence.

We remember where we came from.

And we will link arms, because when you come for our neighbors, you come for us—

and THAT just won’t stand.