Canadian History Lesson: Genocide and Hitler's Master Race

The students have completed their Cranium games using WW2 material and some have a bit of background in Holocaust study. Several have also seen "Hotel Rwanda" so they have at least seen an example of genocide.

Group size: students working alone and in pairs throughout the lesson

1. Using a concept attainment data set, the students are introduced to the concept of genocide.
2. Students are provided with a definition of the concept on overhead after the data set has been explained. Think-pair-share works very well when using concept attainment.
3. Students watch the video "Hitler's Master Race: the Mad Dream of the SS." I had them use the structure "Pairs View":

• students find a partner (or assign them a partner)
• each student in the partnership is either an "A" or a "B"
• tell everyone they are responsible for taking notes but that when you stop the tape (or DVD), you will be calling on either As or Bs to report important points from the clip
• teacher shows about 10 minutes of video then stops tape
• teacher asks Bs to identify to their partner what they thought were the 2 or 3 most important points in the clip
• teacher calls randomly on people to share thinking...teacher can elaborate if necessary
• teacher resumes tape; the next time you stop it, As will report, rinse and repeat.

4. Teacher provides a list of vocabulary from the video for students to define (sort of a check for understanding) using their notes and or discussion (still in pairs)

5. Reflection: Students identify in their notes what they thought was the most interesting/disturbing/strange thing they learned about Hitler and the SS as a result of the lesson.

The video we use is fantastic; however, if you can't find it, another video about Hitler's plans would be suitable.