
Teaching Night: 2 Ways to Incorporate Facing History and Ourselves with your Night Unit
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night is a powerful and harrowing account of his experiences during the Holocaust. As a high school English teacher, I teach this book at the sophomore level, so my students are roughly the same age as Elie in his memoir. If you are teaching Night this year, keep reading to learn about two powerful activities to incorporate into your unit!
Teaching Night in a high school English classroom provides an opportunity to explore themes of identity, dehumanization, morality, and the consequences of hatred. However, it is also crucial to provide students with historical context to help students can understand not only the longstanding antisemitism in Europe, but also the breakdown of Germany’s government, and its rise to fascism.