Lesson 2

To deepen your understanding of the ideas in this lesson, read Chapter One in
Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior.

A Scene from a Middle School Classroom

?WHY teach this material?

Rationale
This lesson uses a case study of a 7th grade classroom to introduce students to major
themes and questions they will address in this unit. Presenting new concepts and vocabu-
lary to students through an engaging and familiar example is an effective way to lay the
groundwork for studying the complex history of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

LEARNING GOALS:
The purpose of this lesson is to help students:
• Reflect on these guiding question about history and behavior:
• What does it mean to have a “range of choices” about how to act?
• What factors influence decision making?
• Practice these interdisciplinary skills:
• Acting
• Group work
• Vocabulary building
• Journal writing
• Deepen understanding of these key terms. You might select several terms from
this list to focus on in this lesson:
• Membership
• Belonging
• Exclusion
• Inclusion
• Peer pressure
• Conformity
• Ostracism
• Bystander
• Perpetrator
• Victim
• Bullying
(See the main glossary in the unit’s “Introduction” for definitions of these key
terms.)

Lesson 2 • 34
?WHAT is this lesson about?
The material in this lesson originated in a research project conducted by Facing History
and Ourselves between 1996 and 1998.1 During those years, a group of researchers and
Facing History staff studied the impact of Facing History on 8th grade students in an
urban/suburban community near a major metropolitan area. The 19 students in the class
represented a range of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. The study found that
Facing History promoted students’ interpersonal awareness, including their ability to
understand different perspectives and to develop their own meaning of a situation.
Another key finding was that these middle school students used their own peer relation-
ships as a frame of reference for understanding themes relevant to exploring the history of
the rise of the Nazis—themes such as membership, conformity, and stereotypes.

Based on the results of this study

and decades of experience in class-
rooms, we know that using a real
experience from a middle school
classroom can serve as an effective
way to introduce students to
major themes explored in this
unit. Adolescents are particularly
preoccupied with the task of figur-
ing out where they fit in, how
they fit in, and how to balance
their own strengthening personal
identity with the need to belong
to a larger group. In this lesson
and throughout this unit, Facing In Facing History classrooms, students discuss topics relevant to their own lives,
History draws from the issues and such as inclusion, exclusion, and peer pressure.
concerns of adolescence as a way
to increase engagement and
develop understanding of history
and human behavior.

The material in this lesson draws from “The Ostracism Case Study,” a report on an inci-
dent that took place before students took a Facing History course. In this case study, we
hear the voices of 8th grade students as they reflect on a particularly poignant social con-
flict among a group of friends resulting in the ostracism of one of them. [Note: The event
itself occurred during 7th grade, although the impact of this event could be felt in the
8th grade as well.] The voices of these students bring us inside their world and provoke
questions about issues of inclusion, exclusion, conformity, and belonging in adolescence
and beyond. Later in this unit, students will explore how similar issues influenced the
choices made by individuals and groups living in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

Lesson 2 • 35
 Related readings from
Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior
“The In-Group,” pp. 29–31
“Conformity and Identity,” pp. 31–33

?HOW can we help students engage with this material?

Duration: one class period

Materials
Handouts 1–3: A scene from middle school

Opener:
In the previous lesson, students developed or reviewed their classroom contract. Agreeing
on contracts and rules is one way that people form groups or communities. When every-
one signs a classroom contract (and follows its rules) they become members—people who
belong to a specific group. Write the following words on the board: membership, belong-
ing, in-group, out-group. Ask students to respond to the following prompt in their jour-
nals, “When you see these words, what story or moment comes to mind?” Students can
share these stories with a partner. Explain that in this lesson, students will be working
with a story about belonging from a middle school classroom.

Main Activities:
For this lesson, we have broken down “The Ostracism Case Study” into three parts. First,
students will act out the precipitating event. Handout 1 provides a short script with stage
direction for students to follow. Performing this skit requires four students: a narrator,
Sue, Rhonda, and Jill. After the performance, have students answer the questions below
the script, either individually or in small groups. This is an appropriate time to introduce
the idea that individuals (and groups) have a range of choices about how to act. You can
emphasize this point by having students brainstorm all the possible courses of action
available to the girls in this scene. Then, facilitate a class discussion about what students
think might happen next, given this range of choices.

Next, distribute handout 2 and ask the narrator to read the paragraph at the top of the
page. In small groups or individually, students can answer the questions on this page.
After students have had some time to respond to these questions, facilitate a whole class
conversation where students explain why they think Sue was ostracized by the other stu-
dents in her class. This conversation provides an opportunity to present vocabulary that
will be relevant when students learn about the rise of the Nazis. Students’ comments will
likely touch on concepts such as ostracism, conformity, peer pressure, belonging, inclu-
sion, exclusion, membership, bullying, victim, perpetrator, and bystander. Help students
develop their vocabulary by labeling their ideas with these terms. For example, if a stu-
dent suggests that many girls teased Sue because they wanted to “fit in,” you could write
the word “conformity” on the board. Students can help you define new vocabulary by
referring to evidence from the ostracism case study, as well as their personal experiences
and prior knowledge.

Lesson 2 • 36
At this point, we strongly suggest starting a “word wall” in your classroom. A word wall is
an organized collection of words displayed in large letters on a wall or other large display
place in the classroom. The word wall is added to on a regular basis, as students learn
new words and as they revise their understanding of previous vocabulary words. Word
walls can also include images. You might also ask students to experiment with the font
and style of writing words on the wall, so that how the word looks actually represents
something about its meaning. All vocabulary on the word wall should also be recorded in
students’ journals. (See the section “Building Vocabulary” in the introduction for more
ideas about how to structure a working dictionary in students’ journals.)

Follow-Through (in class or at home)

Handout 3 includes seven quotations from the ostracism case study. You could assign
small groups of students a quotation that they will present to the class. During their pre-
sentations, students should read the quotation and suggest what concept/s from the word
wall the quotation represents. Or, you could post these quotations around the room on
large sheets of paper and ask students to walk around the room, recording the concept
that they think that quotation represents as well as any questions or comments the quota-
tion sparks. Finally, you could ask students to select one quotation from this page that
especially interests them. Students could write a journal entry where they respond to the
student who made that remark. What would they want to say to that student? In what
ways can they identify with these words?

You might use this moment to highlight that throughout this unit, students will be learn-
ing about particular events, such as this specific episode in a 7th grade classroom, as well
as about universal themes that apply to many situations across time periods and geo-
graphic locations. Students can reflect on these two dimensions by dividing a page of
their journals in half. Students can label one side “history” or “the past.” On that side
they can respond to the question, “What are three things you will remember about this
event from a 7th grade classroom?” On the other side, students can write the heading
“universal” or “ourselves.” On that side, they can respond to the question, “What ideas
about human behavior—why people do what they do—have been raised by this situation
in a 7th grade classroom?”

Assessment(s)
The depth and breadth of your word wall can be used to measure students’ understand-
ing of new concepts as well as a way to keep track of which themes you have addressed in
detail, and what words or themes you will need to cover in another lesson. For example,
in this lesson you may be able to define conformity and belonging, but your class may not
get to the concept of bystander. The lessons in this unit provide multiple opportunities to
address the same themes. So, any idea you did not get to cover in depth in this lesson,
you can explore more fully in a future lesson.

Collecting the handouts from this lesson or reading students’ journals will provide you
with a sense of how individual students are making sense of this material.

Extensions
Facing History and Ourselves uses particular language to help students understand the
different ways that people experience and respond to injustice:

Lesson 2 • 37
 • Perpetrator: an individual or group who chooses to act in ways that are unjust
• Victim: an individual or group who is wronged or who receives unjust treatment
• Bystander: an individual or group who is aware that injustice is occurring but
chooses not to intervene; someone who “stands by” while injustice happens
• Upstander: an individual or group who chooses to act in ways to prevent or stop
unjust or violent acts

(Note: The definitions provided here are working definitions. You or your students might
find other language to define these terms.)

“The Ostracism Case Study” used in this lesson provides an opportunity to introduce
students to these terms. Drawing from the material in all three handouts, you can ask
small groups to decide which individuals they would put under each category. Encourage
students to think creatively as they go about this task. It is possible that someone could
fall under more than one category. In “The Ostracism Case Study,” students might have a
hard time finding someone who acts as an upstander. You can ask students to consider
why this is the case. What would it have looked like if someone behaved as an upstander?
Why do students believe nobody made this choice? (Remind students that this material is
drawn from a real event.)

Lesson 2 • 38
 Lesson 2: Handout 1
A scene from middle school

Narrator: In December of 7th grade in a public school, Sue and Rhonda considered each other best friends.
They belonged to a popular group of girls, including Jill.
Sue [while writing a note]: Hey Rhonda, What’s up? Nothing much here. Did you hear about Jill? I can’t
believe it. She is breaking up with Travis. How could she break up with him? His mom just died. I think
she’s being really stupid. What do you think? Gotta go, Sue. P.S. Don’t say anything to Jill about this. I
haven’t told her yet that I think she is stupid for breaking up with Travis.
[Sue hands note to Rhonda and walks away. Rhonda reads note. Then Jill walks by.]
Jill: Hey, Rhonda. What’s up?
Rhonda: I was just reading a note from Sue.
Jill: What she’d say?
Rhonda: Well, she asked me not to tell you. I probably shouldn’t say. But, you are my friend and you should
know.
Jill: What is it?
Rhonda: Sue said you are stupid to break up with Travis.

Questions: What do you think will happen next?

1. What could Jill do next? (List 3–5 possibilities.)

What should she do?

2. What could Rhonda do next? (List 3–5 possibilities.)

What should she do?

3. What could Sue do next? (List 3–5 possibilities.)

What should she do?

4. What do you predict will happen next? Do you think this event will affect any other students in the
class or school?

Purpose: To deepen understanding of inclusion and exclusion within social groups. • 39

 Lesson 2: Handout 2
A scene from middle school

Narrator: When Jill found out about Sue’s note, she confronted Sue after school, and they argued in front
of a crowd of students. School staff heard the argument and broke it up. After this argument between Jill
and Sue, Rhonda sided with Jill, and they influenced other girls to do the same. For the rest of 7th grade
and almost all of 8th grade, these girls excluded Sue from her former group of friends, teased and put her
down, avoided and ignored her, spread rumors about her, wrote hurtful letters, and made prank telephone
calls to her home. Other students, including some boys who were not originally involved, joined in. Most
students, if they did not participate directly, kept Sue at a distance and did not stand up for her. Sue went
from being a very strong student to getting poor grades and not wanting to go to school.

Questions:

1. Why do you think this even turned out this way? How can you explain the actions of the girls and boys
in this situation?

2. What about this situation, if anything, feels familiar to you?

3. Do you think this is a real story or a made-up story? Explain your answer.

Purpose: To deepen understanding of inclusion and exclusion within social groups. • 40

Lesson 2: Handout 3
A scene from middle school

Emily: It’s sort of weird, ‘cause you’d never expect somebody who was as popular as she
was to, like, be sort of like, shunned from the group by everyone else, but we sort of like we
all just went against her. She talked about people behind their back . . . but I think other
people did that, too. . . . I really don’t know . . . why we were so willing to jump on her and
attack her more than anyone else.
Ashley: It sort of seemed like it was a cool thing to do . . . to be mean to her. And I guess it
felt good to be able to get your anger out on a person regardless of whether or not they
really deserved to be the person. . . . It sort of seemed like sort of exciting, like it was some-
thing you could talk about.
Erika: There’s a lot of pressure to act a certain way, to be a certain way. . . . You’re like
afraid to say things. . . .
Sara: It seemed like when one or two people decided they didn’t like her, then everybody
else was like, “OK, we don’t like her either,” regardless. And I think a lot of people didn’t
have reasons to dislike her. They just wanted to do it because their friends were doing it
also.
Sue: I think the fact that I am Asian has a lot, actually, to do with it. Not why I was being
picked on, it was more to do with why the fight got as big as it did. I think, I mean, because
I was a minority it was easier for them to pick on me.
Lorna: I saw something happen to another girl in the school that I didn’t really approve of. I
have an idea of who was doing it . . . [but I did not try to stop them.] I didn’t really know
her, so I, like, kind of stayed away from her. . . . I just wasn’t a part of it.
Jill: I know it had a lot to do with me, and there was a lot of teasing that went on that I was
involved with, and I don’t think that was right. She [Sue] was put out, outcasted, and I don’t
think that was right at all. And I know I was teasing her . . . to fit in, but I also did not feel
comfortable saying, “Oh, I’m not going to tease her.” . . . Once we had started, it was sort of
like, you couldn’t stop. It builds and builds until the point where you can’t . . . turn back and
say we’re not going to do this anymore.

Purpose: To deepen understanding of inclusion and exclusion within social groups. • 41

Notes
1
Dennis Barr, Jennifer Bender, Melinda Fine, Lynn Hickey Schultz, Terry Tollefson, and Robert Selman. “A
Case Study of Facing History and Ourselves in an Eighth Grade Classroom: A Thematic and
Developmental Approach to the Study of Inter-group Relations in a Programmatic Context.” (Brookline:
Facing History and Ourselves, unpublished manuscript).

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