Grammar Review for Finals

Subject Verb Agreement:
You can review the rules of SVA here.

Here's the Blue Book of Grammar quiz on SVA.

You can also do interactive exercises on ChompChomp.com.
Exercise 1
http://chompchomp.com/hotpotatoes/sva02.htm

Pronoun Antecedent Agreement:

You can review the rules in a simplified manner on the OWL site.

You can also do some of the interactive quizzes on the ChompChomp.com site. Any of them will be helpful.
Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Exercise 3

Quotation Marks:

The Blue Book of Grammar has an excellent list of the rules.

Then, you can test your knowledge by taking a quiz on quotation marks.

Another quiz on quotation marks. This one is from the OWL at Purdue. They always have great stuff.

Night - Part 6 (pages 81-109)

Part 6 – The Importance of Memory (pages 81-109)

Central Question by emphasizing identity, memory, and the importance of witnessing.

Consider how prisoners struggle to maintain their identity under extraordinary conditions:

• After the forced march, the prisoners are crammed into a barracks. That night Juliek plays a fragment of a Beethoven concerto on the violin he has managed to keep the entire time he was at Auschwitz.
What do you think prompts Juliek to play that evening? What does the music mean to Eliezer? To the other prisoners who hear the sounds? To Juliek?

• In this section of the book, Eliezer tells of three fathers and three sons. He speaks of Rabbi Eliahou and his son, of the father whose son killed him for a piece of bread, and finally of his own father and himself. What words does Eliezer use to describe his response to each of the first two stories? How do these stories affect the way he reacts to his father’s illness? To his father’s death?

• What does Eliezer mean when he writes that he feels free after his father’s death? Is he free of responsibility? Or is he free to go under, to drift into death?

• Eliezer later states, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore.” What does he mean by these words? What do they suggest about his struggle to maintain his identity? Think about what it means to describe one’s image as a “corpse contemplating me.”

• In the next to the last sentence in the book, Eliezer says that when he
looks in a mirror after liberation, he sees a corpse contemplating him. He ends the book by stating, “The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” What does that sentence mean?

• Why is it important to Eliezer to remember? To tell you his story?

• How has he tried to keep you from responding to his story the way he and his father once responded to the one told by Moshe the Beadle? How successful has he been? Discuss why Wiesel titled his autobiographical story “Night.”

Consider the bigger picture – Looking at the story as a whole

 Night focuses on a single year in Eliezer’s life. Identify some of the internal and external conflicts he faced that year.

 Compare and contrast your earlier pictures of Eliezer with the way he describes himself at the end of the book. How do your pictures and descriptions help you understand the changes he refers to?

 How did the relationship between Eliezer and his father change in the course of the year on which the book focuses? How do you account for that change?

 What is the metaphorical meaning of the title, Night?


 Why do you think Wiesel tells his story from the first person perspective? If Night were written in the third person, would it be more or less believable? Why do you think Elie Wiesel begins Night with the story of Moshe the Beadle? What lessons does the narrator seem to learn from Moshe’s experiences in telling his own story?

 Write your responses to this book. You might also list questions and comments.

Night - Part 5

Part 5 – Faith and Survival at Auschwitz (pages 63-80)

Consider the kapos and the young pipel who are hanged. Why might this be such a big deal even though thousands of others have already been killed? Whoa re they bystanders? Who are the victims in the novel?

Consider how Eliezer struggles with his faith.

• Why does Eliezer direct his anger toward God rather than the Germans? What does his anger suggest about the depths of his faith?

• At the beginning of Night, Eliezer describes himself as someone who believes “profoundly.” How have his experiences at Auschwitz affected that faith?

• Describe the encounter between father and son after the services. Why does Eliezer say that the two of them “had never understood one another so clearly”? Why does Eliezer describe himself as “afraid” of having to wish his father a happy New Year?

• How does Eliezer respond when he fears his father has been “selected”? When he discovers that he has indeed been “selected”? When he learns his father has avoided the “final selection”? Why did his father give him the spoon and the knife as his inheritance? What is the significance of such a gift in Auschwitz?

• How has the relationship between Eliezer and his father changed during their time at Auschwitz? What has each come to represent to the other? Consider how Eliezer and his father make a decision that will decide their fate.

• What choices are open to Eliezer and his father when the camp is evacuated? How is the decision to leave made? Who makes the choice? Is it the “right” choice? Or is it an example of a “choiceless choice”? How does the decision help us understand why many survivors attribute their survival to luck?

• Write your responses to this section of the book. You might also list questions and comments on this part of the book.

• Night is written in short, simple sentences. Critics call this kind of writing “controlled.” That means that every word has been carefully chosen for a precise meaning. How do you explain the decision to
write in a “controlled” or measured way to describe experiences that are beyond control?

Night by Elie Wiesel - Part 4 - – Identity and Indifference (pages 45-62)

To be indifferent—for whatever reason—is to deny not only the
validity of existence, but also its beauty. Betray, and you are a man;
torture your neighbor, you’re still a man. Evil is human, weakness is
human; indifference is not.
- Elie Wiesel, The Town Beyond the Wall

The opposite of good is not evil but indifference.

Consider the relationship between Eliezer and his father.

• How do the changes in his relationship with his father affect the way Eliezer sees himself as an individual? What is prompting these changes? What does Eliezer mean when he refers to his father as “his weak point”? Why has he come to view love as a weakness? Consider how the process of dehumanization affects Eliezer and his fellow prisoners.

Consider the daily life in the camp:

• Eliezer describes two hangings in this section. He tells the reader that he witnessed many others. Yet he chose to write only about these two. Why are these two hangings so important to him? How do they differ from the others? Why do you think Eliezer and the other prisoners respond so emotionally to the hanging of the child?

• Why do you think the Germans chose to hang a few prisoners in public at a time when they are murdering thousands each day in the crematoriums?

• When the young boy is hanged, a prisoner asks, “For God's sake, where is God?” Eliezer hears a voice answer, “Where He is? This is where–-hanging here on this gallows.…” What does this statement mean? Is it a statement of despair? Anger? Or hope? Discuss the meaning of the word resistance at Auschwitz.

• The word hunger takes on new meaning in this section of the book. What does the word mean to Eliezer? What other words have taken on new meaning in this section of the book?


Consider the idea of Resistance:

• What does the word resistance mean to you? Some insist that “armed resistance” is the only form of legitimate resistance. Others stress the idea that resistance requires organization. Still others argue that
resistance is more about the will to live and the power of hope than it is about either weapons or organization. Which view is closest to your own?



• Use your ideas about and definitions of resistance to decide whether
each of the following is an act of resistance:
—Eliezer’s refusal to let the dentist remove his gold crown
—Eliezer’s decision to give up the crown to protect his father
—The French girl’s decision to speak in German to Eliezer after he is beaten
—The prisoner’s choosing to die for soup
—The prisoners who attempted to stockpile weapons, for which they were later hanged

• In each act of resistance that you identified, who or what are the prisoners resisting?

• How does Wiesel try to help us understand why it is so difficult to judge those who “tried to play the executioner’s game”?

• Wiesel writes that he prefers to remember “the kindness and compassion” of his fellow prisoners rather than those who were cruel or violent. How does he describe both groups in this reading? Why does he view both as victims?

• What type of preparation does it take to plan such an act of resistance? To carry it out?

• Do you think the rebels thought they would succeed? If so, how? If not, why did they risk their lives for a hopeless endeavor?

• Some scholars believe that the right question to ask about resistance is not why there were not more such acts but why there were any at all. What do you think they mean by that statement? Do you agree?

Night by Elie Wiesel - Part 3

Part 3 – Initiation to Auschwitz (pages 21-43)

Important themes developed in this section include barriers to knowing, dehumanization, and the relationship between father and son. Explore the relationship between knowing, madness, and belief.

Consider the Dehumanization:

 Why does Madame Schächter scream? Why does she later become silent and withdrawn? How do people react the first time she screams? How do they respond when her screams continue?

 On page 27 it reads, “The cherished objects we had brought with us thus far were left behind in the train, and with them, at last, our illusions.” Explain what this means? Be sure to write about the emotional shift that has happened.

 How do the “veteran” prisoners respond when they discover the newcomers have never heard of Auschwitz? How do you account for their reaction?

 Just after they arrive at Birkenau, Eliezer and his father experience the horrors of the crematory,

Babies, Yes, I saw it – saw it with my own eyes…those children in the flames… (p.30)

Summarize how Eliezer’s physical, mental and emotional reaction to the event. How does the story change at this point in the book? How is Elieizer changed?

 Why don’t they tell the new arrivals what to expect?

 Why do you think the Germans take away the inmates’ personal belongings? Their clothing? Why do they cut off their hair? Tattoo a number on each person’s arm? How does Eliezer respond to the removal of his clothes and other belongings? To the shaving of his hair? The number tattooed on his arm? How do you account for these responses? What is the purpose of this?

 The word night takes on new meaning in this section of the book. Wiesel, in recounting the first night in the concentration camp says, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that has turned my life into one long night.…” What does it mean for a life to be turned into “one long night”? Explain the metaphor in relation to this novel. What has the word come to symbolize?

 Describe the relationship between Eliezer and his father.

 How does Eliezer respond when his father is beaten for the first time? How does that response affect the way he sees himself? What does he fear is happening to him?

 Why do Elizer and his father lie to his cousin? What would be the purpose or benefit of such a lie?

What did you find surprising or difficult to understand in this section of the book?

Night - Part 2: Identity

Night by Elie Wiesel
(The guiding questions for the novel were largely inspired by those found in the Night Study Guide published by Facing History and Ourselves, http://www.facinghistory.org/resources/publications/night)

Part 2 – Defining Identity (pages 1-20)

Explore the factors that shape Eliezer’s identity.

Consider Eliezer and his family –
Write a paragraph that addresses the following points:
• Describe Eliezer and his family.
• How does he spend his time?
• Who does he relate to most readily? Why?
• Explain Eliezer’s family’s place in the Jewish community. Be sure to address his father’s role within that community.
• List other details that seem important from this section.

Consider Moshe the Beadle –
Write a paragraph that addresses the following points:
• How does Eliezer describe Moshe the Beadle?
• Why do you think Elie Wiesel begins Night with the story of Moshe the Beadle?
• Why do most people ignore the story Moshe the Beadle wants to tell?
• Why do you think they refuse to believe Moshe when he returns to Sighet?
• Do you think people really believe that Moshe is lying to them?
• What is the difference between saying that someone is lying and saying that you cannot believe what he or she is saying?
• Why is it so important to Moshe that he be believed?
• What lessons does the narrator seem to learn from Moshe’s experiences in telling his own story?

Consider the Craft o f the Writing –
Write a paragraph that addresses the following points:
• Why do you think Elie Wiesel tells his story in the first person perspective? If Night were written in the third person, would it be more or less believable?
• The word night is a key word in this section of the book. What does the word mean early in the first chapter? How does the meaning change as the story progresses?
• The narrator from time to time breaks away from the story to tell the
• reader about something that happened later or to ask a question.
• Why do you think he has chosen to do so? How is he preparing you for the rest of the story?

Our Study of Night by Elie Wiesel, Part 1 - Introduction

THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

- Martin Niemoeller, a Lutheran minister

Part 1 – The Role of Tenacity, Resiliency and Hope – Child Survivors and the Need to Be Heard

We will begin the unit with stories of the Children of the Holocaust. Most of the stories are those about children who survived the Holocaust. Some are stories about how children died. Each student will be given a story and a form to create short summaries, as well as their answers to the over-arching questions about their experiences.

We will begin with a discussion over the following points:

Pre- Reading:
1. What elements do children need to succeed (e.g., good home, loving parents, stable environment, praise to build self-esteem)?
2. What are some vital physical components and emotional components?
3. What might be the immediate consequences of depriving children of these elements?
4. What might some of the long-term consequences be?


Children of the Holocaust Activity:

Each person in the class has been given a story about a child who experienced the Holocaust. There is some duplication. You need to read the story you were given and then visit with other people in the class about the stories they have. You need to write a very brief summary for at least 5 survivors and 2 children who perished. The children are:
Ursula Adler
Anne Berkovitz
Harry Bibring
Helga Carden
Anna
Alex Groth
Hedy
Kayla
Alfred Ament
Augusta Feldhorn
Jacqueline Morgenstern
Bronislaw Honig
Eva and Abraham Beem
Carlos D’Angeli

We will then have the following discussion:
• Despite differences in age, what features did most of the children have in common?
• How did each child attempt to cope with his or her circumstances and the problems he or she faced?
• Does being hidden away from one's family make a difference in how each child coped?
• What do you think was crucial to the survival of each child?
• What similarities did you see between the stories of the children who did not survive?

The stories and an adapted form of the questions came from the following web sites:
http://www.adl.org/children_holocaust/teach_after6.asp
http://holocaust-children.tripod.com/

A Short Introduction to the novel, the author and his Nobel Peace Prize:
I will tell the students a bit about Elie Weisel and his experience, including the process of writing the novel. Then we will read his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize. It can be found at:
http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/nobelprizespeech.aspx

Then we discuss:
 Why did Mr. Weisel feel the need to tell his story?
 According to him, what does neutrality do?
 What does Mr.Weisel call us to do?
 What do you think is the main message of this speech?