In order to truly understand The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, you'll need to provide middle schoolers with background information about the Holocaust. After contributing as many words as they can associate with the Holocaust, such as people involved, reasons for being put into a camp, or other words they know, classmates group the words into categories.

Concepts

the holocaust, Vocabulary, sorting & categorizing, reading comprehension

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Create pairs or groups to think of a longer list of words to contribute
• Assign groups of words to various learners during a research assignment, and have them present what they have learned in front of the class

Classroom Considerations

• Consider leading a lesson about the Holocaust before beginning the novel to enhance the class's prior knowledge

Pros

• Includes a sample list of words for you to add if groups need additional help

Cons

• None

Common Core

RL.7.4 RL.8.4 RL.9-10.4