Grade 8 ELA Summer Assignment

Transcription

1 Grade 8 ELA Summer Assignment Pre-Reading Activity: Explore the Key Terms and Background information (attached below): Night by Elie Wiesel - Background Information: Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet. Sighet was a small town in Transylvania that was then part of Romania but became part of Hungary in Today Sighet is again part of Romania. (See the red dot on the current map of Europe.) Elie and his family spoke Yiddish at home, but they read newspapers and conducted their grocery business in German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Other languages including Ukrainian and Russian were also spoken in the town. Elie s father, Shlomo, was very involved with the Jewish community. Elie studied traditional Jewish texts when he was a child and a teenager: the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), the Talmud (Jewish law), and even the very difficult texts of the Cabbala. Until 1944, the Jews of Hungary were relatively unaffected by Hitler s actions in other parts of Europe against Jews. In March of 1944, however, even the Jews of Hungary became part of Hitler s Final Solution. His solution to the problem of having differences with Jewish people, gypsies, homosexuals, and others was to kill them. Hitler had more than six million people killed. In the spring of 1944, members of the Hungarian Jewish community, the only remaining large Jewish community in continental Europe, were sent to concentration camps in Germany and Poland. Eventually, the Nazis murdered 560,000 Hungarian Jews, most of the prewar Jewish population in Hungary. In Elie s town of Sighet, out of 15,000 individuals, only some members of fifty families survived. Night is the true story written by Elie Wiesel about when he (a fifteen-year-old), his family and many Jewish people of Sighet were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Auschwitz was the site of more than 1,300,000 Jewish deaths. Wiesel s father, mother, and little sister all died in the Holocaust. Wiesel himself survived to tell the story and moved to France. Later, he moved to the United States, and in 1963, Elie became an American citizen. Night shows how a Jewish boy who experiences terrible events comes to question the existence of God and the goodness of humans. Key Terms: Aden: former Middle Eastern British colony, now part of Yemen Aryan: in Nazi ideology, the pure, superior Germanic race Austerlitz: Parisian railroad station for eastbound trains. Austerlitz was the name of a Czech city. Babylonian captivity: Babylonians destroyed the first temple in Jerusalem in 86 B.C.E. and exiled the Jews to Babylonia. Boche or bosche: WWI derogatory French slang for a German, usually a soldier

2 Cabbala: Jewish mysticism, including numerology Charnel house: a building used to house corpses and bones Concentration camp: camps that were primarily used for slave labor, holding camps or transit camps Death camp: camps dedicated to the efficient murder of Jews and other victims; e.g. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmo, Madjanek, Sobibor, Treblinka. The term was also used for concentration camps where thousands died of starvation and disease. Death s head: skull insignia for S.S. brigades working in concentration camps Fascism: a system of government with centralized authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship and usually a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism Gestapo: German acronym for the German Secret State Police, part of the SS notorious for terrorism against enemies of the state Ghetto: the confinement of Jews in a set-apart area of a city. The first exclusively Jewish ghetto was in Venice in Gypsy: pejorative term for Roma or Romany, an ethnic group with roots in India that suffered large losses in the Holocaust Hasidism: movement of Orthodox Judaism with strong mystical and emotional elements. Himmler, Heinrich ( ): head of SS and principal planner of Jews total extermination Hitler, Adolf ( ): dictator of Germany, Horthy, Admiral Miklos ( ): regent of Hungary, , who was forced by the Nazis to relinquish power to the Nylias Hungarian Fascist party after Nazi invasion Job: Biblical figure who has come to symbolize suffering Kaddish: a prayer in Aramaic praising God. The mourner s Kaddish is said for the dead. Kapo: camp prisoner forced to oversee other prisoners Lazarus: a man described in the Books of John and Luke as having been raised from the dead by Jesus Los: German for Go on! Maimonides ( ): Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher Mengele, Dr. Josef ( ): Auschwitz physician notorious for so-called medical experiments performed on inmates, especially twins and dwarves Messiah: Greek translation of Hebrew Mashiach, the anointed one Musulman: German for Muslim. Camp slang for a prisoner who is too weak to walk, work or stand, and therefore marked for death. Believed to derive from prisoner s resemblance to a Muslim in prayer. Nyilas party: Hungarian for Arrow Cross, a fascist anti-semitic party that assumed power in late 1944 and assisted the SS in deportations of Jews Passover: in Hebrew, Pesach. Greek word for the celebration of the exodus of Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Pentecost: in Hebrew, Shavuot, the celebration of the giving of the Torah Phylacteries: in Hebrew, tefillin. Greek word for two black leather cubes worn during daily morning prayer that contain verses from the Torah. Rosh Hashana: Jewish New Year

3 SS: abbreviation of Schutzstaffel (Defense Protective Units). Notorious for implementing European Jews extermination. Spanish Inquisition: brutal campaign by Roman Catholic church to punish nonbelievers including Jews and Muslims Synagogue: a Jewish house of worship and study Talmud: the most important compilation of Jewish oral tradition Temple: holiest place in Judaism, located in Jerusalem. Biblically ordained sacrifices were performed here. Built and destroyed twice. Yellow star: Nazis forced Jews to wear a cloth badge with Jew written in the center of a yellow sixpointed star. Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement. Holiest day of Jewish year when Jews fast and pray for forgiveness for their sins. Zionism: political movement advocating the establishment of a Jewish state Zohar: from the Hebrew meaning light or splendor. One of the major works of the Cabbala. Post-Reading Activity: Argument Essay After reading the novel Night, develop an argument essay response to answer the following question: One of the most tragic themes in Night is Eliezer's discovery of the way that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Argue whether or not this happens to Elie himself. Does he remain a good person, or do his experiences corrupt him? Write an argument to support your claim with clear reasons and relevant textual evidence, including direct quotations with clear citations (A graphic organizer and writing checklist has been included in the resources to help you, it is not mandatory.)

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7 Argument Essay Graphic Organizer Writing Prompt: Topic/Issue: My CLEAR POSITION (thesis/claim) on the position: Reasons or WHY I take this position: EXAMPLES and EVIDENCE Most Significant Counter Argument: Rebuttals to Counter Argument: