Lesson plans for ages 12-14 in Language & Literature

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LESSONS 3 and 4

Procedure

Students are asked to give their reactions about their homework reading:

• how would they feel about sharing a cattle car, that still reeked of cattle, with forty people?
• of living for six weeks in this cattle car, never leaving it, spending all the time on a bunk, with nothing to do, no privacy at all, even when going to the toilet?
• nothing to eat except thin cabbage soup once a day, delivered in a rusty pail?
• no running water, except a bucket of water used for both drinking and washing one's face?

Students are given class time to read chapter 3. In their minds, how do the students see Popravka? What do they think of him? If they were in the same situation as the Rudomin family, confronted by Popravka, how would they react to him? Ask the students to write a short account of the thoughts that would be passing through their heads if they were in this situation and had to plan for their immediate future, plan in fact for their survival in this strange new land, faced with harsh, unfriendly people who had the authority over their future?

Homework: Students read chapters 4 and 5.