Concept Formation Lesson
April 23, 2010
Greenhills Private School in Ann Arbor, MI
Part I: Students
This semester, we are observing Dr. Shreiner’s tenth-grade world history classes at Greenhills School. These students are part of the honors history program, which allows for a faster-paced curriculum and higher expectations of the students. Dr. Shreiner teaches this course to two classes, each with eighteen students. In order to plan an effective lesson and create appropriate assessments, it is important that we take into consideration the students’ backgrounds and experiences.
In both classes, the majority of the students are white (with 15 students from Period A and 16 students from Period B), with only a few students of Asian or African descent. This distribution is representative of the school as a whole; according to Greenhill’s website, 69% of students are White, with another 12% identifying themselves as Asian American and 6% as African American. What is interesting to us, however, is the fact that several of Dr. Shreiner’s students are Armenian; as our lesson will investigate the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide, it will be both useful and important to draw on these students’ backgrounds, thus allowing the material to be relevant to the students of the class.
Perhaps more striking is the gender distribution in Dr. Shreiner’s classes. Period A has 13 girls and 5 boys, while Period B has 15 girls and only 3 boys. According to Dr. Shreiner, this distribution is uncharacteristic of the school as a whole; while Greenhills High School has a greater number of girls, the numbers are more equal than what is represented in Dr. Shreiner’s classrooms. Dr. Shreiner claims that the male students at Greenhills tend to enroll in upper-level math and science classes, rather than in honors history or social studies. This gender distribution has significant impacts on the classroom dynamics; for example, in both classes, the girls tend to be quieter and more thoughtful, while the boys are often more outspoken and opinionated. Thus, as Period A has a greater number of males (even two more is significant in such a small class), that class tends to have more class debates and livelier class discussions. During our lesson, we plan on utilizing this outspoken nature of the class by having the students discuss the material and form an opinion about the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide. On the other hand, Period B, with fewer males, tends to be more reserved and class discussions seem more strained. For this class, we may have to alter our lesson plan—perhaps by having a more structured class discussion or by having the students share their ideas to a partner in a Turn-and-Talk activity—to accommodate the students’ personalities and learning styles.
The socioeconomic status of these students is assumed to be middle to upper class. These students pay thousands of dollars a year in tuition, suggesting that they are from higher-income families. The majority of students (67% according to the school’s website) come from the surrounding affluent community.
The students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes have an exceptionally good understanding of historical content and historical thinking. The students have previously taken American history courses, which allows for Dr. Shreiner to draw from their prior knowledge. For example, the students have already learned about World War I from the American perspective in their previous classes; while teaching students about the war from a global perspective, Dr. Shreiner was able to utilize what they already knew to build a deeper understanding of the material. Even though they are only in tenth grade, the students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes are able to think critically about historical content; evident through class discussions, these students are able to see larger historical trends such as change over time and cause and effect. Furthermore, several of the students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes are taking the Advanced Placement test for World History, illustrating their extensive knowledge of historical content as well as their advanced ability to work with historical documents and think analytically about historical concepts. Following Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking—knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—we believe that these students are capable of higher-level thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation; we plan on using the students’ advanced cognitive abilities during our lesson and the corresponding assessments.
During our time in Dr. Shreiner’s class, we were given the opportunity to read and grade an essay the students had written; the essay prompt was taken from a previous AP test and was a Document Based Question (DBQ) that required students to utilize a set of primary documents to form an argument. For the most part, the students wrote thoughtful, well-written, and well-supported essays. Most students wrote strong thesis statements and incorporated quotes and information from a multiple of sources. However, the vast majority of students were unable to effectively analyze the documents and explicitly show how the documents supported their larger argument. However, it is important to consider that this assignment was the first time the students wrote an essay in class; this may have caused some students to feel pressured and to not perform as well as they could have with more time.
Regardless, it is important to keep in mind the students’ difficulty with this part of the assignment as we prepare for our lesson and our corresponding assessment. In our lesson, the assessment will be similar to this essay; writing a formal letter (see Parts V and VI for more information), the students will be expected to incorporate and analyze a variety of different documents and information. Thus, the students may have a difficult time analyzing the documents, and it may be important for us to scaffold the material and illustrate how to analyze the documents effectively.
According to Dr. Shreiner, the majority of these students are very extrinsically motivated by grades. At such a school as Greenhills—where 100% of the students are going to college after graduation—grades are very important. For example, several students in Dr. Shreiner’s class—in particular, three girls from Period B—often go to Dr. Shreiner with anxiety issues when they receive any grade given to them that’s lower than an A-. However, it was clear from our observations in Dr. Shreiner’s class that the students are also intrinsically motivated to work hard and to succeed. The majority of the class, for example, are conscientious students that work hard and always seem to do their best, even for assignments that are graded only for completion; this suggests that these students are not only motivated by grades, but also by internal satisfaction and enjoyment. In our lesson, it will be important to build from this intrinsic motivation and create a lesson that will engage and interest students.
Part II: Student Learning Objectives and Instructional Goals
After the lesson, students will be able to:
-explain the definition of genocide
-evaluate if the 1915 events in Armenia should be recognized as genocide
1. The lecture and class discussion on the first day will guide students through a concept formation, so students will be able to explain the definition of genocide, both by listing characteristics and known examples. The students will be able to form an understanding of genocide and use that criterion to decide if they feel the action towards Armenians fits this classification. Also, through the lecture on the Armenian Genocide, students will learn about what happened and why. This relates to the HSCE 7.1.3 which has students “analyze the causes and consequences of the genocides of Armenians, Romas (Gypsies), and Jews”. Once this is established, the students will be able to explain why the Turkish government continues to deny the action, and why many Armenians continue to push the importance of International recognition as genocide. The students will be able to propose ideas that support or denounce actions taken by the United States as the mediator in the current debate. This relates to HSCE CG4, Conflict, Cooperation, and Security, asking students to analyze the causes and challenges of continuing and new conflicts by describing:=
● Tensions resulting from ethnic, territorial, religious, and/or nationalist differences
● Causes of and responses to ethnic cleansing/genocide/mass extermination
● Local and global attempts at peacekeeping, security, democratization, and administering international justice and human rights
2. Students will be able to evaluate if this should be formally recognized as genocide or not, using these other recognized genocides, weighing the criteria, and explaining how they came to this conclusion in a letter. This will be assessed through their use of evidence from primary sources, lectures, and class discussions. The students will be able to make distinctions between the way the world reacted to the Armenian Genocide versus other genocides that have occurred in the 20th Century. This relates to the HSCE 7.2.4 Response to Genocide, which ask students to investigate development and enactment of Hitler’s “final solution” policy, and the responses to genocide by the Allies, the U.S. government, international organizations, and individuals (e.g., liberation of concentration camps, Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, establishment of state of Israel). (National Geography Standard 13, p. 210)
Part III: Explanation of the Intellectual Problem, Concept, and Facts under Study
Intellectual Problem: Because our lesson fit within the overarching unit Dr. Shreiner was teaching on genocide, there are a number of intellectual problems that we focused our teaching around. These included “what is genocide?”, “why was the 20th century the century of genocide?”, “how has the international community tried to prevent genocide, and why have efforts to prevent it failed?”, and “what can be done to end such atrocities forever?”. Dr. Shreiner provided our group with these; however, we felt that our lesson called for its own originally developed intellectual problem. Therefore, we focused on two in particular. They were “what is genocide?” and “what are the numerous implications of calling an event genocide in the world we live in today?”
The intellectual problems we presented the students were definitely used to hook the students into the subject. Our goal was to use one example of a contested genocide, the Armenian Genocide, to offer the students a platform to discuss and analyze the intellectual problems we presented them with.
In terms of the actual concept formation, Kristin used the question of “what is genocide?” to offer an explanation of how the term actually came to be defined throughout history. Many students were surprised to see that the term did not even exist until Raphael Lemkin came up with it in 1944. The second intellectual problem, “what are the numerous implication of calling an event a genocide in the world we live in today?”, was the question that was most closely related to the content we worked on with the students once they had the base knowledge that the concept formation offered. A mini lecture was given in which students were given a background history on the Armenian Genocide as well as the tensions between Turkey, the United States, and the world as a whole that surround the subject of calling the act genocide. The texts we supplied the students with dealt solely with the debate between Turkey and the United States, which offered yet another source of information with which they could begin to form their opinion. We focused our driving questions around asking the students throughout the lecture and the following day’s activities to keep in mind what the implications would be for both sides in calling it genocide. Asking questions such as “what would this mean for Turkey?” and “what are the factors that are coming into play for why the U.S. may not be willing to formally recognize this as genocide?” forced the students to not only see the topic from both perspectives but also made them understand the numerous implications both sides might face. The use of these driving questions allowed the students to look past their own personal opinions and forced them to look deeply into the intellectual problem from an informed viewpoint.
Explanation of the concept: The students are going to be working with the concept of genocide for the next few weeks, but for the two days, we are going to look in particular at one example that has generated a largely contested debate over whether or not it should be called a genocide. The term “genocide” did not actually exist until 1944 when a Polish Jewish scholar named Raphael Lemkin coined the term in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Today, the United Nations has come up with its own interpretation of the term, which is based upon Lemkin’s definition but is a bit more extensive.
The United Nations defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group such as:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction
- Imposing measures to prevent births
- Forcible transferring children to another group"
The Armenian Genocide is a very interesting example to work with for us because of the fact that although some believe it was an act of genocide (based upon many of these key attributes), others, especially the Turkish government, have failed to accept that the event ever occurred. We are going to be looking at this example first through the lens of these critical attributes to decide whether or not we believe the act was genocide but then focus our attention on the events surrounding this debate.
The United States has yet to formally recognize the acts as genocide and have witnessed other nations, such as France, severely strain their relations with the Turkish government over doing so. It is important for us to look into how this conflict began, who was involved, and what the U.S. has invested in its relations with Turkey so that we can develop our own informed opinion on the subject.
The concepts that we will be working with fit within the Michigan HSCE’s as well. We are focusing on Era 7 - Global Crisis and Achievement. We will look in particular at sections 7.1.1 and 7.1.3 in order to understand the expanding role of state power and the impact on individuals’ lives (7.1.1) as well as the causes and consequences of genocide during the 20th century (7.1.3).
Part IV: Texts
New York Times article: For homework, students will be expected to read the New York Times article “House Panel Says Armenian Deaths Were Genocide”. This article discusses the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide and the possibility of the US recognizing the 1915 events as genocide. The article begins by reporting on the recent House vote and gives background information about the historical event; then, after describing Turkey’s perspective, the author explains the implications of calling something genocide. By framing the discussion around Turkey’s perspective and the global responses, the article addresses the intellectual problem “what are the implications of calling something genocide?”. Furthermore, while not explicitly addressed, the article responds to the question “what is genocide?” through its description of the historical event. This article will give students one example of genocide, which will help them build an understanding of the concept as a whole.
Key concepts of this article include “alliances”, “moral obligation”, and most obviously, “genocide”. Key terms of this article include “the War in Iraq”, “reconciliation” and “condemn”, as well as political jargon such as “bill”, “resolution”, and “bilateral relationship”. To fully comprehend the article, it is important that students understand these key terms and technical vocabulary. Thus, it may be beneficial to discuss these key terms as a class before students read the article individually; by asking the class to collectively determine what each of these terms mean, each student will have a better chance to comprehend the deeper meaning of the article.
Ultimately, the article is very straightforward and informative, which will provide students with a basic understanding of the controversy. However, like any news article or any interpretation of history, this article has a slight bias towards recognizing the Armenian genocide. By referring to the genocide as “a dark, century-old chapter of Turkish history” and explaining how “Turkey’s turning a blind eye”, the author of the article is illustrating his opinion and his purpose of writing the article. When introducing this article, it will be important to remind students to properly source; on the other hand, it could be beneficial to assign students reading roles—such as sourcerer, corroborator, and contextualizer—as suggested by Bob Bain in his article Into the Breach. By considering who wrote the article and why the article was written, students will have a deeper understanding of the article’s content.
As this is a relatively formal article from the New York Times, the article may pose several challenges for students. For example, this article assumes that the reader has background knowledge about the War in Iraq and US’s relations with Turkey. While the article briefly addresses how the US has military bases in Turkey, it does not explicitly make the connection of how the military bases affects the War in Iraq. To help students overcome this obstacle, we will provide the class with a supplemental text from the CHOICES textbook (see below). This textbook will provide basic background information that will help build students’ understanding. However, it still may be important for us to help the students make this connection during a class discussion; by asking guiding questions such as “why are US relations with Turkey important?” and “what else is going on in that part of the world?”, we will be able to scaffold the material and help the students recognize the deeper implications of this historical conflict.
BBC article: The BBC article Turkey Angry at the US Armenian Genocide Move got right at the intellectual problem we presented the students of “what are the numerous implications of calling an event a genocide in the world we live in today?”. It focused on the Turkish response to a resolution that had passed through the U.S. House of Representatives, which would call for the formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. government. Within it, there were numerous implications for the U.S. such as warnings by the Turkish government to cease their aid in the War in Iraq as well as the cancelation of orders for American helicopters. What this article also pointed out was the fact that part of the goal of the movement to get the act recognized was geared towards getting financial retribution for Armenians living today, pointing out a major negative implication for the Turkish government. The tone of the article followed an unbiased path and focused on the implications both sides might face if the resolution was turned into legislation. One of the greatest strengths that this article possesses is that it takes neither side of the argument and simply states what implications each side faces in terms of formally recognizing the genocide.
This text, while greatly informative, did posses numerous technical terms that could have easily confused the students as they were reading through it. One example of these, the term “resolution”, may lead students to become confused. Some may believe that if a resolution passed in the House of Representatives, then it became a law although this is not the case. In order to alleviate this confusion, students were given an explanation of what a resolution is and what steps must be taken in order to have it become an act of legislation in the mini lecture. Another challenge that this text presented was the fact that students would need to have an understanding of the current events of today, especially the Iraq War that the U.S. currently finds itself involved in. If a student did not understand the close proximity Turkey holds with Iraq as well as the military needs that Turkey provides the U.S., then the implications of the resolution would hold little weight in developing their decisions. This challenge was also met by using maps within the mini lecture to show how close Turkey is in relation to Iraq as well a slide that offered them facts such as how seventy percent of all U.S. military air supplies for the Iraq War go through bases in Turkey.
CHOICES textbook: The ‘Choices’ article “The Armenian Genocide” is the text we used to give students a background and in depth understanding of the event. It was written by historians to address the concept of forgotten genocide. The intellectual problem focuses on the world’s response to the Armenian Genocide, asking why foreign nations, specifically the United States, did not get involved. One key idea from this reading is the significant amount of Armenians killed, which is over 1.5 million people or 2/3 of the population. The lasting idea that resulted led to Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jewish race from Europe, stating that no one remembers the Armenian Genocide. The second key idea focuses on the United States reaction to the events, as they failed to take a firm stance to end or intervene. This was largely in part because of President Wilsons’s neutrality position to avoid bringing the United States into WWI. The third key idea has to do with the rise of the Young Turks to power in the Ottoman Empire. This outlines the rise of nationalism in the region, and plan to deport Armenians.
The tone of the article is informational, not slanted or with agenda, it is to present facts. The authors keep the text clear of assumptions, and bias. The few parts of the text with a different tone or voice are contained in quotations from Turkish officials or New York Times articles which balance each other. The Times article talks about the genocide as an atrocity, and Turkish officials taking a hard-line stance on the importance of the actions. The key words in the text include; Genocide, Deportation, Relocation. The technical terms include; Sovereignty, Neutrality, Massacre, and Constitutionalism.
This text challenged us to think about a part of history that took place in a time that has been traditionally dominated by other events. We had never heard of the Armenian Genocide, so we were also learning about the topic during the days before teaching the students. It was also tough to grasp some concepts, because WWI was beginning at this same time, and it is tough to think of the events independently. It requires that the reader bring an understanding of historical events, such as the Holocaust, WWI, and other genocides. Some challenges that high school readers may face include terminology, geography, religious background and foreign relations background. Some of the terms in the reading may be unfamiliar to students, such as genocide, sovereignty, neutrality, or Mohammedanism. The geography of this World region could make it very difficult to fully grasp the relocation process. We are certain that most students do not know how far a march from Armenia to Syria would be. The largest contributing factor to the genocide is religious intolerance, as Turkey is Muslim, and Armenians are the Christian minority. Students may not know enough about religious differences or the history of religious conflicts that allow this reading to make sense. The last challenge for students would stem from a lack of knowledge in International Affairs, specifically the U.S. policy at the time of neutrality acts and Monroe Doctrine decision making.
Before reading the text, it would be beneficial for us to put the key words on the board and have a discussion to come up with definitions as a class. Next, we would ask the students what they know about genocide and what examples they could come up with. This would be a good way to gauge where the students are, so we can guide them through the text. We would proceed by creating a reading guide that asks guiding questions as they move through the document. This type of note-taking should make sure the students pay attention to the main points and begin to think about how to answer the questions that will directly feed into the assignment.
Part V: The Lesson
Day One
1. Free-Write activity
At the beginning of class, students will respond to the following questions:
-What is genocide?
-What genocides have you heard of?
The purpose of this Free-Write activity is to draw on students’ prior knowledge and prompt them to think critically about the concept.
2. Discussion of Free-Write responses
We will ask for volunteers to share their thoughts and ideas. Essentially, by listening to the various versions of how to define genocide, students will begin thinking about the complexity of such a concept.
3. Mini-Lecture: Where did the term come from?
To begin the concept formation, we will investigate where the term genocide came from
-First, we will break down the term itself. (For this part of the lecture, we will ask student volunteers what the prefix and the suffix mean.)
“geno” -- Greek for “group” or “family” (such as genetics or genotypes)
“cide” -- Latin for “killing” (such as suicide or pesticide)
-Then, we will see when the term first was used
-Raphael Lemkin
-Axis Rule of Occupied Europe, 1944
-legal analysis of the Nazis’ actions during the Holocaust
-term used during the Nuremburg Trials (For this, we will pause and ask the class what the Nuremburg Trials are, since they have yet to cover the material.)
4. Mini-Lecture: Definition of Genocide
While Dr. Shreiner did not want us to teach a standard deductive concept formation lesson, we utilized aspects of this technique. Similar to a concept formation lesson, we provided students with a definition of the concept.
-The United Nation’s Interpretation, 1948
Any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, such as:
-killing members of the group
-causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
-deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction
-imposing measures to prevent births
-forcibly transferring children to another group
-As this interpretation is very vague, we will also provide students with a working definition of the concept, created by various scholars, historians, and politicians:
1. Deliberate and organized
2. Intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
3. Carried out by an armed state or other authority
4. Against an unarmed, civilian group
5. Destruction by means of mass murder, forced deportation, systemic rape, or economic/ biological subjugation
5. Power Point: The Armenian Genocide “The Forgotten Genocide”
· Begin with why this matters
-hammer home the numbers of 2/3 of the overall population being wiped out
-the key point here is to mention that fact that today Turkey denies the acts occurred
-its against the law to say it’s a genocide in Turkey
-called the forgotten genocide because some have tried to deny it, letting it become lost in history until recently
· Outline what we’ll go over
-Offer explanation of who the Armenians are
-Main point: Christian minority group in a mostly Islamic nation
-Second class citizens: couldn’t get jobs as easily, harder to get quality education.
-Use map to show where Armenians were located
-Makes sure to not that these are present day boundaries
Day Two
Day two of our lesson begins with Derek leading a discussion on the students’ previous nights’ reading from the NY Times, BBC, and Choices articles
Part VI: Assessment
To determine students’ understanding of the material, we decided to utilize a variety of informal and formal assessments. To begin our lesson, we will have the students respond to the following Free-Write questions: “what is genocide?” and “what genocides have you heard of?”. The purpose of this Free-Write activity is to prompt students to think critically about the concepts and to draw on their prior knowledge. As this informal assessment will be at the beginning of the lesson, it will not assess what the students learned, but it will give us a better sense of their previous experiences dealing with this concept; we, then, will utilize the students’ responses to determine what they already know and what information we should have a greater focus on.
For homework the first night, students will be expected to read three documents—an article from the New York Times, an article from BBC News, and a supplementary text from the CHOICES reading. From their readings, they will then choose five pros and five cons for President Obama recognizing the 1915 events in Armenia as genocide. This assignment will informally assess the students’ understanding of the readings as well as of the concept as a whole. Following Bloom’s Taxonomy, this assignment requires students to analyze information and apply what they learned to a real situation. The following day, we will lead a brief discussion where students share what they come up; this is also an informal assessment because it will help us determine students’ understanding of the material and their ability to see the deeper implications of the concept.
A formal, authentic assessment will come on the second day of our lesson. According to the Pearson text, authentic assessments are those that “focus on the application of understandings and skills to real problems in “real world” contextual settings” (Pearson, 2). Thus, we decided to create an assessment where students write a letter to President Obama, stating their opinion regarding the controversy. Taking on the role of an “informed citizen”, students will apply what they learned in class to a current, important issue. This assessment will require students to form an opinion, use the critical attributes of the concept genocide, and utilize supporting evidence from the readings. Following Bloom’s Taxonomy, this assessment will require higher-level cognitive tasks such as evaluation, synthesis, and analysis.
> Reflection of Lesson
For more information about Greenhills Private School, visit their website.
Greenhills Private School in Ann Arbor, MI
Part I: Students
This semester, we are observing Dr. Shreiner’s tenth-grade world history classes at Greenhills School. These students are part of the honors history program, which allows for a faster-paced curriculum and higher expectations of the students. Dr. Shreiner teaches this course to two classes, each with eighteen students. In order to plan an effective lesson and create appropriate assessments, it is important that we take into consideration the students’ backgrounds and experiences.
In both classes, the majority of the students are white (with 15 students from Period A and 16 students from Period B), with only a few students of Asian or African descent. This distribution is representative of the school as a whole; according to Greenhill’s website, 69% of students are White, with another 12% identifying themselves as Asian American and 6% as African American. What is interesting to us, however, is the fact that several of Dr. Shreiner’s students are Armenian; as our lesson will investigate the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide, it will be both useful and important to draw on these students’ backgrounds, thus allowing the material to be relevant to the students of the class.
Perhaps more striking is the gender distribution in Dr. Shreiner’s classes. Period A has 13 girls and 5 boys, while Period B has 15 girls and only 3 boys. According to Dr. Shreiner, this distribution is uncharacteristic of the school as a whole; while Greenhills High School has a greater number of girls, the numbers are more equal than what is represented in Dr. Shreiner’s classrooms. Dr. Shreiner claims that the male students at Greenhills tend to enroll in upper-level math and science classes, rather than in honors history or social studies. This gender distribution has significant impacts on the classroom dynamics; for example, in both classes, the girls tend to be quieter and more thoughtful, while the boys are often more outspoken and opinionated. Thus, as Period A has a greater number of males (even two more is significant in such a small class), that class tends to have more class debates and livelier class discussions. During our lesson, we plan on utilizing this outspoken nature of the class by having the students discuss the material and form an opinion about the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide. On the other hand, Period B, with fewer males, tends to be more reserved and class discussions seem more strained. For this class, we may have to alter our lesson plan—perhaps by having a more structured class discussion or by having the students share their ideas to a partner in a Turn-and-Talk activity—to accommodate the students’ personalities and learning styles.
The socioeconomic status of these students is assumed to be middle to upper class. These students pay thousands of dollars a year in tuition, suggesting that they are from higher-income families. The majority of students (67% according to the school’s website) come from the surrounding affluent community.
The students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes have an exceptionally good understanding of historical content and historical thinking. The students have previously taken American history courses, which allows for Dr. Shreiner to draw from their prior knowledge. For example, the students have already learned about World War I from the American perspective in their previous classes; while teaching students about the war from a global perspective, Dr. Shreiner was able to utilize what they already knew to build a deeper understanding of the material. Even though they are only in tenth grade, the students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes are able to think critically about historical content; evident through class discussions, these students are able to see larger historical trends such as change over time and cause and effect. Furthermore, several of the students in Dr. Shreiner’s classes are taking the Advanced Placement test for World History, illustrating their extensive knowledge of historical content as well as their advanced ability to work with historical documents and think analytically about historical concepts. Following Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the Six Levels of Thinking—knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—we believe that these students are capable of higher-level thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation; we plan on using the students’ advanced cognitive abilities during our lesson and the corresponding assessments.
During our time in Dr. Shreiner’s class, we were given the opportunity to read and grade an essay the students had written; the essay prompt was taken from a previous AP test and was a Document Based Question (DBQ) that required students to utilize a set of primary documents to form an argument. For the most part, the students wrote thoughtful, well-written, and well-supported essays. Most students wrote strong thesis statements and incorporated quotes and information from a multiple of sources. However, the vast majority of students were unable to effectively analyze the documents and explicitly show how the documents supported their larger argument. However, it is important to consider that this assignment was the first time the students wrote an essay in class; this may have caused some students to feel pressured and to not perform as well as they could have with more time.
Regardless, it is important to keep in mind the students’ difficulty with this part of the assignment as we prepare for our lesson and our corresponding assessment. In our lesson, the assessment will be similar to this essay; writing a formal letter (see Parts V and VI for more information), the students will be expected to incorporate and analyze a variety of different documents and information. Thus, the students may have a difficult time analyzing the documents, and it may be important for us to scaffold the material and illustrate how to analyze the documents effectively.
According to Dr. Shreiner, the majority of these students are very extrinsically motivated by grades. At such a school as Greenhills—where 100% of the students are going to college after graduation—grades are very important. For example, several students in Dr. Shreiner’s class—in particular, three girls from Period B—often go to Dr. Shreiner with anxiety issues when they receive any grade given to them that’s lower than an A-. However, it was clear from our observations in Dr. Shreiner’s class that the students are also intrinsically motivated to work hard and to succeed. The majority of the class, for example, are conscientious students that work hard and always seem to do their best, even for assignments that are graded only for completion; this suggests that these students are not only motivated by grades, but also by internal satisfaction and enjoyment. In our lesson, it will be important to build from this intrinsic motivation and create a lesson that will engage and interest students.
Part II: Student Learning Objectives and Instructional Goals
After the lesson, students will be able to:
-explain the definition of genocide
-evaluate if the 1915 events in Armenia should be recognized as genocide
1. The lecture and class discussion on the first day will guide students through a concept formation, so students will be able to explain the definition of genocide, both by listing characteristics and known examples. The students will be able to form an understanding of genocide and use that criterion to decide if they feel the action towards Armenians fits this classification. Also, through the lecture on the Armenian Genocide, students will learn about what happened and why. This relates to the HSCE 7.1.3 which has students “analyze the causes and consequences of the genocides of Armenians, Romas (Gypsies), and Jews”. Once this is established, the students will be able to explain why the Turkish government continues to deny the action, and why many Armenians continue to push the importance of International recognition as genocide. The students will be able to propose ideas that support or denounce actions taken by the United States as the mediator in the current debate. This relates to HSCE CG4, Conflict, Cooperation, and Security, asking students to analyze the causes and challenges of continuing and new conflicts by describing:=
● Tensions resulting from ethnic, territorial, religious, and/or nationalist differences
● Causes of and responses to ethnic cleansing/genocide/mass extermination
● Local and global attempts at peacekeeping, security, democratization, and administering international justice and human rights
2. Students will be able to evaluate if this should be formally recognized as genocide or not, using these other recognized genocides, weighing the criteria, and explaining how they came to this conclusion in a letter. This will be assessed through their use of evidence from primary sources, lectures, and class discussions. The students will be able to make distinctions between the way the world reacted to the Armenian Genocide versus other genocides that have occurred in the 20th Century. This relates to the HSCE 7.2.4 Response to Genocide, which ask students to investigate development and enactment of Hitler’s “final solution” policy, and the responses to genocide by the Allies, the U.S. government, international organizations, and individuals (e.g., liberation of concentration camps, Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, establishment of state of Israel). (National Geography Standard 13, p. 210)
Part III: Explanation of the Intellectual Problem, Concept, and Facts under Study
Intellectual Problem: Because our lesson fit within the overarching unit Dr. Shreiner was teaching on genocide, there are a number of intellectual problems that we focused our teaching around. These included “what is genocide?”, “why was the 20th century the century of genocide?”, “how has the international community tried to prevent genocide, and why have efforts to prevent it failed?”, and “what can be done to end such atrocities forever?”. Dr. Shreiner provided our group with these; however, we felt that our lesson called for its own originally developed intellectual problem. Therefore, we focused on two in particular. They were “what is genocide?” and “what are the numerous implications of calling an event genocide in the world we live in today?”
The intellectual problems we presented the students were definitely used to hook the students into the subject. Our goal was to use one example of a contested genocide, the Armenian Genocide, to offer the students a platform to discuss and analyze the intellectual problems we presented them with.
In terms of the actual concept formation, Kristin used the question of “what is genocide?” to offer an explanation of how the term actually came to be defined throughout history. Many students were surprised to see that the term did not even exist until Raphael Lemkin came up with it in 1944. The second intellectual problem, “what are the numerous implication of calling an event a genocide in the world we live in today?”, was the question that was most closely related to the content we worked on with the students once they had the base knowledge that the concept formation offered. A mini lecture was given in which students were given a background history on the Armenian Genocide as well as the tensions between Turkey, the United States, and the world as a whole that surround the subject of calling the act genocide. The texts we supplied the students with dealt solely with the debate between Turkey and the United States, which offered yet another source of information with which they could begin to form their opinion. We focused our driving questions around asking the students throughout the lecture and the following day’s activities to keep in mind what the implications would be for both sides in calling it genocide. Asking questions such as “what would this mean for Turkey?” and “what are the factors that are coming into play for why the U.S. may not be willing to formally recognize this as genocide?” forced the students to not only see the topic from both perspectives but also made them understand the numerous implications both sides might face. The use of these driving questions allowed the students to look past their own personal opinions and forced them to look deeply into the intellectual problem from an informed viewpoint.
Explanation of the concept: The students are going to be working with the concept of genocide for the next few weeks, but for the two days, we are going to look in particular at one example that has generated a largely contested debate over whether or not it should be called a genocide. The term “genocide” did not actually exist until 1944 when a Polish Jewish scholar named Raphael Lemkin coined the term in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Today, the United Nations has come up with its own interpretation of the term, which is based upon Lemkin’s definition but is a bit more extensive.
The United Nations defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group such as:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction
- Imposing measures to prevent births
- Forcible transferring children to another group"
The Armenian Genocide is a very interesting example to work with for us because of the fact that although some believe it was an act of genocide (based upon many of these key attributes), others, especially the Turkish government, have failed to accept that the event ever occurred. We are going to be looking at this example first through the lens of these critical attributes to decide whether or not we believe the act was genocide but then focus our attention on the events surrounding this debate.
The United States has yet to formally recognize the acts as genocide and have witnessed other nations, such as France, severely strain their relations with the Turkish government over doing so. It is important for us to look into how this conflict began, who was involved, and what the U.S. has invested in its relations with Turkey so that we can develop our own informed opinion on the subject.
The concepts that we will be working with fit within the Michigan HSCE’s as well. We are focusing on Era 7 - Global Crisis and Achievement. We will look in particular at sections 7.1.1 and 7.1.3 in order to understand the expanding role of state power and the impact on individuals’ lives (7.1.1) as well as the causes and consequences of genocide during the 20th century (7.1.3).
Part IV: Texts
New York Times article: For homework, students will be expected to read the New York Times article “House Panel Says Armenian Deaths Were Genocide”. This article discusses the controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide and the possibility of the US recognizing the 1915 events as genocide. The article begins by reporting on the recent House vote and gives background information about the historical event; then, after describing Turkey’s perspective, the author explains the implications of calling something genocide. By framing the discussion around Turkey’s perspective and the global responses, the article addresses the intellectual problem “what are the implications of calling something genocide?”. Furthermore, while not explicitly addressed, the article responds to the question “what is genocide?” through its description of the historical event. This article will give students one example of genocide, which will help them build an understanding of the concept as a whole.
Key concepts of this article include “alliances”, “moral obligation”, and most obviously, “genocide”. Key terms of this article include “the War in Iraq”, “reconciliation” and “condemn”, as well as political jargon such as “bill”, “resolution”, and “bilateral relationship”. To fully comprehend the article, it is important that students understand these key terms and technical vocabulary. Thus, it may be beneficial to discuss these key terms as a class before students read the article individually; by asking the class to collectively determine what each of these terms mean, each student will have a better chance to comprehend the deeper meaning of the article.
Ultimately, the article is very straightforward and informative, which will provide students with a basic understanding of the controversy. However, like any news article or any interpretation of history, this article has a slight bias towards recognizing the Armenian genocide. By referring to the genocide as “a dark, century-old chapter of Turkish history” and explaining how “Turkey’s turning a blind eye”, the author of the article is illustrating his opinion and his purpose of writing the article. When introducing this article, it will be important to remind students to properly source; on the other hand, it could be beneficial to assign students reading roles—such as sourcerer, corroborator, and contextualizer—as suggested by Bob Bain in his article Into the Breach. By considering who wrote the article and why the article was written, students will have a deeper understanding of the article’s content.
As this is a relatively formal article from the New York Times, the article may pose several challenges for students. For example, this article assumes that the reader has background knowledge about the War in Iraq and US’s relations with Turkey. While the article briefly addresses how the US has military bases in Turkey, it does not explicitly make the connection of how the military bases affects the War in Iraq. To help students overcome this obstacle, we will provide the class with a supplemental text from the CHOICES textbook (see below). This textbook will provide basic background information that will help build students’ understanding. However, it still may be important for us to help the students make this connection during a class discussion; by asking guiding questions such as “why are US relations with Turkey important?” and “what else is going on in that part of the world?”, we will be able to scaffold the material and help the students recognize the deeper implications of this historical conflict.
BBC article: The BBC article Turkey Angry at the US Armenian Genocide Move got right at the intellectual problem we presented the students of “what are the numerous implications of calling an event a genocide in the world we live in today?”. It focused on the Turkish response to a resolution that had passed through the U.S. House of Representatives, which would call for the formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. government. Within it, there were numerous implications for the U.S. such as warnings by the Turkish government to cease their aid in the War in Iraq as well as the cancelation of orders for American helicopters. What this article also pointed out was the fact that part of the goal of the movement to get the act recognized was geared towards getting financial retribution for Armenians living today, pointing out a major negative implication for the Turkish government. The tone of the article followed an unbiased path and focused on the implications both sides might face if the resolution was turned into legislation. One of the greatest strengths that this article possesses is that it takes neither side of the argument and simply states what implications each side faces in terms of formally recognizing the genocide.
This text, while greatly informative, did posses numerous technical terms that could have easily confused the students as they were reading through it. One example of these, the term “resolution”, may lead students to become confused. Some may believe that if a resolution passed in the House of Representatives, then it became a law although this is not the case. In order to alleviate this confusion, students were given an explanation of what a resolution is and what steps must be taken in order to have it become an act of legislation in the mini lecture. Another challenge that this text presented was the fact that students would need to have an understanding of the current events of today, especially the Iraq War that the U.S. currently finds itself involved in. If a student did not understand the close proximity Turkey holds with Iraq as well as the military needs that Turkey provides the U.S., then the implications of the resolution would hold little weight in developing their decisions. This challenge was also met by using maps within the mini lecture to show how close Turkey is in relation to Iraq as well a slide that offered them facts such as how seventy percent of all U.S. military air supplies for the Iraq War go through bases in Turkey.
CHOICES textbook: The ‘Choices’ article “The Armenian Genocide” is the text we used to give students a background and in depth understanding of the event. It was written by historians to address the concept of forgotten genocide. The intellectual problem focuses on the world’s response to the Armenian Genocide, asking why foreign nations, specifically the United States, did not get involved. One key idea from this reading is the significant amount of Armenians killed, which is over 1.5 million people or 2/3 of the population. The lasting idea that resulted led to Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jewish race from Europe, stating that no one remembers the Armenian Genocide. The second key idea focuses on the United States reaction to the events, as they failed to take a firm stance to end or intervene. This was largely in part because of President Wilsons’s neutrality position to avoid bringing the United States into WWI. The third key idea has to do with the rise of the Young Turks to power in the Ottoman Empire. This outlines the rise of nationalism in the region, and plan to deport Armenians.
The tone of the article is informational, not slanted or with agenda, it is to present facts. The authors keep the text clear of assumptions, and bias. The few parts of the text with a different tone or voice are contained in quotations from Turkish officials or New York Times articles which balance each other. The Times article talks about the genocide as an atrocity, and Turkish officials taking a hard-line stance on the importance of the actions. The key words in the text include; Genocide, Deportation, Relocation. The technical terms include; Sovereignty, Neutrality, Massacre, and Constitutionalism.
This text challenged us to think about a part of history that took place in a time that has been traditionally dominated by other events. We had never heard of the Armenian Genocide, so we were also learning about the topic during the days before teaching the students. It was also tough to grasp some concepts, because WWI was beginning at this same time, and it is tough to think of the events independently. It requires that the reader bring an understanding of historical events, such as the Holocaust, WWI, and other genocides. Some challenges that high school readers may face include terminology, geography, religious background and foreign relations background. Some of the terms in the reading may be unfamiliar to students, such as genocide, sovereignty, neutrality, or Mohammedanism. The geography of this World region could make it very difficult to fully grasp the relocation process. We are certain that most students do not know how far a march from Armenia to Syria would be. The largest contributing factor to the genocide is religious intolerance, as Turkey is Muslim, and Armenians are the Christian minority. Students may not know enough about religious differences or the history of religious conflicts that allow this reading to make sense. The last challenge for students would stem from a lack of knowledge in International Affairs, specifically the U.S. policy at the time of neutrality acts and Monroe Doctrine decision making.
Before reading the text, it would be beneficial for us to put the key words on the board and have a discussion to come up with definitions as a class. Next, we would ask the students what they know about genocide and what examples they could come up with. This would be a good way to gauge where the students are, so we can guide them through the text. We would proceed by creating a reading guide that asks guiding questions as they move through the document. This type of note-taking should make sure the students pay attention to the main points and begin to think about how to answer the questions that will directly feed into the assignment.
Part V: The Lesson
Day One
1. Free-Write activity
At the beginning of class, students will respond to the following questions:
-What is genocide?
-What genocides have you heard of?
The purpose of this Free-Write activity is to draw on students’ prior knowledge and prompt them to think critically about the concept.
2. Discussion of Free-Write responses
We will ask for volunteers to share their thoughts and ideas. Essentially, by listening to the various versions of how to define genocide, students will begin thinking about the complexity of such a concept.
3. Mini-Lecture: Where did the term come from?
To begin the concept formation, we will investigate where the term genocide came from
-First, we will break down the term itself. (For this part of the lecture, we will ask student volunteers what the prefix and the suffix mean.)
“geno” -- Greek for “group” or “family” (such as genetics or genotypes)
“cide” -- Latin for “killing” (such as suicide or pesticide)
-Then, we will see when the term first was used
-Raphael Lemkin
-Axis Rule of Occupied Europe, 1944
-legal analysis of the Nazis’ actions during the Holocaust
-term used during the Nuremburg Trials (For this, we will pause and ask the class what the Nuremburg Trials are, since they have yet to cover the material.)
4. Mini-Lecture: Definition of Genocide
While Dr. Shreiner did not want us to teach a standard deductive concept formation lesson, we utilized aspects of this technique. Similar to a concept formation lesson, we provided students with a definition of the concept.
-The United Nation’s Interpretation, 1948
Any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, such as:
-killing members of the group
-causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
-deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction
-imposing measures to prevent births
-forcibly transferring children to another group
-As this interpretation is very vague, we will also provide students with a working definition of the concept, created by various scholars, historians, and politicians:
1. Deliberate and organized
2. Intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
3. Carried out by an armed state or other authority
4. Against an unarmed, civilian group
5. Destruction by means of mass murder, forced deportation, systemic rape, or economic/ biological subjugation
5. Power Point: The Armenian Genocide “The Forgotten Genocide”
· Begin with why this matters
-hammer home the numbers of 2/3 of the overall population being wiped out
-the key point here is to mention that fact that today Turkey denies the acts occurred
-its against the law to say it’s a genocide in Turkey
-called the forgotten genocide because some have tried to deny it, letting it become lost in history until recently
· Outline what we’ll go over
-Offer explanation of who the Armenians are
-Main point: Christian minority group in a mostly Islamic nation
-Second class citizens: couldn’t get jobs as easily, harder to get quality education.
-Use map to show where Armenians were located
-Makes sure to not that these are present day boundaries
Day Two
Day two of our lesson begins with Derek leading a discussion on the students’ previous nights’ reading from the NY Times, BBC, and Choices articles
- Have students take out articles and graphic organizer.
- Create a Pros and Cons list on the white board for Obama’s stance on genocide
- Go around the class cold calling on specific students so that most of them get involved
- While listing the students’ points on the board, ask follow up questions to clarify, and repeat important parts so the other students can write it down.
- While students respond, stop to ask about points in the readings that they found interesting or confusing.
- bring up topics from the NY Times article and ask students what they thought about the U.S. military bases in Turkey, and if this was a good reason to stay neutral.
- Once a sizeable list of Pros and Cons is created, begin explanation for letter assignment
- Offer the students the rubric and ask that the letter be finished by the end of the hour.
- Make sure to mention that their letters could be mailed to the President if they wished, but it is not required.
- As they write, walk around to make sure they were on task, and to see if there were any questions.
- If students need more time to complete their letters, offer them the opportunity to take them home to finish
- Wait until the last 5 minutes to let them know they have this choice.
Part VI: Assessment
To determine students’ understanding of the material, we decided to utilize a variety of informal and formal assessments. To begin our lesson, we will have the students respond to the following Free-Write questions: “what is genocide?” and “what genocides have you heard of?”. The purpose of this Free-Write activity is to prompt students to think critically about the concepts and to draw on their prior knowledge. As this informal assessment will be at the beginning of the lesson, it will not assess what the students learned, but it will give us a better sense of their previous experiences dealing with this concept; we, then, will utilize the students’ responses to determine what they already know and what information we should have a greater focus on.
For homework the first night, students will be expected to read three documents—an article from the New York Times, an article from BBC News, and a supplementary text from the CHOICES reading. From their readings, they will then choose five pros and five cons for President Obama recognizing the 1915 events in Armenia as genocide. This assignment will informally assess the students’ understanding of the readings as well as of the concept as a whole. Following Bloom’s Taxonomy, this assignment requires students to analyze information and apply what they learned to a real situation. The following day, we will lead a brief discussion where students share what they come up; this is also an informal assessment because it will help us determine students’ understanding of the material and their ability to see the deeper implications of the concept.
A formal, authentic assessment will come on the second day of our lesson. According to the Pearson text, authentic assessments are those that “focus on the application of understandings and skills to real problems in “real world” contextual settings” (Pearson, 2). Thus, we decided to create an assessment where students write a letter to President Obama, stating their opinion regarding the controversy. Taking on the role of an “informed citizen”, students will apply what they learned in class to a current, important issue. This assessment will require students to form an opinion, use the critical attributes of the concept genocide, and utilize supporting evidence from the readings. Following Bloom’s Taxonomy, this assessment will require higher-level cognitive tasks such as evaluation, synthesis, and analysis.
> Reflection of Lesson
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