Night by Elie Wiesel Response

Night is a powerfully written story. The detailed accounts of Wiesel's experience really stick with you, especially The Night of Broken Glass. I still remember the impact it had on me when I got to read it in high school and it came back to me after reading it again. For  me, it gave a humanness to the facts and statistics the Holocaust can be presented as in history books I am not knocking history at all...I'm just saying the personal accounts of that time always add more depth and horror to those events than textbooks. That being said, I think that this would be the best addition to any history class going over the events of WWII and a great informational text for an ELA classroom. 

Two CCSS I would use in a unit using Night would be:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.3
Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.6
Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

Night would be an excellent vehicle for discussing current world problems, as well. In Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1986, "Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere." This text can help students make the connection from horrific events of the past and how to improve the horrific events of today. Perhaps the Informational text unit can begin with Night and the class can work their way to a text like I am Malala. As an educator, I think that it is important that we know how to help students grapple with social justice issues no matter how long ago they occurred or how far away they are from their own front door. Texts like Night force you to empathize and recognize the horrors that have occurred at the hands of evil.