Increase Students' Background Knowledge About The Holocaust

Whether you are doing a unit study of the Holocaust or are reading a novel or book related to it, your students can benefit greatly by reading What Was the Holocaust? by Gail Herman and completing this workbook study guide.

The text What Was the Holocaust? by Gail Herman is written on about a 4th grade level and provides a thorough yet compact summary of information about the Holocaust, in about 100 pages of easy-to-read text plus illustrations and photos. This book is ideal for a Holocaust study in lower grades and a great way to cover essential background information for novel studies in higher grades.

Note: This product, Literature Lessons: What Was the Holocaust? is written as a workbook and study guide to go along with the text.  When you order this pdf downloadable product, you are given the option of adding one copy of Gail Herman's paperback book to go along with it. If you want more than one copy, you can order them separately here. 

This workbook is recommended for use in grades 6-12, though advanced students in lower grades may be able to handle the assignments.

The reading assignments are broken down into roughly two-chapter segments. Each segment has vocabulary work, fill in the blanks, multiple choice, critical thinking, writing skills, and a review puzzle.

The goals of this workbook are to help students understand what they read, think about what they read, and remember the important facts about the Holocaust.

This book and workbook can be used as a stand-alone study of the Holocaust, especially in the lower grades or for low level students in the upper grades.

In the upper grades, this book and workbook would be an excellent extra project to assign students who are reading another book about the Holocaust (such as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl or Night by Elie Wiesel, for example). The reading level of the text is about on a 4th grade level, so older students should be able to easily read the text. The point in doing this book in the upper grades would be to give students a concise non-fiction account of the Holocaust as background knowledge. This also will help fulfill related non-fiction reading for the CCSS.

• The Vocabulary section is intended to familiarize students with words from the text that they may not know.
• The Fill in the Blanks section is intended to encourage close reading and reinforce important facts.
• The Multiple Choice section is intended as a self-quiz, so students can see what they have retained from their reading, as well as another review of important ideas.
• The Critical Thinking section is intended to make students think about what they have read and to encourage higher level thinking skills.
• The Writing Skills section is also intended to make students think more about what they have read as well as to practice important writing skills.
• The Crossword Review puzzles for each section is, again, meant to reinforce important names or ideas from the text.
• At the end of the reading of the book, there are some Whole Book Review materials to help students remember important people, places, events, and ideas about the Holocaust.

Along the way, in the unit of study, we’ve tried to educate students with some good life lessons as well–practical and helpful tips, things to think about, and so on.