The Devil's Arithmetic Lesson Plan | Unit Objective
1. Through reading Jane Yolen's, The Devil's Arithmetic, students will gain appreciation for the importance of cultural and family traditions.
2. Students will acquire an understanding of the value of bearing witness.
3. Students will do background research to familiarize themselves with the Yiddish language and the plight of the Jews during the World War II era.
4. Students will be exposed to atrocities and horrors of the Holocaust.
5. Students will gain appreciation for and demonstrate proficiency in identifying and using figurative language.
6. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the text on four levels: factual, interpretive, critical and personal.
7. Students will be given the opportunity to practice reading aloud and silently to improve their skills in each area.
8. Students will define their own viewpoints on the aforementioned themes and answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the main events and characters in The Devil's Arithmetic as they relate to the author's theme development.
9. Students will enrich their vocabularies and improve their understanding of the novel through the vocabulary lessons prepared for use in conjunction with the novel.
10. The writing assignments in this unit are geared to several purposes:
a. To have students demonstrate their abilities to inform, to persuade, or to express their own personal ideas Note: Students will demonstrate ability to write effectively to inform by developing and organizing facts to convey information. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to persuade by selecting and organizing relevant information, establishing an argumentative purpose, and by designing an appropriate strategy for an identified audience. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to express personal ideas by selecting a form and its appropriate elements.
b. To check the students' reading comprehension
c. To make students think about the ideas presented by the novel
d. To encourage logical thinking