Imagine you have just twenty-four hours to leave your home, possibly for the final time. You have no idea where you are heading or why you must go. You’re only allowed to take what you can fit in your backpack. Decide what you would bring with you. Then, write an essay explaining your choices and how considering them in this hypothetical situation influenced your assessment.

Read Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical book Night, and compare his recollections of Auschwitz with Sophie’s descriptions of the concentration camp in Sophie’s Choice. In the novel, Styron includes Wiesel’s claim that novels about the Holocaust “cheapened” the subject because the topic had become “fashionable, guaranteed to gain attention and to achieve instant success.” Write an essay in which you either agree or disagree with Wiesel’s viewpoint, contrasting his book with Styron’s novel.

Conduct online research on either Rudolf Höss or Walter Dürrfeld and write a summary of the information you find. Assess Styron’s portrayal of the character in the novel, determining if the fictional representation aligns with the historical figure.

Interview someone you know who has witnessed or experienced a historical event—for example, the Civil Rights movement, the antiwar movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War of the early 1990s, or the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Write a summary of the interview and then present it to the interviewee for review. Ask them to evaluate your summary for accuracy and identify any distortions or omissions. Present your findings to the class, discussing the accuracy of interview summaries.