Grade Level(s): 6-12


Subject(s): English, social studies


Purpose: This unit is designed to enhance students' understanding of The Diary of Anne Frank and to enable students to better understand the situation as it might relate to them. To this end, excerpts from other historically significant essays are included.


Objectives:

• Expose students to various interpretations of a diary
• Gain insight into the writer's state of mind
• Study the time period the diary was written
• Use diaries as a primary source to understand historical events
• Make journal writing a more meaningful experience

Students should be able to produce an essay comparing the stressful situations Anne Frank went through with other diarists.


Overview:
Students often assume a diary is just a means of recording personal observations. Using this unit, students will be able to see the diary, as opposed to the memoir, is a primary source document providing insights into the culture, society, and stresses of the writer, and is, thus, a valuable piece of history. Studying this material should provide them with the ability to gather new energy for their diaries, as well as identify with the conditions of others throughout time.

There is another puzzle to solve. Because diaries aren't written for other people to read, characters aren't introduced, but just appear with no explanation. You get to figure out who's who and what's what. In other words, you can build a picture of the writer yourself. You may wish to have the students draw pictures of what they feel these writers looked like.


Duration: Two weeks for major reading of diary and related resources, plus additional time to discuss and present work.


Web Sites:
These sites have many links to Anne Frank and other diaries.

Anne Frank: Turning Pages

The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank Biography

The Diarist Anne Frank

Anne Frank WebQuest

The Anne Frank Internet Guide

Anne Frank Center in New York

Diaries of children in war

Teacher Resources:
Review and print those resources appropriate for your group.

Class discussion

George Washington as a Diarist

Page from Pearl Harbor survivor's diary

Theodore Roosevelt's Diary -- A few entries

Diaries from the Civil War period

Samuel Pepys and his diary

Charles Lindbergh Diary and Background

Zlata Filipovic's Diary and link

A site to help in comparing Zlata's work with Anne Frank

The difference between memories and diaries

Infopeople.org - A book list of several types of diaries kept by individuals throughout time -- excellent in adding depth to this lesson for advanced students

Infotoday.com - Review of expensive Diary Maker software which enables students to write diaries in class and of Anne Frank's work, as well at Latoya's and Zlata's.

Student Resources:
Teachers should decide from the above which would be most appropriate for the grade level and ability of the students.

Preparation:
Students need to be familiar with what primary resources are and how they can be used. Here are some sites that offer lessons:
Memory.loc.gov
Archives.gov

You may also want to have them relate to the diary writer by developing an understanding of the types of stress people feel and how they write to relieve stress.
What Can Be Done To Cope With Stress?
Coping is striving to prevent or manage the demands made on you by your environment or internal forces (i.e., desires, thoughts, feelings). Positive coping methods are expressing feelings.

And the type of stresses that students have.

Procedure:
Depending on the level of the student, the teacher may want students to read excerpts from this lesson and discuss them; ask students to research the time period involved; have students write their own journals and compare and contrast them with the ones provided in this lesson; jigsaw a lesson in which a variety of diaries are discussed and then have students write about which one is most relevant or most meaningful to them.

Introduction:
Looking through a diary is a little like meeting the person who wrote it, at least for a few minutes. In a history book, the author writes about what other people did. But in a diary, you get to hear the story first-hand. Of course, diaries aren't always as well organized or as easy to find as history books, but they're worth looking for.

The following three excerpts are from the North Dakota History: Journal of the Northern Plains, a publication of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. View web site

Comments: You can integrate this lesson into your social studies program to make it more relevant. It is vital for teaching the importance of The Diary of Anne Frank to understand the political and religious movements of the time.