This document provides an overview of the organization Facing History and Ourselves, which uses education to promote more thoughtful and informed societies. It was created in 1976 by educators who believe intellectual vigor is important for teaching facts. Facing History provides resources to support educators worldwide in sharing the goal of creating a better society. The document outlines Facing History's case studies, pedagogy, and scope and sequence, which cover topics like identity, difficult moments in history, and human behavior. It also references lessons, workshops, and other materials available on their website and examines concepts like obedience, conformity, and how historical context affects choices.

2. Who We Are
We’re Facing History and Ourselves. An organization created in
1976 by educators who believed that instilling intellectual vigor
and curiosity goes hand-in-hand with teaching facts and figures.
We provide ideas, methods, and tools that support the practical
needs, and the spirits, of educators worldwide who share the
goal of creating a better, more informed and more thoughtful
society.
@FacingHistoryLA

4. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

5. Facing History & Boston Public Schools:Facing History’s Case Studies
•The individual and society
•The power of difference
•Difficult moments in history
•The fragility of democracy
•Choices & human behavior
•Multiple perspectives
•Moral & ethical dilemmas
•Civic participation today

6. Facing History Pedagogy

7. • Dissecting Prompt
• Journaling

8. Identity: Framing Questions
- What are the complex factors that contribute to a
person’s identity?
- What is the intersection between Identity and
Setting?

9. Identity
- Create an identity chart for yourself
- Circle in a Circle
- Circle an element of identity that is particularly
strong today (comfortable to share)
- Square an element of identity shaped by where
you live(d)
- Star an element of identity shaped by the time in
which you grew up

10. Identity: Elie Wiesel
- Create an identity chart for Elie Wiesel
- Include the quote from the excerpt that supports
the element of identity
- Group 1: Pages 3-5
- Group 2: Pages 17-21
- Group 3: Pages 108-112
- Group 4: Nobel Peace prize
speech from study guide

11. Discussion
- What do you notice about the similarities and
differences between these charts?
- What does it mean to be Jewish?
- How does Elie’s Jewish identity
shift through his experiences?

12. Identity of Setting
- Return to your groups and identity chart
- Reread excerpts to identify setting
- What does it mean to be Jewish at that place, in
that time?
- Write elements on setting (description) on post-its
What is the intersection between identity and setting?

13. Historical Context: Night
Human Timeline

14. Historical Context: Night
What historical questions have come up for you or
your students when you have read or taught
Night?
“Rising Questions”

15. Historical Context: Night
Some resources
Weimar Module (online)
Page 19-21 in Writing Guide
Salvaged Pages/I’m Still Here
Writing Prompt and Strategies - evidence
collection

16. Writing Prompts and Strategies,
page 17
Writing Prompt #1

17. In the spring of 1945, as the war finally came to an end, the
world at last confronted the atrocities the Nazis had
committed. Alan Moorehead, a British journalist, wrote the
following after visiting a concentration camp:
“With all one’s soul, one felt: This is not war. Nor is it
anything to do with here and now, with this place at this
one moment. This is timeless and all mankind is involved in
it. It touches me and I am responsible. Why has it
happened? How did we let it happen?”

18. Reflect on responsibility and the Holocaust. Alan Moorehead
says that “all mankind is involved in it.”
Given your study of the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust,
support, refute or modify his statement in a formal
argumentative essay. Introduce a precise claim, and develop it
fully, using relevant and sufficient evidence from Holocaust
and Human Behavior and other related texts from your Facing
History and Ourselves unit. In your writing, distinguish your
claim from alternate or opposing claims, and establish clear
relationships among your claim, counterclaims, reasons and
evidence.

19. lanetwork.facinghistory.org
▪ “Powering Up” Facing History lessons
▪ Museum of Tolerance temporary exhibit – What is Beauty?
▪ Teacher bloggers – middle school and high school
• Seminar/Workshop materials

20. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

22. Understanding Human Behavior
Obedience
Conformity

23. How does historical environment affect
identity, beliefs, and choices?

24. Stanley
Milgram

26. Scripted Prods Given by the
Experimenter
1.Please continue.
2.The experiment requires that you continue.
3.It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4.You have no other choice; you must go on.

28. MILGRAM: 60 Minutes
Interview, March 31, 1974
"I would say on the basis of having observed a thousand
people in the experiments and having my own intuition
shaped and informed by those experiments, that if a
system of death camps were set up in the United States
of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be
able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any
medium-sized American town"

29. Power of Language
“Sanitary Language”
“Commandant’s View”
“Free Words” in an Unfree World

30. Redefining “Free words”
P. 41
P. 42
P. 44-45

31. Facing History and Ourselves:
Scope & Sequence

32. Memory, Justice and Choosing to Participate
- Framing Question: What is our responsibility when
a memory is shared with us?

33. Memory, Justice and Choosing to Participate
- Eyewitness to Buchenwald - Leon Bass
- 3-2-1
3: Words or brief descriptions what Leon Bass saw
upon entering Buchenwald
2: Questions raised from the clip
1: Connection you are making to the essay prompt

34. “With all one’s soul, one felt: This is not war. Nor is it anything
to do with here and now, with this place at this one moment.
This is a timeless and all mankind is involved in it. It touches
me and I am responsible. Why has it happened? How did we
let is happen?”
Reflect on responsibility and the Holocaust. Alan Moorehead
says that “all mankind is involved in it.”

35. Personal Journal
We have all wronged others and been wronged. Write
about a situation in which you were wronged.
• What was the situation?
• How did it make you feel?
• What did you want to happen so that that wrong
was “set right”? (whether or not that actually did
happen)

36. Transitional Justice
• Transitional Justice is a response to systematic or
widespread violations of human rights. It seeks
recognition for victims and promotion of possibilities
for peace, reconciliation and democracy.

37. Transitional Justice toolbox
• Institutional Reform
• Education
• Judicial Responses
• Restitution and Reparations
• Truth-Seeking
• Reconciliation
• Cultural Responses

38. Transitional Justice toolbox Discussion
• As you teach Night, which tools from this toolbox
are you drawing on?
• How can your students see the opportunity to
understand and use these tools?

39. Choosing to Participate
• Big Paper/Silent Conversation
• Discussion:
– Why do we teach the Holocaust?
–What is our role as teachers in preserving the
sharing memory?

40. • Dissecting Prompt
• Journaling