Syllabus MJIS 256

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MJIS 256 Section 72: TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE

COURSE SYLLABUS
SUMMER, 2002 (June 28-August 15, 2003)

http://www.csuchico.edu/mjs/mahe

Course Description:

Genocide has occurred far too often as a pattern of inter-ethnic relations in this century. Ironically, as our world becomes more "civilized" and technologically advanced, we do not seem to become more accepting of cultural or ethnic diversity. Through the examination of extreme hatreds and their resulting mass deaths, we begin to comprehend that ethnocentrism and prejudice, when allowed to grow may have significant and horrible impact.

The focus will be on developing curricular material about the Holocaust & Genocide, historical, social scientific theories, use of survivor testimony, controversies and resources for teaching. Students will get to work with Holocaust & Genocide scholars from all over the world. This course will be offered on WebCT only.

We will explore the rhetorical, historical, and social impact of acts of genocide perpetrated against a number of ethnic groups around the globe. We will begin with the Turkish campaign against its Armenian community at the start of this century and move on to the Holocaust. Then several different examples of genocide in the 20th century will be studied. Those include such case studies as the Russian/Eastern European community and the Gulag, the Cambodians and the "Killing Fields," as well as Rwanda and Kosovo/Yugoslavia.

We will see the extreme results of inter-ethnic and inter-cultural conflict represented in the examples of the course. The case studies of genocide also provide examples of the use of modern technology without moral or ethical bounds. Our understanding of genocide leads us to an appreciation of the necessity for maintaining tolerance of cultural diversity and a refusal to let hate-based policies of small groups become the policy of a nation. It is crucial that, through the examination of the extreme results of prejudice and ethnocentrism, we begin to understand our own individual and corporate responsibility for moral and ethical acceptance of diverse peoples and perspectives and that this be discussed in the classroom with our students.

Not only are these cases of genocide important to know about for a variety of reasons, but they are mandated as part of California's educational curriculum in both the Social Science Framework and the Katz Act. Therefore, this class is designed to help current and future teachers prepare for dealing with these topics in the classroom. In addition to learning about these case studies of genocide, we will also provide ideas for teachers to discuss genocide in their classrooms and provide curricular materials to augment their lesson plans.

Required Readings:

Teaching and Studying the Holocaust by Samuel Totten (Editor), Stephen Feinberg (Editor) Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; ISBN: 0205184952; 1st edition (November 6, 2000)

Teaching Holocaust Literatureby Samuel Totten (Editor) Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; ISBN: 0205274021; 1st edition (November 10, 2000)

Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views by Samuel Totten (Editor), William S. Parsons (Editor), Israel W. Charny (Editor) Publisher: Garland Pub; ISBN: 815323530; (May 1997)

Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning.

Trap With A Green Fence by Richard Glazar.

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenitsyn.

Articles on WebCT.

Writing Policy:

Every assignment completed out of class must:

1. Be submitted on WebCT as an enclosure.
2. Begin with a title, your name and email address.
3. Be free of typographical and grammatical errors. Proofread for both! Errors will reduce your grade.
4. Be well written. Organize your thoughts as you write and edit your drafts. Have introduction, body, and conclusion sections. Papers that are not well written or that have excessive errors will be returned, ungraded, for correction.
5. Do not plagiarize. Cite when you use ideas or information; quote and cite when you borrow exact words. Failure to use citations is plagiarism; in essence, by not using a citation, you are passing off their work as your own. Plagiarism will be dealt with severely in this class so be sure to cite your sources in the body of the paper and include a bibliography.

Course Grades:

Grades will be based on the following required work:

1. Two Curricular Projects (each worth 50 possible points). As the purpose of this course is for you to prepare to teach in the area of genocide and Holocaust, each of you will design two curricular projects. You will take a text, idea, concept, film, event etc. and prepare a detailed statement as to how you would prepare to teach a unit on this material. Each of these projects will detail how you propose to teach the unit; your justification for doing what you propose; the context of the content material; a sense of your goals and objectives for the unit; and an extended and annotated bibliography. You will send the full project report to us via WebCT email and you will create a web site in the WebCT web area to share critical aspects of your project with the class.
2. Papers. You will be completing two assignments (each worth 50 possible points) during the course that will incorporate both aims of the course, learning about Shoah and various other genocides and preparing to teach about them. Each will involve researching age and discipline appropriate materials for students you think you will be teaching. Included in this paper will be your intended goal and methods for accomplishing that goal in some detail with a rationale for the activities explained in the paper. Included also will be a bibliography of related sources. These will be shared with the other students in the class. We will talk more about these papers in WebCT.
3. Attendance and Class Participation. This class is designed to be a combination of text lecture on WebCT and discussion. Heavy emphasis is placed on discussing pertinent issues presented in the lecture and reading material, whether we agree with them, how crucial they are, how they affect our teaching, etc. Therefore, WebCT attendance and participation may affect your final grade. You are expected to attend, and while there, participate in the discussion of the material. Discussion will be based to a significant part in the chatroom discussions via WebCT.
4. Internet online courseware. To complete this course, you must log on to WebCT. To log on this please go to http://online.csuchico.edu/. You will see a listing of the courses. Go to Communication Studies. You will see a gold key. Point and click there and follow the directions and you will be registered on to WebCT. (Remember this registration is only for Web CT and not for the course) Web CT is free to students enrolled in the course and will have all of your course materials and streaming video as well linked together. WebCT also has its own internal bulletin board and email. We will also be requiring you to visit a number of Holocaust and genocide related websites and databases as well as having you explore hate sites in cyberspace. To insure that we will be able to have sufficient discussion on the various topics in the course we shall be using WebCT for online discussion and real time chats on topics related to the course. Because we shall have students from all over the State of California and indeed from all over the world involved in the course we shall be asking each of you to participate in at least four or five discussions via WebCT and conferences contained on our WebCT site.

Class Schedule:

The general topics that will be discussed in the course are:

Lesson 1
Introduction to the Course and Genocide, United Nations Convention on Genocide; discussion of the comparative genocide controversy; The Shoah as the paradigm.

Lesson 2
Patterns of Ethnic Group Relations, Traveling the Internet to Genocide sites around the world (see the links in our class web page for a start)

Lesson 3
Armenian Genocide and its relation to the Shoah

Lesson 4
The Nazi Rise to Power and the Nazi Propaganda Machine

Lesson 5
Planning & Implementing the Final Solution

Lesson 6
Responses from Outside the Reich: The Allies, Churches, and The Media

Lesson 7
Resistance and Victim Responses to their Persecution

Lesson 8
Rescue

Lesson 9
Genocide in the USSR under Stalin: The Man and His Plan; Implementing the Purges, Famine, and Gulag

Lesson 10
The Killing Fields of Cambodia

Lesson 11
Current Hot Spots: Balkans, Yugoslavia, Kosovo

Lesson 12
Current Hot Spots: Africa (including Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Ethiopia)

Lesson 13
Developing Curricular Materials--meet a master teacher.

Lesson 14
Moral Implications of Genocide for Today. Why Does it Keep Happening? How is it Possible to Counteract Mass Persuasion? Social Conditions and Genocide Summary.

The schedule above is subject to revision. You will be informed well in advance if any changes are made.