FAMILY

NOW NEXT BEYOND

DESIGNING AN INQUIRY

OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to …

  • Formulate a question to guide investigations of testimony after the Holocaust
  • Use the Social Studies inquiry process to design a significant question related to testimony
  • Apply elements of the Social Studies inquiry process to investigate testimony
TEACHER PREPARATION
Access copies of the Activity Sheet: Know-Wonder-Learn. You may also want to use Activity Sheet: The Inquiry Cycle or Activity Sheet: Asking Powerful Questions to facilitate the design of the inquiry.

STUDENT INSTRUCTION

ACTIVITY: KNOW-WONDER-LEARN
Using the Activity Sheet: Know-Wonder-Learn, respond to the questions

  • What do you know about Holocaust testimony?
  • What do you want to know about Holocaust testimony?

Your responses will then guide the development of an inquiry.

DEVELOPING AN INQUIRY: TESTIMONY AS AN HISTORICAL SOURCE
As a class, debrief what you know and what you wonder about Holocaust testimony. From the ideas under WONDER, develop a class question about Holocaust testimony. The question should be broad. Using the class question as a starting point, individually or in small groups, develop your own inquiry question around Holocaust testimony or testimony as an historical source.

Using the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre testimony collection, explore the testimonies to support your inquiry question. Share the findings with a small group, the class or a larger audience.

When considering how to share your learning, make sure that you answer your question, articulate connections between prior knowledge and new discoveries, and identify new, deeper questions for further investigation.