Tammy Bosak

December 20, 2000

Penn Lit

BDA tryout

During the past week, my students tried my BDA assignment for Act I, scene V of The Diary of Anne Frank. The “before” part of the BDA asked the students to write about their own traditional holiday celebrations. Students seemed to have no problem doing this part because it was exactly like the journal questions that they do everyday. Most of the students liked talking about their own traditional celebrations, especially with the holidays right around the corner.

When it came to the “during” activity, which was writing down the things Anne did to create a traditional Hanukkah celebration and commenting on them, some of the kids had some problems. I think most of the problems occurred simply because they are not used to having to do this type of activity, which means that it will get better with more experience. I did, however, see many students going back into the text, which is always a good sign. Many of the students also dread reading silently, but that, again, is something that, hopefully, will improve with practice. I’m beginning to realize that maybe I don’t give them quite enough practice doing reading silently, so I’ll have to work on that. After looking at the assignment again, I do think that I needed to be a bit more specific about what I expected from the comment section. That may also help to clear up some of the confusion. Overall, though, they did a good job.

The “after” section seemed to work great. The first question asked the students to consider how they would feel if their own holiday traditions were cancelled. It also forced students to recall information from an article we had read previously about Christmas being cancelled in Bethlehem. This made many of the students really understand what it must have been like to be in Anne Frank’s shoes. They explained how outraged and sad they would be if they were unable to have their own celebrations, and they realized what Hanukkah in hiding must have been like for the families. This question was also set up in the standard GEPA open-ended question format, which the students have been working with, so it allowed them more practice answering open-ended questions, too.

The second “after” question asked students to write a diary entry from Anne’s point of view. They seemed to enjoy this. It forced them to review what had happened during the scene, to consider Anne’s feelings, to recall information about traditional Hanukkah celebrations, and to write 20 lines. Though they complained about the length, almost all of the students did it with little or no problem, and were proud of the amount of material they had written. The diary entries I received showed me that they really understood what it was like to be Anne at this time.

The third and final “after” question asked students to think about how difficult it must have been for Anne to create gifts for her family. The students drew 2 names out of an envelope and were instructed to create a gift for each person using only the materials they had at home. The gifts had to be hand-made. Many students moaned and groaned because they had no idea what to make, but given some time to think about it, many ended up making some very creative gifts. Students were also required to write a paragraph for each gift, telling a little about the gift and how it was made. This helped me to see if they actually made it or not. All in all, they did a great job and had a lot of fun. Some of the gifts included a gift certificate for 1 day of asking any and all questions the person wanted (appropriate if you know the students involved), Christmas pins, picture frames made of pencils and tin foil, home-grown potted plants in hand-painted pots, sock puppets, a mini-basketball game made from a coffee can, and paper necklaces. Of course, I ended up with the occasional stack of papers stapled together to make a “notebook”, but that’s to be expected from certain students. One thing I would change for next year is that they would not be allowed to make food. That seems to be too easy, it requires little thought, and it’s hard to tell if the students actually made the items. This activity was fun, though, and even the kids I thought wouldn’t do it brought in presents and enjoyed exchanging them. And, after a discussion about their gifts, the students finally realized how hard it must have been for Anne to make the gifts that they read about.

I love the way the BDA assignments work. I have done this a few times since the tryout of my first one, and I really believe that this creates a great opportunity for student learning. It requires them to use prior knowledge, look deep within the text, analyze the text, and really internalize the information given. This is not something the students are used to doing consistently, but I would like it to be something that we start doing a lot more.