H. Marcuse:
Lessons from
The Diary of Anne Frank
1. Teaching primary sources
2. The Diary as a primary source
3. Lessons from the Diary
Teaching Primary Sources
• Educational research (Wineburg, AERJ, 1991)
– Historians engage in dialog with sources
– Students read to glean information
• Consequences:
– Students simulate without learning
– Students trust textbooks more than docs.,
BUT (study by Terrie Epstein, Social Education, 1997):
whites: textbooks, teachers, library
Blacks: families, teachers, movies
Cognitive Learning Studies
• Text + meaningful images best
– No matter for “experienced learners”
– Visuals help inexperienced learners
• “Coolness factor”
– Motivates and engages students
• Distraction effect
– Decorative color, motion decrease learning
Learning process
• Engage the students,
“pick them up where they are”
– Package for interest, not distraction
• Crucial: Teacher modeling of learning
– Don’t “know it all” (present only facts)
– Show process of arriving at conclusions
– Engage in dialog with sources (and students)
The Diary as a Primary Source
• Historical context (personal)
– Anne born in Germany, 1929
– Fled to Holland, 1933
• Historical context (structural)
– Great Depression
– Radical solutions
appeal to many
Simultaneity: for connection
• Anne 4 years old in 1933
• Biographical connection
– My father born in 1929
– Students’ grandparents
– Anne would be 73 now
• Timeline exercise?
Core for ALL Lessons
• READ THE DIARY!
– It has definite literary quality
– Anne supplies the context
• THEN discuss other issues
– History of the WW2, Germany, Holocaust
– Racism, persecution
– Quality, goals of life
My lesson today
• The Diary as a primary source
• Original vs. authentic
– Reliable, true to the original
• Many versions of the Diary: Many truths?
Content Standards
10.8 Students analyze the causes and
consequences of World War II.
5. Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially
against the European Jews; its transformation into the
Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the
murder of six million Jewish civilians.
6. Discuss the human costs of the war, with particular
attention to the civilian and military losses in Russia,
Germany, Britain, the United States, China, and Japan.
Analysis Skills Standards
“to be learned through, and applied to, the
content standards”
• K-5: Students differentiate between primary and
secondary sources. Also: sequence, similarity/
difference, connection, location
• 6-8: distinguish fact from opinion;
detect different historical points of view
• 9-12
Historical Research, Evidence, and Point of View
1. Students distinguish valid arguments from
fallacious arguments in historical interpretations.
2. Students identify bias and prejudice in historical
interpretations.
3. Students evaluate debates among historians
concerning alternative interpretations of the
past, including an analysis of authors' use of
evidence and the distinctions between sound
generalizations and misleading
oversimplifications.
3 Basic Versions of Anne’s Diary
Version a: Anne’s original
(June 1942-Aug. 1944)
Version b: Anne’s rewrite
(May-August 1944)
Version c: Anne’s father’s synthetic edit
(1945-46) “typescripts I & II”
More versions, more audiences
• Dutch publisher: T II - 15 deletions (1947)
– French translation (1950)
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German translation (1950): typescript II
English translation (1952): hybrid (7 back in)
Critical edition of versions a, b, c (1986)
Definitive edition (1995)
– Redoes synthesis by Otto in 1945-46
• Stage versions (1955; 1997); film (1959)
Old vs. New Technology
• For some things, bells and whistles don’t
work as well
• Now for text analysis, word by word
--I’ll use “old technology”: overhead proj.