Lesson Ideas: How did Hitler Consolidate his power?
Activity
Mix and Match
Remember: List the
events in the correct
chronological order.
Tweets
Understand: Compose
a tweet that captures
the essence of an event.
Links
Analyse: Integrate key
terms into a unified
diagram of the topic.
Extension
Challenge
Evaluate: Determine the
most historically
significant event and
justify your selection.
Thinking
Questions?
Examination
technique Review
Instructions
Using the cards found on the page entitled Activity 1, have students match the
events with the correct dates and descriptions.
Depending upon the size of your class split the class into groups of 5. Each
student in the group is assigned one event. Their job is to write a tweet that
summarizes the event in a maximum of 140 characters – remind students that
spaces are characters too. You may wish to review summarization techniques
– such as Rule Based Summarising (see the activity sheet included in this
package).
Students can then share their tweets and peer-assess.
Get students to put their notes away. Using the cards provided on the page
entitled Activity 2, create a diagram that details the links between all of the
different events together. You can re-arrange the key words in any way that
you like in order to tell/explain the story. Be sure to use connectives over top
of your arrows. Students can also add images in order to link the ideas to
their visual memory.
This is a challenging activity – to simplify it cut down on the number of key
terms that you give the students.
Students decide which event was the most Historically Significant and write a
paragraph explaining their decision. Be sure that students develop a set of
criteria that can help them make an informed judgment.
Questions based around the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. Please see the page
entitled “Thinking Questions”. These questions could be used in a variety of
different ways – in classroom discussions, as AFL tasks, to generate a list of
questions that students must complete.
As this is the last topic in this particular module – students should review good
examination technique. This could be structured in a number of ways for
example, students could work in small groups or pairs, examination questions
could be posted on sugar paper around the room and groups move from one
question to the next jotting down ideas about how to answer them. The final
group must work on composing a good answer.
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Activity 1: Mix and Match
Reichstag Fire
Elections
The Enabling Act
The Night of Long
Knives
The Death of
President
Hindenburg
FEBRUARY 1933
A young Dutch
communist was blamed.
MARCH 5 1933
The Nazi’s desired a
majority government so
that they could pass laws
easily.
MARCH 23, 1933
This allowed Hitler to
make laws without
consulting the Reichstag.
JUNE 1934
Hitler and the Wehrmacht
were worried that the SA
was getting too powerful.
AUGUST 1934
Hitler takes on the title of
Führer. The Army swears
an oath of allegiance to
him.
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Activity 3: Links
Reichstag Fire
Enabling Act
Elections
Marinus van der
Lubbe
Death of President
Hindenburg
The Night of Long
Knives
Communist
Decree for the
Protection of People
and the State
Communists
Freedom
2/3
Röhm
Ban
SA
SS
Wehrmacht
Law Against the
Establishment of
Parties
Führer
Political Prisoners
288
81
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Activity 3: Links
Constitution
Laws
Consent
4
444 to 94
Totalitarian
Unions
Local governments
Oath
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Activity 2: Tweeting About the Past
What is a Tweet?
A tweet is a 140-character summary about what is going on in your life. It can also be a way
to share information and good ideas with your friends and followers.
YOUR TASK:
ROLE
AUDIENCE
FORMAT
TOPIC
STRONG VERB
Your characters
friends and
followers on
twitter.
A 140 character
Tweet
The topic you
have been
assigned
Inform
You choose
Examples:
•
A present-day
historian
•
Hitler
•
Röhm
•
van der Lubbe
•
Hindenburg
It must be someone
involved in the event.
Your job is to write a 140-character tweet that captures the essence of your assigned historical
event.
You must write in role, therefore be sure to take a little bit of time to review the event and
familiarize yourself with your characters point of view.
Whatever perspective you choose to write from, you must be sure to condense the idea down
into 140 characters (and don’t forget that punctuation and spaces count as characters) in
length. This means that you will need to practice summarizing. Use the steps below to help.
Rule Based Summarising
Use your notes and the following steps to help you condense your event down to its essence:
1. Delete material that isn’t important for understanding
2. Delete words or passages that repeat information.
3. Replace lists of things with a word that summarises what’s in the list (i.e. replace
the list ‘oak, ash, and poplar’ with ‘trees’)
4. Create a topic sentence.
Write your tweet:
Each box is designated as a letter, punctuation mark, or space.
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Activity 2: Tweeting About the Past
TWEET SUMMARY SELF-ASSESSMENT
[PLEASE TICK THE APPROPRIATE BOX]
How much effort did you make with this work?
Do you deserve recognition for
your EFFORT?
Effort Made:
Maximum
Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Poor
When you have looked at your tweet, how well do you remember the history from the tweets you and
your team mates have made?
THE NOTES WERE
REALLY HELPFUL
MY NOTES WERE
HELPFUL BUT I WOULD
DO THEM SLIGHTLY
DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I COULD REMEMBER
THE HISTORY BUT NOT
BECAUSE OF THE NOTES
I HAD MADE
THE NOTES DIDN’T
REALLY HELP ME TO
REMEMBER THE
HISTORY
Do you feel confident that you will understand the notes that you have made when you look back at
them in the future?
CONFIDENT
FAIRLY CONFIDENT
A LITTLE UNSURE
NO CONFIDENCE AT ALL
Reflect upon using the Rule Based Summary strategy:
What did you like about it?
What would you do differently next time?
Do you think that this strategy is useful? Why or why not?
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Activity 2: Tweeting About the Past
TWEET SUMMARY PEER-ASSESSMENT
Is there evidence that your teammate has followed the Rule
Based Summarising steps?
Circle the appropriate answer:
YES
NO
Describe the evidence:
POSITIVE
POSITIVE
TARGET
ASSESSED BY: __________________________________________________________
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Thinking Questions
REMEMBERING
Recall or recognize
information and ideas
UNDERSTANDING
Understand the main
idea of what was
learned and
interpret/summarise
ideas.
APPLYING
Apply an idea in a
situation to solve a
problem or relate it to
prior experience.
ANALYSING
Break down a concept
into parts and show
relationships between
those parts.
EVALUATING
Make informed
judgments about the
value of information.
Use criteria to support
these judgments.
CREATING
Bring together parts of
knowledge to form a
whole and build
relationships.
1. What do you remember about ________________________ (add event
here)?
2. Describe what happened during the ____________________________(add
event here)?
3. Which event happened first?
4. Which event happened last?
5. List the events in the correct chronological order.
6. Who was in charge of the SA?
1. What is the main point behind all of these events?
2. How would you compare Hitler’s methods during the Munich Putsch
to Hitler’s methods during these events?
3. How would you contrast Hitler’s methods during the Munich Putsch to
Hitler’s methods during these events?
1. Put yourself in Hitler’s shoes, how would you have gone about
consolidating your power?
2. Clarify why Hitler wanted to consolidate his power.
1. Discuss the pros and cons of the Night of Long Knives.
2. How is the Reichstag Fire connected to the Enabling Act?
3. How are the March 1933 elections connected to the Enabling Act?
1. What criteria would you use to assess Hitler’s success in his
consolidation of power?
2. Which event is the most important for Hitler’s consolidation? Why
have you selected this event?
3. Rank each of the events (from 1 to 5) in terms of their importance to
Hitler’s consolidation of power.
4. How could you verify the exact details of the Reichstag Fire and/or the
Night of Long Knives?
1. Develop a hypothesis about what would have happened if the
Enabling Act was not passed.
2. Develop a hypothesis about what would have happened in the Night
of Long Knives had not occurred.
3. Based upon what we have learned about Hitler so far, how would you
portray him?
Anderson, L.W. & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of
educational outcomes: Complete edition, New York: Longman.
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