Cyndi Cook
Mountain Home High School
2009 Idaho Association of Teachers of
Language and Culture Fall Conference
NNU Conference Credit Project
Project Inspiration: I attended BSU Professor Beret Norman’s conference session
on graffiti and was inspired to create this project which connects to the 20th
anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. It was designed with the historical
backdrop of the Fall of the Wall in mind, to give students some basic historical
background about how life was changed beginning when the wall was initially
constructed on August 13, 1961 and when the wall came down on November 9,
1989, including a creative element of creating our own “wall” with sidewalk chalk.
Materials Needed:
 Basic Timeline of German post war history from 1945-1989. Give students
blank timeline and have them fill in the important events which lead to the
construction and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall, covering about 2-3
topics with them per day leading up to November 9.
 Long section of gray cloth, or various segments of dark fabric as available. I
found lots of ugly, gray fabric which was inexpensive at Wal-Mart and joined
many segments together. Try to get cloth enough to stretch at least the
length of your classroom.
 Plenty of containers of sidewalk chalk.
 List of expressions in German for the “sidewalk wall” as requested by the
students or provided by the teacher covering the topics of freedom, unity,
etc.
 Digital Camera
Procedure:
Pre-Information Phase: In the days preceding November 9th of the school year,
hand out the blank timeline of the post war history 1945-1989 to students and
cover about 2-3 dates per day. (This could also be completed with the assistance
of a power point presentation made up by the teacher.) My timeline included the
years 1945 (WWII ends; Germany/Berlin divided by the allies/Soviets); 1948
(Berlin Airlift); 1949 West and East Germany officially become countries; 1953
Worker Uprising in East Berlin; 1950-1960 German refugees flood out of East and
into West; 1961 Berlin Wall in its first form of barbed wire goes up/shoot to kill
orders; 1989 Night November 9, Berlin Wall begins to crumble; 1990 October 3rd,
Germany officially unified.
Discussion/Activity Phase: August 13th 1961/November 9, 1989: You will cover
these two dates in history in one class period, preferably on November 9, or
whenever you can work it into your lesson plans.
Before students enter the room for class, run the long gray segment of cloth
between, over and under tables, desks, chairs or whatever classroom furniture you
have, winding it between students as much as possible. Make signs to indicate
which side is Ost and which side is West. (Print out the famous “Sie verlassen den
amerikanischen Sektor…” sign and post it, for example.) Instruct students to take
their regular seats and if they haven’t figured it out already, they woke up this
morning to a divided classroom. Stress the notion that they have been cut off
from family and friends and life will never be the same. Lead some discussion
about how this might make them feel. To lend some personal examples about how
families were divided, copy and distribute the NYTimes Article called “Berliners
Gather at Barricades Dividing Families and Friends” from August 25, 1961. (Easily
found on google) Although short, this article gives clear examples how the division
affected life—and death—in this now divided city.
After the discussion, explain to the students that the wall has now come down and
physically remove the division of cloth, but remind the students they are still
considered citizens of the east and west. Ask the students to role play a
conversation between an East Berliner and a West Berliner and pair them up in
partnerships of one West Berliner and one East Berliner according to the two
halves of the classroom previously divided by your cloth wall. What might they say
to each other on the night of November 9th? Ask them to be creative in their
pairings—perhaps some of them might role play the reunion of family members,
fiancees, friends or other pairings. Allow enough time for them to plan their
reunion and hold a brief conversation in front of the class. These role plays could
be assigned, that is, a list of possible reunions could be handed out and the
students could work from a list of ideas.
As a final culminating activity, the pairings will now get a blank section of the
Berlin Wall to decorate in their own way—together—to celebrate the end of the
wall that divided them and prove that they can work together to bring unity to
Berlin. Those who were strangers just a night ago are now united as friends and
fellow citizens of a soon-to-be-unified country of Germany.
Outside Activity: Using the sidewalk surrounding my school, I would assign each
pairing of Ost/West citizens a section of concrete sidewalk. Armed with the list
of expressions in German about freedom, unity, walls, etc. the two students would
create their own segment of the wall together. I would require these segments to
include words in German only.
**For the more creative or artistically inclined teacher, or as a possible way to
work with the art department, there is some more brilliant sidewalk “paint” colors
which could be made from other washable materials, and might lend more color to
the “wall segments” since most sidewalk chalk is pastel in color, and much of the
graffiti and pictures on the Berlin wall was very bright and colorful.**
As each partnership finished their segment, I would have them lie down on their
sides facing each other with their sidewalk (wall) segment between them, have
them reach hands across the segment, pose shaking hands and take a picture of
them. Once the picture was viewed, it would look like the students were standing
at the Berlin wall. These pictures would then be published on a school web site or
printed off to display in the classroom.
Follow Up Activities:
*Students could be asked to write how the construction of the wall would have
made them feel (from either side Ost or West) and how they would have coped
with these feelings. Would they have done what some of the people in the NY
Times article did? Why or why not?
*Students could write a short history of the divided Berlin (1961-1989) from the
point of view of the Berlin Wall itself, personifying the Berlin Wall by giving it a
voice and feelings.