Resistance

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“An ‘Act’ of Resistance”

In this activity, students will research other historical events that have inspired resistance movements and share their findings through a skit or original film, as well as a research poster.

One of the book’s central themes is the idea that resistance to oppression can take many different forms. The Holocaust was one period in world history that necessitated this kind of resistance, and Chaya’s chosen path is clearly that of armed resistance and retaliatory violence. However, Esther points out to her that a refusal to capitulate or even to engage in violence can be an equally valid and brave choice.

• Break into small groups and identify other periods or significant events that brought forth intense and varied forms of resistance. Brainstorming examples of rebellions, revolutions, or mass protest movements may be a good place to start.
• Choose one of these events and research how its associated resistance efforts played out, as well as what brought about an eventual resolution of conflict.
• Within your group, create and enact a short skit or film that depicts your chosen event and the resistance responses that it evoked. However, when you perform or play your skit or film for the class, pause your action before the climax!
• As a class, discuss the resistance efforts and their possible impacts, asking your audience to deliberate on how the conflict might have ended (and why). Following this, present your final scene!
• Finally, put together a poster that showcases your research on your chosen historical event and the subsequent resistance movements.

Teaching Suggestion: Throughout history, cycles of oppression and violence have arisen around the world. Esther argues that fighting alone cannot break these cycles; there must be an active effort to change people’s minds and beliefs if peace is to prevail. In this context, it may be helpful to steer students towards historical events or time periods that have seen unusual or unconventional forms of resistance, such as Gandhi’s promotion of nonviolence in the Indian struggle for independence, which Nelson Mandela drew on in his anti-apartheid activism in South Africa.

Differentiation Suggestion: The concluding poster can be completed either individually or alongside other members of the group. In the case of the former, advanced learners could include more in-depth information or original analyses that did not feature in the group skit/film. In the latter instance, students with complementary skills—language proficiency, artistic ability, research acumen—could be grouped together to lend each other support.