Anne Frank project teaches preteens empathy, collaboration
CRANBERRY TWP — Three teachers at Haine Middle School in the Seneca Valley School District created a multifaceted project on Holocaust victim Anne Frank for the sixth-grade students in their homerooms, and the lessons of the young Jewish girl’s short life apparently hit home.
“I learned you should be grateful for what you have,” said sixth-grader Ella Barch.
“I learned you shouldn’t judge others on something they can’t change about themselves, and it’s not a cause for hatred if someone is different from you,” said her classmate Leah Malley.
For the project, students broke into groups and read novels about World War II and the Holocaust, watched a video about Anne Frank, took a virtual field trip to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, studied quotes from her famous diary, created posters with Frank’s quotes and their interpretation of them, and completed nine models of the small annex the Frank family hid inside during the Nazi occupation of Europe before being captured by the SS.
The models and other information on Frank were displayed proudly on Wednesday at the Anne Frank Gallery Walk in the CIRC space at Haine Middle School.
Parents of students in the three homerooms packed the space that morning to view the cardboard and paper models of Frank’s secret dwelling.
All fifth- and sixth-grade students and teachers in the school took turns touring the gallery during the afternoon.
Teachers Julia Fornadel, Sharon Kramer and Lauren Miloser said that in addition to the important lessons inherent in the Anne Frank story, the project was designed to teach students the important collaboration skills they will need in upper grade levels as well as in their future work lives.
The students intentionally were placed into small groups with others who were not in their homeroom.
“We spent the last two years without collaborating, so we were looking to send them off to seventh grade with these skills,” said Fornadel.
The teachers also equated the Holocaust to the current situation in Ukraine and other more-recent global inequities.
“It’s harder for them to understand and connect with things that happened so long ago,” Fornadel said of the Holocaust, “so we connected it with Ukraine,” a situation the students no doubt hear about and see on the news.
The students also used clay and cookie cutters to create butterflies for a permanent Anne Frank display in the school’s lobby.
That part of the project was based on the book “I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944,” which was read by the students as part of the Anne Frank Gallery Walk project.
“We are trying to develop empathy in our students,” Kramer said.
The teachers were thrilled with the outcome of the project, in which the students used lessons from their math, social studies and English classes.
“I thought the students did a fabulous job,” Fornadel said. “They were very immersed and engaged the entire time.”
Sixth-grader Andrew Foster said he had heard Anne Frank’s name but did not know her story until participating in the project.
He now can relay information about the Frank family, including that they decided to go into hiding after Margot Frank, Anne’s sister, was sentenced to time in a concentration camp.
Andrew appreciated participating in the Anne Frank Gallery Walk and even the work it took to produce it.
“The project was fun at times, challenging and very creative,’ Andrew said.
He also appreciated learning to work within a group of his peers while meeting deadlines.
“You have to keep everyone working and on track,” Andrew said.
