Mandel Fellowship Lesson Plans

Walk a Quote: A Lesson Based Upon the Sugihara Story
Valerie Person
Currituck County High School
Barco, North Carolina

Overview

This lesson is based on the book Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story by Ken Mochizuki. The lesson is also part of a three-week unit on rescue and resistance during the Holocaust. It addresses the theory of multiple intelligences put forth by Howard Gardner. Using a model that weds the theory of multiple intelligences to the goal of enhanced performance understanding, Gardner argues that curriculum should address three main elements: truth (falsity), beauty (ugliness), and goodness (evil). He specifically incorporates the lessons of the Holocaust as a way to illuminate the third element, goodness, and its antitheses.

Objectives

• Students will reflect on significant quotes or passages from this children's book.
• Students will understand that one person can make a difference.
• Students will recognize the act of goodness that Sugihara made in the rescue of Jews in Lithuania.

Time Required

One class period.

Grade Level

Grade 10

Curriculum Fit

Language Arts

Procedure / Strategy

This lesson focuses on the heroism of Hiroki Sugihara. It is an excellent model to show students that a person's individual choices and actions can make a profound difference in the lives of others. This lesson incorporates intelligences of verbal/linguistic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and bodily/kinesthetic.

1. Students respond in journals to the following question: Do your choices and actions affect anyone else's life? Why or why not? Explain.
2. Students share their responses in pairs, and then with the hole class.
3. The teacher reads Passage to Freedom  to the class.
4. Once the story is finished, the students are instructed to walk around the room and respond in writing to the quotes that are posted. They should read the quote, others' written responses under the quote, and then write their own response to it. This method gets students to reflect while up and moving.
5. Discuss the student responses to the different quotes as a whole class.

Materials / Resources

• Mochizuki, Ken. Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story. New York: Lee & Low Books, Inc., 1997. 
• Quotes displayed on large poster-size sheets posted around the classroom

Evaluation / Assessment

Written responses will be shared in the class.

Quotes

1. If you save the life of one person, it is as if you saved the world entire. (Jewish Talmud)
2. Even a hunter cannot kill a bird that comes to him for refuge. (Japanese proverb)
3. "The eyes tell everything about a person." (quote from story)
4. "Then I saw the children. They stared at our house through the iron bars of the gate." (quote from story)
5. "He had to make a decision. If he helped these people, would he put our family in danger?" (quote from story)
6. "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't, I will be disobeying God." (quote from story)

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