Grade 8 - Summer Reading and Study Guide

The Boy Who Dared by Bartoletti, Susan Campbell (Scholastic Press, 2008)

SUMMARY: Helmuth Hübener is born in Germany in 1925. As a young boy, he loves his country and his patriotism is never questioned, but with the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Helmuth sees many changes in his country, family, and friends. Helmuth is so distraught by all he sees that by the time he is sixteen-years-old, he is distributing anti-Hitler leaflets. At seventeen, he is imprisoned and sentenced to death.

Directions: Before, during and after reading the novel, you will be creating a reading response journal using a composition book. Complete all the activities below in your composition book.

Part I. Building Background Knowledge (before reading)

1) Research pictures related to World War II and the Holocaust. Print, cut out pictures, paste in composition book adding text features (i.e. captions, title, highlight important words).

2) Vocabulary: Development (Define the terms in your composition book): boycott warmonger Great War Brownshirt chancellor propaganda defeatist black market plutocracy idealism denounce underground swastika Part II. Reading Comprehension Questions (during and/or after reading)

Provide text-based support for each response. Cite the page, paragraph and lines that support your answers.

- How do Helmuth’s beliefs change during his lifetime?

- What does Mutti mean by, “Silence is how people get on sometimes”? (p. 72)

- Do you think Helmuth’s friends, Karl and Rudi, are right or wrong in not getting as involved with the leaflets as Helmuth is?

- The German people could not protest or have contact with the outside world when the Nazi’s hadcontrol of Germany. Could this happen today?

Part III. Writing – CHOOSE ONE: (After reading, show off your writing skills by developing the journal starters into detailed paragraphs/essays)

JOURNAL STARTERS:

-Honesty is the best policy because …….

-The most courageous thing I have ever seen is…

Part IV. BOOKTALK: be prepared to have class discussion the first week of school. EXAMPLE PROVIDED:

Helmuth is a Mormon growing up in Nazi Germany. He does not feel comfortable with the actions of the Nazi’s, yet everyone he loves tells him he needs to stay quiet about the bad things that are happening. He does keep quiet for a while but he gets more and more uncomfortable. His minister is taken to a labor camp for speaking out against the Nazi’s. Helmuth sees him when he is released and everything changes. Helmuth can no longer sit back and do nothing.

ENJOY and HAVE FUN READING!!