Consider the following questions as you are responding in ...



Night Journal Prompts

Consider the following questions as you are responding in your Night reflection journal. Respond to the questions, and if you like, you may write about whatever strikes you from today’s reading.

((At least two sentences for each question)

Night (Chapter 1)

1. What do you already know about the Holocaust?

2. How does Moishe’s story affect you? (page 6)

3. Why do you think people do not listen to Moishe’s story? (7)

4. Why do you think the Jews of Sighet do not see what is coming? (10)

5. What is delusion? How are the Jews of Sighet deluded? (12)

6. Elie’s father is crying. What do you think he expects? (19)

Night (Chapter 2)

7. What must it have been like to travel for days in the cattle cars? What do you think the people were thinking? (24)

8. What is the symbolic fire that Mrs. Schächter sees? What could the fire represent? (24)

9. Why do you think the people turn on Mrs. Schächter? How is this ironic? (26)

Night (Chapter 3)

10. “Men to the left! Women to the right!” These eight words spoken by the S.S. guard changed Elie’s life. What would you have been thinking at this point? (29)

11. What do you know of Dr. Mengele? (31)

12. If you were Elie, would you have killed yourself or kept marching? Why? (33)

13. What do you think Elie wants to tell his father? Why? (37)

14. Why doesn’t Elie respond when his father is struck? What would you do? (39)

15. Why does Elie lie to his relative from Antwerp? Did he do the right thing? Is it better to lie or tell the truth in this situation? Why? (44)

Night (Chapter 4)

16. What must it have been like to meet other survivors outside of the camps after the Holocaust ended? (54)

17. Why do you think the man screamed when he reached his desired goal, the soup? (60)

18. As the prisoners are watching a hanging, one boy whispers, “This ceremony, will it be over soon? I’m hungry…” What does this statement show you about the loss of humanity and the base desire for survival in the camps? (62)

19. After the hanging, why did “…that evening, the soup tasted better than ever”? (63)

Consider: What agony it must have been to see the sad-eyed angel little boy hanging. Can you imagine seeing someone still alive half an hour after this terrible brutal act?? (65)

Night (Chapter 5)

20. If you were in Elie’s place, how would you feel about God? (68)

21. What do Elie and his father understand about each other? (69)

22. What is the “great void opening” in Elie? (69)

23. Imagine the selection process. Standing in a line, waiting to see if you were one who would die that day. Would you still have the will to live, or would you want to die? (72)

24. What would you say to your father if he was being taken away to die? (75)

25. Would you lose hope if your devout pastor gave up & said that there was no God? (77)

26. Why do the prisoners still cling to hope of the Russians coming? (81)

27. Do you think Elie believed he would survive after leaving the infirmary? Why? (82)

Night (Chapter 6)

28. It is difficult to imagine the scene Elie describes as he and his fellow prisoners are running to their next destination. Try to imagine what it must have been like to literally “run for your life.” (85) [20 kilometers = 12+ miles (87)]

29. If you were Elie, would you try to leave your father if it would increase your chances of survival? Or would you try to stay together no matter what? Why? (91)

30. What is the violin that Elie hears? Is it real or imagined? Why? (94)

Night (Chapter 7)

31. Elie has spoken again and again of the living and the dead. To us it can seem trivial, but how must have this been to him? (98)

32. If you were a German who saw these prisoners going by, how would you respond? (100)

33. Can you imagine what it must have been like to kill for a piece of bread? (102)

Eighty-eight men died on the train. That is equivalent to all of you getting on the train and only three of you getting off.

Night (Chapter 8)

34. Would you pass the test of remaining true to your father? (107)

35. Can you identify with Elie’s thought: “Free at last!” How? (112)

Night (Chapter 9)

36. Why does Elie see a corpse looking back at him? What do you think you would see? (115)

Final thoughts:

37. Why does the book end on this note? What pervading mood does it have? How does Elie want you to feel? What does he want you to think?

38. Why call this novel Night?

39. Why is it still important to learn about the Holocaust, even though you have learned about it for years?

40. What is your opinion of this novel?

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download