| Summary: | This study investigated teachers' narrative choice and students' historical
thinking. The research examined the influence of varying curriculum materials, including
a graphic novel, feature film and discovery trunk, on student thinking about the
Holocaust. The study was conducted in three social studies 11 classes, taught by the
researcher, in an urban public secondary school. Data used in the study consisted of
student essay samples and informal classroom observations. The study's findings
revealed that students' thinking about the Holocaust was multi-dimensional and fairly
complex. Students' thinking, at the end of the unit, was categorized into themes:
preservation of Holocaust artifacts and relics, the use of museums as sites of memory,
learning lessons from the Holocaust about humanity, and the intrinsic moral weight of
the Holocaust as a historical event. The use of varied resources did not provide
substantial evidence of differentiated historical understanding, but there was some
evidence to suggest that the varied resources impacted student understanding on a
general level. In light of these findings the thesis concludes that studying the Holocaust
is a valuable topic for students because they will find the narratives compelling, confront
personal moral frames and benefit from thinking through the historical complexity of the
Holocaust. === Education, Faculty of === Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of === Graduate
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