The Genocide of the Armenians, 1915–1916

About This Lesson

After learning in previous lessons about the exclusion of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire’s universe of obligation, students will confront the brutality and devastation of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by people on all levels of Ottoman Society. Over the course of three class periods, students will learn about the facts of what happened, bear witness to the catastrophe that befell the Ottoman Armenian people, and reflect on the motivations and human behaviors that influenced so many to participate.

Essential Questions

• What choices and conditions led to the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire during World War I?
• How can learning about these choices and conditions help us protect the most vulnerable groups in our society today?

Guiding Questions

• How was the Armenian Genocide carried out?
• What can we learn from confronting the brutality of genocide?
• What factors encourage individuals and groups to become perpetrators and participate in the murder and destruction of genocide?

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to identify the stages in which the leaders of Ottoman Empire implemented the Armenian Genocide.
• Students will bear witness to the brutality of the Armenian Genocide with their heads, hearts, and consciences.
• Students will generate insights into the factors that made it possible for so many people at all levels of Ottoman society to participate in genocide.

See the Additional Context & Background section in the Google Doc version of this lesson plan for the essential historical knowledge needed to teach this lesson.

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Prepare Students to Learn About the Genocide

Explain to the class that after several lessons of exploring the events that led up to the Armenian Genocide, in this lesson they are going to be looking at the genocide itself. Tell students that learning about challenging historical events like genocide engages our heads, hearts, and consciences. Give students a moment to reflect in their journals about what that means using the following prompt:

What does it mean to learn with our heads, hearts, and consciences? How is this different from other ways we might learn about the past?

After they have had a few minutes to write, use Think-Pair-Share to debrief students’ thinking. Then, preview the next few days by explaining that

• Today, we will lead with our heads, by learning about the stages in which the Armenian genocide occurred.
• Tomorrow, we will lead with our hearts, by bearing witness to the experiences of Armenians targeted by leaders and people of the Ottoman Empire during the genocide.
• The following days, we will lead with our consciences, examining the range of choices people made as perpetrators and witnesses, rescuers, and bystanders to the genocide.

Activity 2: Clarify Distinctions Between Genocide and Collective Violence

Before going further, It may be helpful to take a moment to clarify how genocide can be distinguished from the incidents of collective violence against Armenians that students learned about in earlier lessons. You can share or summarize the following quotation from sociologist Helen Fein to help clarify the distinction: 

Genocide differs from collective violence—deliberate injury or extraordinary punishments inflicted against people just because they are members of a collectivity (religious, ethnic, or racial group)—in that it is centrally planned and purposeful, and in that its intent is total. While collective violence often serves to put (or keep) a subjugated group in its place, genocide eliminates the group.”

It may also be helpful to remind students that the term genocide did not yet exist in 1915, so they will not find it in any historical documents from the time period.

Activity 3: Set Up Two-Column Notes to Explore Events and Causes of the Genocide

Use a modified version of the Two-Column Note-Taking teaching strategy to help students organize their understanding of what happened during the Armenian Genocide and their thinking about what made it possible. Instruct students to turn to the next blank page in their journals, write the heading “Armenian Genocide, 1915–1916” at the top, and then create two columns with the headings “What Happened?” and “What Made it Possible?” They should also create these columns on the next page in order to ensure they have enough space reserved for the notes they will take. As students engage with video, images, and readings in the following days, they will pause to record factual information about the genocide in the first column, and they will reflect on the factors that made these events possible in the second column.

Based on what they have already learned in this unit, students can likely already add several factors to the “What Made it Possible?” column. Take a few minutes, either as a whole group or with students working in pairs, to let them do so. Some factors that students might suggest include:

• The unequal status of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
• Religious tensions between Muslims and Christians
• The growth of Turkism, an extreme form of Turkish nationalism
• A “habit of violence” created by previous massacres of Armenians

Activity 4: Watch a Video Clip Outlining the Stages of the Armenian Genocide

Now pass out the viewing guide for Stages of the Armenian Genocide which includes a transcript of the clip from the documentary The Armenian Genocide (13:30–18:35). 

After viewing the clip, first give students a few minutes to simply write in their journals about any feelings, ideas, or questions the clip raised for them.  

Once they have had some time to reflect and process, direct them to their two-column notes, where they can add new information and ideas to either column based on what they learned from the video:

• Under “What Happened?”, they should add the three stages of the genocide (massacre of Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman military, attacks on Armenian intelligentsia and leadership, and deportations of Armenians across Anatolia).
• Under “What Made it Possible?”, they might add factors like the Ottomans’ military defeat to the Russians, propaganda, and paranoia about Armenian loyalty.

Activity 5: Exit Tickets

Finish Day 1 of this lesson by asking students to respond to the following prompt on an exit ticket: 

What questions, ideas, or feelings did today’s learning about the Armenian Genocide raise for you?

Day 2

Activity 1: Acknowledge Exit Tickets

Begin the day by addressing what you gleaned from students’ exit tickets at the end of Day One. Acknowledge the range of feelings students may be experiencing while learning about this history, as well as the variety of questions and ideas people have.  

Activity 2: Analyze a Photograph: “Mother and Child”

Remind students of the head-heart-conscience approach the class is taking as you learn about the difficult events and experiences of the Armenian Genocide. Today is designed to primarily engage their heart (while not entirely ignoring their heads and consciences).

To begin, invite students to look carefully at the photograph Armenian Mother and Child, 1915. Share or project the image and ask students to respond to it by leading them through the See, Think, Wonder strategy. To do so, ask each of the following questions, giving students a few moments to record their responses in their journals for each one:

• What do you see? What details stand out? (At this stage, elicit observations, not interpretations.)
• What do you think is going on? What makes you say that?
• What does this make you wonder? What broader questions does this image raise for you?

Pause between questions to invite volunteers to share briefly what they recorded. Then share the longer caption that Armin Wegner, the photographer who took the picture, wrote for the photograph:

Fleeing from death. An Armenian mother on the heights of the Taurus Mountains. Her husband has been killed or slaughtered, thrown into prison or driven to forced labour. On her back she carries all that she owns, i.e. what she could take with her, a blanket for sleeping or to use as a tent to protect against the sun, some wooden sticks, and then, on top of everything else, her baby. How much longer can she carry this weight? 

Ask students to respond again to the following questions:

• How do Wegner's comments influence the way you respond to the photograph? What context does he add that you could not learn from looking at the photograph on your own?
• What emotions, if any, come up as you view the photograph and read Wegner’s comments?
• What questions does this photograph raise for you?

Activity 3: Watch a Video Clip Describing the “Deportation” of Armenians

Remind students that on Day One, they learned that the “deportation” of Armenians from the cities, towns, and villages of Anatolia was the third stage of the genocide outlined in the video they viewed. As they will see in the clip they watch today, in the context of the Armenian Genocide, deportation not only meant forced removal and relocation, but also almost certain death.  

Now pass out the viewing guide for The Deportation of Armenians which includes a transcript of the clip from the documentary The Armenian Genocide (18:35–22:57). 

It is important to note before showing the video in class that this clip includes images of corpses and emaciated people that students may find emotionally challenging. It is important to allow students to opt out of viewing the clip. Provide them options such as averting their eyes or leaving the room altogether. Students who opt out of watching the video can read the transcript instead. However, be sure to preview the transcript as well and excerpt it if necessary to meet the needs of your students.

After viewing the clip, give students a few minutes to reflect and write in their journals. Allow them to simply freewrite about the thoughts and feelings they experienced while learning about the experiences of Armenians as they were deported during the genocide.

Activity 4: Respond and Share

Ask students to respond to this modified Color, Symbol, Image prompt:

Thinking about the video that you just watched, choose a color, a symbol, an image, a word, or a phrase that represents your emotional response to this history.

After students have had a few minutes to make their choices, ask them to share their color, symbol, image, or word/phrase in a wraparound. Remind them that the purpose of this sharing is simply to hear the range of experiences in the class. No explanation is necessary, and it is okay to simply say “pass.”
 

Day 3

Activity 1: Reflect on What We Can Learn By Studying Perpetrators

Remind students of the head-heart-conscience approach the class is taking as you learn about the difficult events and experiences of the Armenian Genocide. Today is designed to primarily engage their consciences by beginning to think about the choices people made during the genocide. More specifically, today the class will try to think about what motivated the perpetrators—those who participated in the murder and violence towards Armenians and the destruction of their communities in the Ottoman Empire.

Begin by asking students to respond in their journals to the following question:

What can we hope to learn by studying the perpetrators of genocide? What might be revealed about more universal human experiences and behaviors?

After students have a few minutes to write, use Think-Pair-Share to hear and discuss some of their ideas.

Activity 2: Watch a Video Clip About the Variety of Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide

Before exploring perpetrator motivations and behaviors, it is first important to ask: Who were the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide? Based on what they have learned so far in this unit, students can likely provide the beginning of the answer: the Committee for Union and Progress, and especially its “triumvirate of leaders” Talaat, Enver, and Djemal. Students will watch a short video clip that can help students see that the complete answer is more complex and varied.

Distribute the viewing guide, The Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, which includes a transcript of a clip from the documentary The Armenian Genocide (22:57–26:00). After watching the clip, prompt students to review the transcript and highlight the names of individuals or groups of people who participated in the murder of Armenians and the destruction of their communities. Discuss with the class what this exercise reveals: that the genocide involved the participation of numerous people at all levels of Ottoman society.

Activity 3: Reflect on Perpetrator Motivation

In this activity, students will engage in Big Paper discussions around quotations from scholars that seek to explain, at least in part, the motivations of people who participate in perpetrating genocide. 

Organize the class into groups of three, and give each group a piece of chart paper with one of the quotations from the handout Quotations About Perpetrator Behavior taped to the center. The handout provides three quotations, so it is likely that more than one group will have the same quotation. Make sure that students have different-colored markers and highlighters available at each station.

Before beginning, go over the guidelines for Big Paper, especially emphasizing that all discussion may only occur through writing, not talking. Once the activity has begun, the groups read the text in silence. After students have read, they are to comment on the text and ask questions of each other in writing on the Big Paper. You might provide students the following questions to help direct their silent discussions:

• What words, phrases, and ideas seem especially powerful in helping us understand why people choose to behave as perpetrators?
• What connections can we make between this quotation and specific events and information we have learned about the Armenian genocide?
• Are there any parts of the quotation that you disagree with, or that seem incomplete?
• What other connections can we make between this quotation and other events, books, movies, or experiences we are familiar with?

Students’ written conversations must start on the topic of the text but can move beyond the text. If someone in the group writes a question, another member of the group should address the question by writing on the Big Paper. Students can draw lines connecting a comment to a particular question. Make sure students know that more than one of them can write on the Big Paper at the same time. 

After 10–15 minutes, give students the opportunity to see what other groups have discussed. If time permits, rotate each group to another Big Paper with a different quotation, and give them 5–10 minutes to read the silent conversation that has already occurred there. They can add their own new comments to those already on the paper. Then, rotate the groups one more time so that they can repeat the process, finding a Big Paper with the remaining quotation that they have not yet seen.

If time is short, simply give students a few minutes to visit individually (instead of rotating as groups) at least two other Big Papers to read the discussions on them.

Wrap up the activity with a whole group discussion of the following questions:

• What takeaways do you have from this activity about what motivates people to participate in genocide?
• Are there any factors that you think went unmentioned in your discussions?
• To what extent can we recognize versions of the experiences and emotions described in the quotations in our own lives? How can we make sure those experiences and emotions don’t influence us to mistreat others?
• What insights can we take away from this activity into how to help our communities build resistance to hatred and violence?

Activity 4: Review Two-Column Notes

Wrap up this lesson by returning to the two-column notes that students began on Day One.  Give them a few minutes (or assign for homework) to add additional ideas and information. Prompt them to give special attention to the “What Made it Possible?” column. What additional insights did today’s discussions provide into the choices made by the individuals and groups involved in the genocide. The factors students add now may have more to do with universal human behaviors than the specific historical factors they added on Day One.