Day 4: Executioners and Victims

Goal: Students will understand the complexity and difficulty of the former Soviet citizens' relationship to the USSR's bloody past.

Text focus: Second hand Time pages 32-38

There are some obscenities in this section of the text to handle as the teacher sees fit.

Journal prompt: Write about a time when you or someone you loved was betrayed. How did you feel?  Do you still talk to the person who betrayed you?

Usually I have a short time to share responses to journal prompts; with this particular topic, I would be very cautious in asking students to share. 

Explain that many Soviet people had lived through and participated in a particularly brutal dictatorship under Stalin. Read aloud pages 32-33 with the students, asking them to write down the betrayals they hear about in the text. This section addresses a man's discovery that his dad's neighbor and niece informed on him, resulting in a prison term from which he never returned.

This section is very dark and will require some unpacking with the students. Teacher may want to address the role of fear and the need for self-preservation. I would probably discuss the McCarthy hearings at this point.

Make a connection:  Ask students to write down an episode from America's past that betrayed our ideals. Does that episode make them sad to be American? How do you separate ideals from inconvenient facts?

The next several pages of text, with brief snippets of dialogue, lend themselves well to impromptu theater.

Before reading, draw attention to Alexievich's explanation of context for these sections (at a May Day parade).

Number the lines of dialogue and assign a line to each student; have them stand up and come to the front of the room as they speak to imitate a gathering mob.

After reading, have students return to their seats. For an exit ticket, ask them to explain three contradictions Soviet citizens face(d) in dealing with their past.