Night by Elie Wiesel

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I believe that Night by Elie Wiesel could be appropriately used in the classroom at any secondary level, but I would narrow down the age range to high school students. I think that the book is, technically speaking, an easy read. This gives it a lot of diversity regarding the way it can be adapted to fit a classroom anywhere from 9th to 12th grade. If I were to teach it in a freshman or sophomore level English class, I would first assess my students' previous knowledge of the holocaust. If they had a relatively solid foundation of holocaust knowledge, I would read the book and focus more on the literary aspects than the historical. If my students did not have much previous knowledge, I think the book would be ideal to teach in a humanities block period where students could spend time with the book facilitated by a history teacher as well as an English teacher.
If I were to teach this to upperclassmen, I would use it as part of a text set in which students read this book and others with similar themes. I experienced this sort of set up in a class at Eastern, and I really enjoyed reading a short novel accompanied with picture books that speak to the same theme. I imagine assigning this book to students with a simple task, like placing sticky notes in areas that they enjoyed or had questions. I would also have students read picture books about the holocaust and respond to several aspects of the stories including similarities and differences between the way the stories present the holocaust and related difficult themes.   

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