Final Project on Elie Wiesel’s Memoir of the Holocaust—NIGHT

Minimum Requirements:

  • This must be an essay that is written in 12 point font of either Times New Roman, Courier New, or Palatino type font.
  • It must have your name in either the upper left or right hand corner.
  • It must have a title centered.
  • It must be about 450-500 words in length or 2 pages long.
  • It must be double spaced, typed, and printed out.
  • It be broken down into paragraphs, such as the following:
  1. Introductions:
  2. Start with a hook: question, definition, quote, etc.
  3. Introduce the Holocaust.
  4. Introduce the author.
  5. Introduce the book.
  6. State your topic sentence: one sentence that answers a burning question or that states the main meaning or lesson you got out of reading this book.
  7. Paragraph on what you already knew about the Holocaust before reading this book.
  • What did you know specifically before reading NIGHT?
  • What questions did you have going into this book and your research?
  • Which parts of the Holocaust most interested you to find out more about while researching the Holocaust and reading the book NIGHT?
  1. Paragraph on what was new to you that you didn’t know before researching the Holocaust and reading the book NIGHT.
  • What did you learn about the Holocaust?
  • What did you learn about people?
  • What meaning did this new knowledge give you about the Holocaust?
  • What new questions did this new knowledge make you think about?
  1. Paragraph on what you think about genocide.
  • Do holocausts still happen today? Where? Examples?
  • Why do genocides happen?
  • If we remember, can we help stop future genocides? How?
  • What are Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists?
  • What are your thoughts on all of this?
  • What did you learn from this? What can humans learn from this?
  • What questions do we still need answers to?
  1. Conclusions:
  • Start with your topic sentence, the same as in your introduction.
  • Are there still burning questions about the Holocaust or genocide that you would like answered? What are they?
  • What are the two or three most important ideas, lessons learned, or meanings that we can get out of having read this book? From the Holocaust research?
  • End with a quote that you think sums up nicely the main idea learned from the book.

The Final Draft:

  • Only turn-in a final draft that has been revised, improved, and proofread for spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
  • You can have more paragraphs than the ones outlined above. That’s just the minimum requirement.
  • We must review your typed draft in a student-teacher writing conference BEFORE your final draft can be accepted for grading.
  • It’s a great idea to have someone read your typed draft and give you tips for revising and improving it before you submit your final for grading.
  • It’s also a great idea to take a moment to read your typed draft out-loud to yourself for sentence flow, structure, punctuation, and sense.
  • If you don’t like the grade you receive on your final draft, see me about revising your typed draft for a better score.
  • Pictures are great and enhance your overall paper. Cite the sources for your pictures though.
  • If you use quotes or ideas from someone else other than yourself, cite your sources and use quotation marks for exact words that aren’t paraphrased.
  • If sources are used other than class discussions or the book NIGHT, please have a SOURCES section at the bottom of the last page of your paper listing those out.
  • Your paper will be graded on how well you meet these minimum requirements as well as how insightful your questions are, your references back to the book NIGHT, and the inclusion of your Holocaust research.
  • Your final draft will eventually be uploaded on the Internet to the class blog at

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