"100 Days to Inspire Respect" Week 12: Indifference Through Media

Every Friday, the following week’s 100 Days to Inspire Respect educational resources will be previewed.

This week’s resources provide students with an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between media and indifference. They will explore the topic through the work of Elie Wiesel and they will explore the topic in an analysis of testimony and documentary film. The week closes with resources that focus on “changing the script” toward an exploration of personal responsibility and advocacy.

On Monday, April 10, “100 Days” will debut a brand-new type of resource: a video series called “Reflections on Respect.” In each video, an expert from fields including education, religion and sociology watch a clip of testimony from the Visual History Archive and respond with their reflections. This series provides educators with instructional resources to teach students how to interpret, annotate and discuss primary source material. They provide high-level, authentic and thoughtful examples of how to apply such skills, while also promoting students' knowledge, skills and capacities for becoming responsible citizens in civil society.

This week's release will include reflections on Critical Thinking, Media Literacy, and Belonging.

Also on Monday, the IWitness Watch Page will premiere a new collection of 6 clips of testimony from across USC Shoah Foundation's collections centering on the theme of Indifference. The clips include links to supporting graphic organizers and related activities, as well as related topics and terms.

A Mini Lesson on “Elie Wiesel: Talking about Indifference” will be the featured resource on Tuesday. Students compare two forms of texts -- an excerpt written by Elie Wiesel and a clip of Holocaust rescuer Edith Reiss' testimony -- to reflect on and discuss the topic of indifference.

On Wednesday, IWitness will offer an infographic on “5 Ways to Counter Indifference Through Testimony.” This infographic offers educators easily accessible and action-oriented tips for using testimony to engage their students in learning, reflection and action, and for promoting their own professional development.

Students define extremism and consider how it has manifested itself differently in different democratic societies in Thursday’s resource, a Mini Lesson called “Power of Conversation - Challenging Extremism.” Through survivor testimony, they will reflect on how conversation can disrupt the spread of extremist ideologies.

On Friday, students learn about the Great Fire of Smyrna through the testimony of eyewitness and Armenian Genocide survivor Elise Taft in the Mini Lesson “The Great Fire of Smyrna.”

A Mini Quest called “Auction of Souls: The Exploitation of Aurora Mardiganian” will be Saturday’s resource. Students explore the life of Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian Genocide survivor whose life story was adapted into the 1919 film Auction of Souls. Navigating this activity, students will reflect on how Aurora and her story were exploited for the making of the film.

The “Indifference Through Media” week will end on Sunday with a Video Building Activity: “Changing the Script: From Bystander to Advocate.” Students will hear from two women -- a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and a Muslim American -- who were victims of bigotry from the media. In response, students construct a video to encourage themselves and others to take action against intolerance and indifference in the media.