The students in Lynne Ravas’ eighth grade English class at Lower Dauphin Middle School in Hummelstown, Penn., explore topics relating to the Holocaust not through research papers, but with videos in IWitness.

Ravas said she first heard about IWitness at the 2011 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention, where IWitness regularly gives workshops and presentations. She began assigning IWitness to her students in lieu of research papers. They must choose a topic, such as anti-Semitism, Roma/Sinti, rescuers, etc., and create a video using quotes from survivors and other sources.

Ravas said the project helps students learn how to choose sources and decide which excerpts to use in their research. And, because the project is assigned during their unit on social injustice, listening to testimony allows them to hear perspectives of real people who experienced it.

After she shows IWitness to other teachers at her school, Ravas said they are always immediately interested and want to incorporate it into their own lesson plans.

Students, too, are “really thrilled with it,” Ravas said. “They like how easy it is to do a search on something like Kristallnacht and go in and find clips on that topic, about what people saw and felt.”

Ravas is herself the child of a Holocaust survivor, and knows how difficult it will be to continue bringing survivors into her classroom to meet with students. That’s where IWitness will be invaluable, she said.

“This is what we have to make them available to students; to see them face-to-face and hear from their own mouth,” Ravas said.