Ian McAvoy, an English teacher at University City High School in San Diego, discovered the IWitness Video Challenge and was so impressed that he invited staff from USC Shoah Foundation to give a presentation on IWitness to the other teachers at his school. One of those teachers, Susan Bristol, found it such a powerful experience that she adopted IWitness in her own classroom.

Bristol assigns IWitness in her American Literature classes. Each spring, her students construct videos with testimony clips in the computer lab and then present them to each other in a class “film festival.” She also assigns IWitness as a summer project for her honors class. Bristol said this project is a good way for her to meet her students before the school year starts, since she can follow and comment on their work during the summer.

She said students’ reactions to testimony are overwhelmingly very emotional, which leads to great class discussions.

“It's nice that part of the activities is interaction between students, because some really powerful conversations start,” she said.

IWitness teaches humanity through the inhumanity of others, Bristol noted. Her students have shared that using IWitness is a powerful and moving experience for them.

“I believe that using primary sources is much more effective than the reading of textbooks, especially for teenagers. There is just something about hearing the stories from the people who actually experienced the events,” Bristol said. “It makes it ‘real.’"