During World War II, the Nazis [not-seez], who controlled Germany, conquered most of Europe. They forced millions of people, most of them Jewish, into concentration camps—prisons, where most were killed. Some Jewish people were able to hide from the Nazis.

A young Jewish girl named Anne Frank hid with her family in a secret building in Amsterdam, Holland for almost two years. During that time she kept a diary, or journal. Anne and her family were eventually discovered and sent to a concentration camp, where Anne was killed. Her diary, which had been left behind, was saved. Since Anne’s death, millions of people have read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

In this lesson, you will explore how Anne’s writing demonstrates what she went through while she was in hiding from the Nazis, and how those experiences affected her character—her way of thinking and acting.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• People’s writing can show a lot about their character.
• People’s writing can change as their lives change.

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Making inferences
• Determining important information

• entries
• published

Anne's early diary entries described her happy and carefree life as a 13-year-old girl. But after she was forced to go into hiding, her diary described the problems of living in the crowded secret apartment with seven other people.

This video shows Anne making her way through the secret apartment. All of the videos in this lesson are dramatizations, in which actors show the events and speak the thoughts that Anne recorded in her diary. As you watch, think about how Anne reacts to her situation.

What does this dramatization tell you about Anne’s character when she first went into hiding? Write one to two sentences that describe how Anne was feeling in her new, secret apartment.

Anne and her family lived in constant fear that the Nazis would find them. They were even more afraid after they learned that other Jewish people had been discovered and sent to concentration camps, where they were killed.

This video dramatization shows how Anne and her family are almost discovered by the Nazis, and how terrifying this is for them. In this scene, Nazis come close to discovering the secret entrance to the hiding place, before the man helping Anne and her family gets the soldiers to leave and then opens the door himself. Click "View" on the left to watch the video, and think about how this kind of fear could affect someone.

After you watch the video, write two to three sentences that answer the following question: How would living with this kind of fear change someone's character?

As Anne learned more about what was happening to Jewish people in Europe, her writing began to change.

In this video, she talks with her sister about her reasons for writing. As you watch, think about how Anne's new purpose for writing her diary shows changes in her character.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

Anne wanted her diary to be published after the war, so that people around the world would know what the Nazis had done to the Jewish people of Europe. Her diary entries showed a change in her character, as she found a new purpose in her life. Her entries became more serious, too, as Anne wrote about why human beings do terrible things and questioned whether humans are basically good or evil.

In the previous video, Anne told her sister, "I don't want to have lived in vain" ("in vain" means for no reason). Why did Anne come to see her diary as a way to give her life meaning?

In the dramatizations of the diary, you have seen how Anne's character changed over time. Now, show what you have learned so far about Anne by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have learned about Anne’s life in hiding and how it changed her as a person. Now you will read some of her diary entries to see that change reflected in her actual writing.

Click "View" on the left to read the passage.

What more have you learned about Anne's character from reading her actual diary entries?

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: character, concentration camp, dramatization, entries, published

Think about what you have learned about Anne's experiences and her writing. In this activity, you will read more from her diary, and highlight answers to questions about how these entries reflect changes in Anne's character.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

Life in Hiding

Video: 1m 04s

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The Scare

Video: 0m 31s

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I Want to Be a Writer

Video: 0m 48s

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The Diary of Anne Frank

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about how Anne Frank’s character changed during World War II, and how you can see that change in her writing. You will now write an essay that shares what you have learned and what you think about it.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Download Character Change: The Diary of Anne Frank—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics listed on the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned about from the reading passage, video(s), and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.