A Tragedy Revealed : A Heroine’s Last Days Magazine Article Introducing the Selection Informational Text Focus: Comparing Organizational Patterns Writing

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last DaysMagazine Article

Introducing the Selection

Informational Text Focus: Comparing Organizational Patterns

Writing Skills Focus

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How do historical tragedies continue to shape the world we live in?

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last DaysIntroducing the Selection

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days Introducing the Selection

On June 12, 1942, Anne Frank received a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

Within weeks, Anne’s family had gone into hiding from the Nazis, who were attempting to eliminate Jewish people from Europe.


Anne recorded her thoughts and feelings in the diary for more than two years. During most of that time, she and her family were hiding in a secret part of a building in Amsterdam.

The last entry in Anne Frank’s diary is dated August 1, 1944. Three days later, Anne and her family were arrested and sent to a Nazi concentration camp.

[End of Section]


Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early March, 1945.

What did Anne experience in the seven months between her last diary entry and her death at age 15?

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last DaysInformational Text Focus

For readers to understand a text, that text must have a structure and organization.

When a writer arranges the details of an argument into a clear pattern, readers are more likely to understand the writer’s point.

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days Informational Text Focus

Here are three of the most common structural patterns that writers use to organize their points:

Chronological order

Order of importance

Logical order


When a text is organized in chronological order, the writer describes events in the order in which they happened.

In May of 1940, the Nazis gained power in the Netherlands, where Anne Frank and her family were living.

By July of 1942, the threat of being sent to Nazi concentration camps was so severe that the Franks went into hiding in a building in Amsterdam.



This information is presented in the order in which it occurred. This pattern is common in writing about history.


Writing that is organized in chronological order often shows cause-and-effect relationships, letting the reader know what brought about a particular event and what resulted from it.



Result: They go into hiding.

Cause: The Nazis gain power.

Event: The Franks fear the camps.








Writing that is structured in order of importance organizes the writer’s points based on how much they matter to the overall argument.

I encourage you to support Ana Tejada’s campaign for mayor because she is honest and she is experienced. Most importantly, she cares deeply about the people of our city.

I encourage you to support Ana Tejada’s campaign for mayor because she is honest and she is experienced. Most importantly, she cares deeply about the people of our city.

Ideas may be arranged from most important to least important, or from least important to most important, as they are here.


When writing is organized in logical order, details are grouped into categories.

To get to know me, you’d have to learn about a few things: my family, my hobbies, and my goals for the future.

My family includes my brother, my mother, my grandfather, and me. We live together in a building about a block from my school. . . .

To get to know me, you’d have to learn about a few things: my family, my hobbies, and my goals for the future.

My family includes my brother, my mother, my grandfather, and me. We live together in a building about a block from my school. . . .

Organizing writing in logical order connects related details. In this example, the details will be arranged into three categories: family, hobbies, and goals.

Into Action: This article contains a chronological account of what happened to Anne Frank and the other residents of the Secret Annex after their arrest by the Gestapo. Draw a time line like the one below to show what Ernst Schnabel discovered. Start with 1942 and end with March 1945.

[End of Section]


Time Line of Events1942

1945

Franks forced into hiding in the Netherlands

Preparing for Timed Writing

As you read, think about Anne’s expressed belief that people are basically good.

[End of Section]

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days Writing Skills Focus

Record your thoughts in a notebook.

Vocabulary

A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days Vocabulary

annihilation n.: complete destruction.

premonition n.: feeling that something will happen.

inexplicable adj.: unable to be explained.

emaciated v. used as adj.: extremely thin, as from starvation.

raucous adj.: loud and rough.

The Holocaust, Adolf Hitler’s annihilation of six million Jews, is considered by many to be the most violent act in history.

The sentence below may help you understand how the word annihilation is used in “A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days.”

Why might Hitler’s attempted annihilation of the Jewish people be considered history’s most violent act?



Hitler’s annihilation of so many people—some six million human beings—was a horrific act of almost complete destruction.

Scientists study fossils for clues about what caused the annihilation of the dinosaurs.

What do they hope to learn from the fossils?


The warehouse clerk became curious about the inexplicable sounds that came from the back of the building.

Why might these sounds have made him curious?

The sentence below may help you understand how the word inexplicable is used in “A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days.”


The sounds coming from the back of the building were mysterious and unexplainable.

The inexplicable noises made him wonder who or what the source could be.



Kevin’s friends found his decision to quit the team inexplicable.

Do they know why he had decided to quit?

Why might such a premonition cause her to leave her diary behind?

When the residents were taken from the Secret Annex, Anne left her diary; she seemed to have a premonition of what was to come.


The sentence below may help you understand how the word premonition is used in “A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days.”

Anne seemed to have a bad feeling about what was going to happen now that they’d been found.

As a result of this premonition, she may have decided to stop writing in her diary.



That night, Emma had a premonition of danger and decided to stay home.

Why would Emma’s premonition cause her to stay home?


The sentence below may help you understand how the word emaciated is used in “A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days.”

Her time in the concentration camps left Anne looking emaciated.

Why would Anne look emaciated?


Prisoners in the concentration camps received very little food, so they became extremely thin.

This starvation explains Anne’s thin, emaciated appearance.

When Louisa saw the emaciated dog, she assumed it was a stray and took it to a shelter.

Why would the dog’s emaciated appearance cause Louisa to think it was a stray?



The sentence below may help you understand how the word raucous is used in “A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine’s Last Days.”

When the Occupation Police arrived for Anne and her family, they entered quietly, not in the raucous way the play suggests.

Why might the Occupation Police have made a quiet entrance, rather than a raucous one?


Because the officers made a quiet entrance, rather than a loud, raucous one, they were able to take the occupants of the Secret Annex by surprise.


Mr. Harrington was disappointed to hear of the class’s raucous behavior from his substitute.

Why would raucous behavior be disappointing to Mr. Harrington?

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The End

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A Tragedy Revealed : A Heroine’s Last Days Magazine Article Introducing the Selection Informational Text Focus: Comparing Organizational Patterns Writing