Toledo Notre Dame Academy students are to be conversing with students in Israel as part of the International Book Sharing Project. Lana Bernhardt, from the International Book Sharing Project, and Hindea Markowicz, from The Ruth Fajerman Markowitz Holocaust Resource Center Fund of Greater Toledo, presented a certificate from the Children of the World Learn About Children to students and teacher Phyllis Bixler for participating. Accepting the certificate were, from left, Brittany Richardson, Lana Bernhardt, Valerie Ranes, Victoria Mitchell, Jenna Douaihy, Alexa Huntley, Hindea Markowicz and Phyllis Bixler. (Photo courtesy of Notre Dame Academy)

Lana Bernhardt from the International Book Sharing Project, a program sponsored by the American Friends of the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum in Israel, introduced 61 students from Phyllis Bixler’s three English I classes to their own cyber classroom. During this orientation, Ms. Bernhardt demonstrated how students would use cyberspace to communicate with their Israeli peers at Yigal Alon High School in Nazareth about a novel they are reading, and learn more about the students and Israeli culture.

This innovative, Internet-based study program has paired Notre Dame Academy directly with another high school in Israel for the study and online discussion of a work of age-appropriate Holocaust literature by Elie Wiesal, a Holocaust survivor and Noble Peace Prize recipient.

Students are reading “Night,” discussing it in class in its historical context and creating literary response journals. They are also to take part in an online dialogue with their Israeli peers, focusing on their reactions to central passages in the book and discussing related issues of concern and interest. The discussions take place within the student forums of the Project web site, www.korczakschool.org and center around discussion themes on which the respective teachers have collaborated to create.

An important part of the process is when the students get to know one another prior to actually reading the novel. For several weeks students exchange information and dialogue via the secure cyber classroom to learn more about one another, their schools and the worlds in which they live. Students are to begin to communicate in December and share their thoughts and opinions about the novel through April. The students’ and teachers’ online exchanges will culminate with a collaborative project.

The International Book Sharing Project is taking place this year in a select group of schools located in communities across the United States, including public, Jewish and Catholic schools at both the middle school and high school levels.

The American Friends of the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, the U.S. funding organization for the Ghetto Fighter’s Museum, is located in northern Israel and is one of the world’s leading teaching institutions on the Holocaust.

This is the second year for Notre Dame Academy in the International Book Sharing Project. Last year they were paired with a middle school. It has been made possible by the support of The Ruth Fajerman Markowitz Holocaust Resource Center Fund of Greater Toledo and the United Jewish Council of Greater Toledo.