Cover Page Table of Contents Author's Preface Excerpts TEACHING RATIONALE HOW DO YOUNGSTERS LEARN TO MAKE ETHICAL DECISIONS? Rationale for using Your Name is Renée by Stacy Cretzmeyer in the Middle Level Classroom       It is not enough to teach the history of the Holocaust to our young people. We must use our knowledge of the event to raise up a generation who would be willing to become rescuers.       The development of intellect and the accumulation of knowledge do not guarantee moral development or the ability to make ethical decisions. The lessons needed for this to occur must address key areas of moral development in our adolescents within the context of the history of the era. While intellectual development can be effected through any number of learning styles, moral development is largely dependent on life experience. This presents an enormous obstacle when teaching the Holocaust, as there can never be a full understanding of the period by those who did not experience it.       For most of us, the breadth of the number “one million” is beyond comprehension. When approaching a topic as critical as the Holocaust, when six million Jews and millions of other individuals were killed, it is of singular importance that our students begin to grasp an understanding of the individual lives involved. Studies indicate that American youth are becoming increasingly desensitized to violence, making this goal more and more challenging. Therefore, it is crucial for young people to see every “statistic” of the Holocaust as a real person: a devoted parent, a beloved uncle, an idealistic teenager, or a playful child.       The book Your Name is Renée by Stacy Cretzmeyer facilitates the type of learning that can lead to this more in-depth understanding of the Holocaust, and to individual moral development. First, the book provides a basic and well-balanced look at the history of Nazi-occupied France. More importantly, through the use of the first-person voice of a young child and detailed descriptions, adolescents of both genders can relate to the life of young Ruth Kapp. Teenagers are still able to remember being very young themselves, and can easily understand young children of either gender. Thus, they can relate to Ruth’s confusion and heartache when her name was changed and she was forced into hiding. This is the type of intimate literary transaction necessary for the history or academic knowledge of the period to become emotional knowledge, leading to individual advances in moral development. This book presents the choices and motivations of real individuals, and the consequences of their decisions. Your Name is Renée can be used to encourage moral development in adolescents when teaching the Holocaust, helping young people learn to make right and just decisions as they grow.       Marjorie Callahan Beck, M.S.Ed.       English Teacher, Middle School Dean       Moorestown Friends School,       Moorestown, New Jersey In 2005, Ms. Beck presented a pre-conference workshop entitled Every Life Evocative: Holocaust Studies and the Development of Empathy in Adolescents, at the 19th Annual E.L.M.L.E. (European League for Middle Level Education Conference) in Warsaw, Poland.