One of the topics in my grade 11 course is genocide. We look at it as a result of ultranationalism and do an in depth study of the Holocaust and then look at other 20th/21st century genocides. The initial approach was to present the Holocaust as a case study and then have the students choose other examples to present to the whole class. While this covered curriculum content, it was pretty dry and students tended to focus on details without any kind of real understanding or meaningful reflection. They were focused on the powerpoint more than the content.
A few years ago I got the idea of approaching this from the question of WHY we let genocide happen. We (the global "we") say 'never again', but it seems to happen again and again. So why not explore genocides from this angle. I created a project called "Not My Brother's Keeper" which still explored the various genocides and the ties to ultranationalism, but delved deeper into the role of the bystander. I opened it with the poem "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden (schoolwires.henry.k12.ga.us/cms/lib08/GA01000549/Centricity/Domain/8286/The%20Hangman_Full%20Text%20and%20TPCASTT.pdf) Why do some people collaborate and others stand up to say no. Why do some look away and others actively participate? It's not about placing blame, but trying to make sense of the variety of forces at work in these kinds of situations. By switching the framework the students were asking better questions and taking their research into different directions. They became more involved in their work and were able to make stronger connections to other parts of the course. And rather than a traditional presentation, I asked the students to create some type of museum display that would serve to answer the guiding questions. The students came up with visual art, computer displays, created videos to play, wrote diaries from the perspective of victims and perpetrators, composed music and often evoked multiple senses (sight, sound, touch, etc) to stir a response in the viewer. It was incredible. Last year I had the students build their museum displays in the main hallway of the school for others to see and react to. The students walked through the displays and learned of the personal connections that some of their classmates had to events in Croatia, Bosnia and the Holocaust. We held a seminar type discussion afterwards and the questions and insight the students had quite simply blew me away. To me, they created deeper and more personal understanding of not only the curriculum content, but also made connections that went far beyond.