Page 71 - Point 5 Literature Program Option 1 Teachers Guide (2) (1)

THE WAVE
Morton Rhue

Student’s Coursebook, page 75

HOTS taught: Comparing and contrasting
HOTS spiraled: Identifying parts and whole, Problem solving
Literary Terms taught: Flashback, Plot

Background Information

Biography
Morton Rhue is the pen-name of todd Strasser, born in New York City in 1950. Strasser has
written many award-winning books for teens and young adults, on controversial themes like
Nazism. The Wave is a young adult novel, based on a real teaching experiment by Ron Jones
that took place in a history class at Cubberley high School in California in 1969. It was made
into a television movie in 1981, available to watch on Youtube, and a popular feature film in
2008. the novel has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is read in schools
around the world, including Germany.

General Interpretation
this novel is based on a real event. In the story, the setting is Gordon high School. Ben Ross
is a history teacher. while teaching about Nazi Germany, he chooses to show his class a film
about the atrocities committed by the Nazis in concentration camps.
Class discussion raises comments such as: …why didn’t anyone try to stop them? and I would
never let such a minority of people rule the majority.
the class has all kinds of students – a reflection of society as a whole: the confident one (eric),
the outsider (Robert), the popular school newspaper editor (Laurie), the sports jock (David),
and so on.
Since Ben Ross’ students ask questions he can’t answer, he decides to conduct an experiment.
the next lesson, he goes into class and writes on the board, Strength through diScipline.
he makes the students sit in a certain posture and answer questions in a specific way. Some
students take to it immediately. Others, like Laurie, need to be corrected a few times before
they do as they are told. Robert is very cooperative.
although Ross does not intend to go any further in his experiment, the next day he finds the
students sitting upright in their seats, waiting for the next stage. he adds a new motto, Strength
through community. the whole class stands up and repeats the two mottos. then Ross draws a
circle on the blackboard with the shape of a wave in it. this is to be their common symbol. they
also have a common salute. Later a third motto is added, Strength through action.
Different people react in various ways to the ‘new order’. David thinks it will improve the
football team’s performance, Robert is proud to be a monitor, but Laurie is uncomfortable
(as is her mother) about the lack of freedom. her father, on the other hand, thinks that if the
students study better because of the wave, so be it. Once again, we can see that the different
attitudes reflect what one might expect from a society as a whole.

there is a shift away from the positive sense of community and purpose when a student who
doesn’t want to join is threatened, and Robert thinks Ross needs a bodyguard.

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