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Summary Of The Wave By Todd Strasser

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Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to find out the answer to a question yourself, so you conduct a small experiment? Well that is what this teacher did to get through to his students. But it got a little out of control and the outcome was not expected. The Wave by Todd Strasser is about a history teacher showing students how the Nazis functioned as a group through a little experiment that soon got out of hand. It all begins when the history teacher at Gordon High School couldn’t answer his students’ questions about the Nazis. As a teacher, Ben Ross’s job is to provide responses for the young students. But when he finds himself stumped, he decides to engage the class into a little experiment called The Wave. As shown on page 25, Ben wonders “Why hadn’t he been able to give the students adequate answers to their questions? Was the behavior of the majority of the Germans during the Nazi regime really so inexplicable?” He concludes that “It just may be an answer they have to learn for themselves (Strasser 28).” This shows that Ben has acted accordingly to what he was facing. In conclusion, Ben’s environment has affected him. …show more content…

Ben has practically brainwashed the high school seniors. According to the principal of the school, Principal Owens on page 122 of the book, “I don’t care about your experiment. I’ve got teachers complaining, I’ve got parents calling me every five minutes to know what the hell’s going on here, what the hell are we doing with their kids.” As shown here, parents, teachers, and the principal aren’t too pleased with The Wave. The Wave has caused fights to break out between students because some people don’t want to be members of what started to look like a cult. Principal Owens has even threatened to fire Ben. All because of The Wave getting out of control. As a result, Mr. Ross has to deal with the issue of his experiment getting carried

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