Assessment

Adding to Evidence Logs, 1 of 3

In step 3 of the unit assessment, students address the writing prompt in a journal reflection and start to evaluate the quality and relevance of the evidence they are gathering.

Published: March 21, 2018

Last Updated: July 19, 2022

Assessment

Language

English — US

Subject

History
Social Studies

Grade

6–8

Duration

One 50-min class period

The Holocaust

Overview

After completing Lesson 13: Laws and the National Community, students are ready to think about the next step of the writing prompt, the Nazi Party’s rise to power and what they can learn about the impact and power of their own choices from the events they studied in Lessons 8 through 13. In addition to addressing the writing prompt in a journal reflection, students will start to evaluate the quality and relevance of the evidence they are gathering.

This assessment is designed to fit into one 50-min class period and includes:

3 activities
2 teaching strategies

Preparing to Teach

Lesson Plans

Activity 1

Ask students to reread their last essay journal response that they completed after Lesson 8: The Weimar Republic and then respond to the following question:
- What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?
To allow students to interact with a number of their peers after they have finished writing, have them first share their journal responses with a partner. Then ask each pair to join another pair so the class is now divided into groups of four. After they share, have the groups combine into groups of eight or come together as a class. Remind students that they can add ideas from the discussions to their journal entries that extend or challenge their thinking.

Activity 2

Facilitate a class discussion in which students suggest documents or videos from Lessons 8 to 13 that are relevant to the essay topic. Write the list on the board.
Have students break into pairs or groups to review the documents on the list, adding to their annotations and writing relevant evidence in their evidence logs. If you feel like your students would benefit from a lesson about evaluating evidence, you might consult strategy 9 in Evaluating Evidence and Strategy 10: Relevant or Not? in the Common Core Writing Prompts and Strategies supplement.
After they gather their evidence, use the Give One, Get One strategy to have students share the evidence they have collected and identify questions they have about what they are learning.

Activity 3

In a final journal response or on exit cards, ask students to respond to the following questions:
How has what you have learned about the Nazi Party’s rise to power changed your thinking about the prompt?
Which choices made by individuals, groups, and nations in the history that you have learned about so far in this unit seemed most significant? What made those choices powerful or impactful?
What questions do you have about the essay topic, thesis statement, evidence logs, or evidence that you didn’t ask in class today?

Materials and Downloads

Lesson

Laws and the National Community

Students are introduced to the Nazis’ idea of a “national community” and examine how the Nazis used the Nuremberg Laws to define who belonged.

Lesson

The Power of Propaganda

Students analyze several examples of Nazi propaganda and consider how the Nazis used media to influence the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individual Germans.

Collection

A curation of educational resources for school groups visiting the New England Holocaust Memorial.

A stone sign on the right reads Holocaust, with three glass pillars in view at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, MA.

Collection

Find interview transcripts, historical overviews, and primary source documents about a particular Jewish partisan or country.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Unit

Explore the stories of Jewish partisans that stood against Nazi oppression, genocide, and antisemitism during World War II.

Lesson

Students prepare for their study of Schindler's List by creating a contract establishing a thoughtful, respectful, and caring classroom community.

Collection

This collection includes resources to accompany the text The Children of Willesden Lane, the powerful true story of Lisa Jura, who fled Nazi-occupied Vienna on the Kindertransport as a child.

Collection

Explore the collection of media referenced in our unit Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior, available both online and in print.

Cropped cover of Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior Unit Outline for Teachers.

Lesson

Students prepare for their study of the Holocaust by reflecting on the ways in which memory is an integral part of Jewish identity.

Lesson

Students deepen their examination of human behaviour during the Holocaust by analysing and discussing the range of choices available to individuals, groups, and nations.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst in June 1942.

Lesson

Students both respond to and design Holocaust memorials as they consider the impact that memorials and monuments have on the way we think about history.

In Kassel, Germany, artist Horst Hoheisel created a “counter-memorial” marking the site where a majestic fountain built by a Jewish citizen once stood; it had been destroyed by Nazis in 1939.

Lesson

Students continue to explore the question “Who am I?” by examining the concept of dual or multiple identities and reflecting on their own identities as Jews.

Lesson

Students learn about pre-war Jewish life and compare it with today’s diaspora in order to reflect on how modernity can impact tradition.

Lesson

Students define the term resistance and then learn about the different ways that Jews resisted the Nazis during the Holocaust.

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Adding to Evidence Logs, 1 of 3