Assessment

Adding to Evidence Logs, 3 of 3

In step 5 of the unit assessment, students reflect on the writing prompt in its entirety, add evidence from Lessons 19-21 to evidence logs, and engage in mini-debates about the writing topic.

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

Students are now ready to reflect on, gather evidence for, and discuss the unit writing prompt in its entirety:

What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazi Party, and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?

In addition to reflecting on the entire prompt and adding evidence from Lessons 19 to 21 to their evidence logs, you might also ask students to engage in structured conversations or mini-debates that challenge them to support their ideas about the writing topic with evidence and listen actively to their peers. For many students, the process of talking before writing helps them organize their thoughts, explain their thinking, and develop a clear point of view.

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

4 activities
2 teaching strategies

Preparing to Teach

Lesson Plans

Activity 1

Ask students to reread their journal entries in response to the essay topic. Challenge them to look for, and maybe even mark with a star, places where their thinking about the question evolved or changed. Then ask them to respond to the writing prompt in their journals:
What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazi Party, and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?
Use the Wraparound strategy to allow each student to share an idea from his or her journal entries with the class.

Activity 2

Students should add to their evidence logs any information from Lessons 19 to 21 that helps them respond to the essay question.

Activity 3

Although students will continue to gather evidence throughout the final two lessons of this unit, this is an appropriate time for them to begin the process of developing their position in response to the writing prompt by engaging in structured discussions with their peers. You might select from the Common Core Writing Prompts and Strategies supplement’s Strategy 14: Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues: Speaking and Listening Strategies or Strategy 15: Building Arguments through Mini-Debates. Or you might select a different pre-writing teaching strategy from the website.

Activity 4

In a final journal response or on exit cards, ask students to respond to the following questions:

How has your thinking about the essay topic question changed over the course of the unit? Which text (reading, image, video), lesson, or activity contributed the most to this change?
What do you feel you need to learn more about in order to answer the essay topic question and write your essay?

Materials and Downloads

Lesson

Justice and Judgement after the Holocaust

Students grapple with the meaning of justice and the purpose of trials as they learn how the Allies responded to the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

Lesson

How Should We Remember?

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.

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, 3 of 3