Adding to Evidence Logs, 1 of 3

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

• 3 activities
• 2 teaching strategies

• 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.

• 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.

• In a final journal response or on exit tickets, 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?