Step 2: Introducing Evidence Logs

Remind students of the final course assessment prompt: 

How can learning about the choices people made during past episodes of injustice, mass violence, or genocide help guide our choices today? 

Explain that they will add to the thinking they have already done in Assessments Step 1 by considering the unique historical lens of the Armenian Genocide.

• Ask students to reread their journal responses from Assessments Step 1: Introducing the Assessments and then respond to the following question:
  • How can learning about the choices individuals, groups, and nations made during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide help guide how we respond to injustice in our communities and in the world today?

Have students share their ideas with a partner or small group, or you might use the Two-Minute Interview strategy and encourage students to add new ideas to their journal responses that expand or challenge their current thinking about the prompt.

If you have not yet taught students how to annotate and paraphrase sources, you might want to devote a class period to modeling and practicing this skill. Students will need this skill for both project options. You could replay part of The Armenian Genocide video segment from Lesson 6 or select a reading from Lesson 7: Genocide under the Cover of War to reread with the class, modeling the process of annotating and paraphrasing sources. Alternatively, you can select a new reading from Chapter 5: The Range of Choices from Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians (pages 113–144) that students haven’t read.

• We recommend that students start to gather evidence that supports or challenges their initial thinking about the final course assessment prompt at this point. The Handout: Evidence Logs provides a place where students can centralize and organize evidence specific to the elective course assessment prompt, which they will collect throughout the class and use to support final written arguments and/or CTP project design choices. Please feel free to adjust your evidence log template to best meet the needs of your students. There is a generic template for evidence logs listed on the Teaching Strategies page, and a third option is explained in Strategy 6: Evidence Logs and Index Cards (pages 35–38) of the Argumentative Writing Prompts and Strategies: Holocaust and Human Behavior supplement. 
• Before students start to collect their own evidence, it is helpful if you model the process by doing a “think-aloud” where you complete the first row of an evidence log template on the board. In your think-aloud, you might first select a piece of evidence that is irrelevant to the topic and then explain to the class why you are not going to use it. Then select a relevant piece of evidence and enter it into the chart.
• Students should work individually, in pairs, or in small groups to gather evidence from their readings, handouts, and class notes about the Armenian Genocide that helps them answer the assessment prompt.
• After students have gathered their evidence, have them share their findings and add more evidence to their logs using the Give One, Get One strategy.

• Let students know that the evidence they collect throughout the course will help them determine what tools and resources could help them and others make humane choices that strengthen communities and should be included in their CTP Toolboxes. Explain that their evidence should highlight choices that others have made throughout history to take action toward justice.
• To help students conceptualize what kind of evidence to look for, consider having them identify an upstander or civic actor that they learned about during their study of the Armenian Genocide. Ask them to consider the following question and discuss as a class: 
  • What lessons can be learned by looking at the choices and actions taken by this upstander or civic actor?
• Pass out the Handout: Map the Internal World of an Upstander and review the directions and questions with the class. Let students know that they will be gathering evidence that helps them understand their chosen upstander/civic actor’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Then divide students into small groups or allow them to complete the handout individually. 
• When they are finished, have students review their handouts in groups and discuss the following questions together. If time allows, form new groups so students can compare and contrast what they learned if they focused on different people before synthesizing key ideas in a class discussion. 
  • What new, different, or deeper understanding do you have of your upstander—their identity, feelings, or motivations—after mapping their internal world?
  • There is an old saying: “You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” What does this quotation mean? What do you think it feels like to walk in your person’s shoes? What do you think this person would want you to understand about them? 
  • What other people that you learned about throughout your study of the Armenian Genocide share your person’s perspective? Do others have different perspectives?
  • How can understanding someone else’s perspective be useful when trying to solve a conflict?

• In a final journal response or on Exit Cards, ask students to respond to the following questions:
  • Has any evidence that you recorded confirmed your initial thinking about the assessment prompt?
  • Has any evidence that you recorded conflicted with or challenged your initial thinking about the assessment prompt?
  • Which choices by individuals, groups, and nations in the history that you have learned about so far in this course seemed most significant? What made those choices powerful or impactful?
  • What tools and resources have others used throughout history to make a positive difference and strengthen their communities and society?