Step 4: Adding to Evidence Logs, 2 of 4

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 rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.

• Ask students to reread their last essay journal response that they completed after Lesson 9: The Weimar Republic and then respond to the following question:
  • How can learning about the choices individuals, groups, and nations made as democracy crumbled and the Nazi Party seized control in Germany help guide how we respond to injustice in our communities and in the world today?
• Use a modified version of the Think, Pair, Share teaching strategy to allow students to interact with a number of their peers after they have finished writing. First, have them 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 should add ideas from the discussions to their journal entries that extend or challenge their thinking.

• To introduce inferences, follow the procedure for Strategy 11: Learning to Infer on page 49 of the Argumentative Writing Prompts and Strategies: Holocaust and Human Behavior resource. Students will apply what they learn about inferring like a historian after they gather some evidence from this section of the course.
• Next, facilitate a class discussion in which students suggest documents or videos from Lessons 10 through 14, which focus on the Nazis’ rise to power, that help them address the assessment prompt. Write the list on the board.
• Then have students work in pairs or small groups to add evidence from the sources on the list to their evidence logs. Depending on the skills you taught in Assessments Step 3: Adding to Evidence Logs, remind students that they should be evaluating their evidence and assessing its relevance before adding it to their evidence logs.  
• Finally, using Option A: It says . . . I say . . . And so . . . or Option B: Inference Equation from Strategy 11: Learning to Infer on page 50 of the Argumentative Writing Prompts and Strategies resource, model the strategy on the board with one piece of evidence and then have students work with a partner to choose three pieces of evidence. Circulate around the room to get a sense of who understands inferences and who will need follow-up instruction.

• 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 essay prompt?
  • Has any evidence that you recorded conflicted with or challenged your initial thinking about the essay 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?