Step 6: Adding to Evidence Logs, 4 of 4 | Facing History & Ourselves

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Assessment

Step 6: Adding to Evidence Logs, 4 of 4

Students reflect on, gather evidence for, and discuss the course assessment prompt in its entirety.

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At a Glance

assessment copy
Assessment

Language

English — US

Subject

  • History
  • Social Studies

Grade

9–12

Duration

One 50-min class period
  • The Holocaust
  • Genocide
  • Antisemitism
  • Democracy & Civic Engagement

Overview

About This Assessment

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

Throughout this course, you have examined the atrocities committed by the Ottoman government during the Armenian Genocide, the rise of Nazi Party in Germany following World War I, and the pursuit of racial purity in Nazi Germany that resulted in the murder of 6 million Jewish individuals and millions of other civilians during the Holocaust. 

You have also looked closely at the choices made by individuals, groups, and nations that led to these events. For the culminating assessment, you have the choice (based on teacher discretion) to respond to the course essential question by either writing a final argumentative essay or designing a research-based Choosing to Participate (CTP) Toolbox project. Support your work with evidence from these historical cases in response to the following question:

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

In addition to adding evidence from Lessons 20 through 22 to their evidence logs, consider having students engage in structured conversations or mini-debates that challenge them to support their ideas about the prompt with evidence from the course while also practicing active listening with their peers. For many students, the process of talking before writing and/or designing helps them organize their thoughts, explain their thinking, and develop a clear point of view and action plan.

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Procedure

Activities

  • Have students review their journal responses, handouts, and readings from Lessons 20 to 22. Then ask them to respond to the following questions in their journals:
    • Which choices made by individuals, groups, and nations in these lessons seemed most significant?
    • What made those choices powerful or impactful? What can we learn from those choices about history or human behavior?
    • What tools and resources have others used throughout history to make a positive difference and strengthen their communities and society?
  • Invite some students to share their ideas with the class, listing the important lessons on the board. Then use the Wraparound strategy to allow each student to share one choice from their reflection that they think is most significant and why.
  • (Optional for Essay Assessment) Use the Think, Pair, Share strategy to have students share their thoughts on the following questions:
    • Based on what you have learned throughout this course, how do you want to participate in your community and beyond? 
    • What strengths, talents, and passions do you have that can help you narrow down the ways you might engage with the world?

Related Materials

  • Students should work in pairs or small groups to add to their evidence logs any information from Lessons 20 to 22 that helps them respond to the prompt question. As in past evidence-gathering activities, start together as a class by making a list of relevant handouts, readings, and videos that help students address the prompt before asking them to select relevant evidence to add to their logs.
  • Essay Assessment Option: Although students can continue to gather evidence throughout the final two lessons of the course, 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 can select from the Argumentative 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 Facing History website.
  • Choosing to Participate (CTP) Toolbox Project Option: Again, students can continue to gather evidence throughout the final two lessons of this unit, but this is an appropriate time for them to begin the process of determining how what they have learned from the past can play a positive role in shaping the present by engaging in structured discussions with their peers about what it means to be upstanders in their communities.
    • Create a Civic Self-Portrait (Optional for Essay Assessment Option): The Civic Self-Portrait activity helps students think about and visualize the different elements of being a civic participant. You can complete this activity in one class period, or you may want to assign it as homework so students have more time to reflect and create their visuals. 
      • Distribute copies of the Handout: Civic Self-Portrait and review the directions. In order to help students begin constructing their Choosing to Participate (CTP) Toolbox project and to exemplify what it means to embrace our roles as civic participants, you might consider modeling the activity by beginning your own civic self-portrait on the board or flip chart. Students can record their ideas directly on the handout, or, to help them think more deeply, first have them reflect in their journals to answer the questions on the handout. Then instruct them to create their civic self-portraits, using ideas from their journal response, symbols and images, and color to envision their civic selves. 
      • Depending on the amount of time you have available, particularly if students will be completing their handouts as homework, students could share their civic self-portraits in pairs or small groups or in a Gallery Walk. 

Related Materials

  • Ask students to reread their previous journal entries in response to the course assessment prompt. Challenge them to look for, and maybe even mark with a star, places where their thinking about the question has evolved or changed.
  • Then project or pass out the course assessment prompt in its entirety (see above) and read it out loud together.
  • In a final journal response or on Exit Cards, ask students to respond to the following questions:
    • How has your thinking about the assessment prompt changed throughout the course? Which text (reading, image, video), lesson, or activity contributed the most to this change?
    • What do you feel you need to review or learn more about in order to address the prompt question through your essay and/or project?

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Assessment

Step 6: Adding to Evidence Logs, 4 of 4

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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.
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Confronting Genocide Denial

Students examine some of the causes and consequences of Armenian Genocide denial and consider how public art can serve as a form of remembrance and civic participation.
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