Assessment Strategies
There are several opportunities for assessment in this lesson. Worksheet 1: Photo Detective can be collected and assessed. In addition, the last section of the KWL chart on the Civil War–"What I Learned"–can be completed by your students and provide some helpful feedback to you. The Worksheet 2: To My Wife which analyzes Amos" letter to his wife has an accompanying Teacher's Guide for you to reference. And for the final assignment of writing a letter to Sgt. Humiston, the lesson offers two separate assessment rubrics–one for content and the other for evaluating writing skills. Other considerations you may wish to evaluate include: Student participation: Was the student engaged in classroom discussion? Was the student quiet and courteous while his/her classmate was speaking? Group dynamics: There are two opportunities in the lesson for students to work with others. Both the mapping exercise and the interpretation of Amos" letter/poem to his wife can be done in cooperative groups. How did the student work with his/her group? Was the student a leader or did the student distract classmates from the task at hand? Was the group focused and on-task? Were they able share and clearly verbalize their interpretative work with the rest of the class?
