Process

You will be broken into groups of 4 (four) and from there you will choose one of the dictators from the 1920s and 1930s to examine.

After you have chosen the dictator that you will study, you should divide the following questions up among the members of your group:

1. How did your dictator come to power in his country?

2. What did he do to make sure that he kept power for as long as he did?

3. Did he eliminate opposition to his rule and, if so, how did he? Did he send people to prison and, if so, how many? Did he kill members of his opposition and, if so, how many?

4. How much land did he conquer? If so, how did he do so?

Once you have gathered this information, you will share it with the members of your group in order to make sure that the information is accurate and to help prepare the presentation that you will make to the members of the other groups.

Once you have prepared the information for your presentation, you will join the experts from the other groups who have answered the same question that you have and discuss how each dictator dealt with your question. Your job with the expert groups will be a two-fold.

First, you will present the information that you have learned about your dictator as it answers the question that you were assigned. The better you present your information the better chance you have of convincing them that your dictator was the best (or worst).

Second, you will be expected to take notes on the presentations made by the other members of your expert group. This information will be brought back to the topic groups and shared with the other members of your topic group.

After you have taken the information from your expert group, you will bring that to the members of your topic group. This information should be presented clearly and accurately as your group will be making a decision about who is the best (or worst) dictator based on what you have learned about all of the other dictators.

Once all of the information from the expert groups has been shared, your group should come to a decision about who is the best (or worst) dictator of the 1920s and the 1930s. Your group will have one vote and you may not vote for your own dictator.

Each person will be graded by both their topic and expert groups. The rubric can be found under the evaluation tab.

The dictator that is found to be the best (or worst) by the groups will receive 5 (five) bonus points.

Please note that Wikipedia, while a valuable on-line information resource, may not always be as accurate as you would like. Be sure to use more than just that source to gather information and learn about your dictator. If you find the information at more than just one source, then it is probably reliable. Otherwise, it may not be.

Search engines such as Google, again, are valuable on-line research tools, but may lead you to sites that do not have the necessary or most reliable information. Be sure to use more than one source to confirm your research.