Introducing the Double Entry Journal
Name:
Teacher: Mrs. Morrison
Text: The Other Wes Moore
Period: _______
Directions: As you read through the book, your job will be to identify where people either
make choices, or do not have any choices. In the left column, explain the situation, providing a
specific quote from the text as support. In the right column, evaluate the situation/quote,
using at least TWO evaluation sentence starters and writing at least FOUR sentences.
For each chapter, you will need to choose THREE quotes that you wish to discuss. Be sure to
format the quotes correctly, and include the citation. Points will be given for both.
Double Entry Dialogue Journal # ______
Context and Quote (4 points each)
EXAMPLE:
Evaluation (8 points each)
EXAMPLE:
After Wes hits his sister, his mother,
Joy, is very angry with him. She
intends to teach him that hitting is not
acceptable. However, Wes’ father
intervenes. “’He’s only three. He
doesn’t even understand what he did
wrong. Do you really think he knows
what a woman beater is?’” (Moore 6).
Wes’ father made the right choice when he stopped Joy from
screaming at Wes. While Wes may have needed to learn that
hitting was not ok, teaching a lesson about violence in a
violent manner is probably not the best way to get that
message across. If he hadn’t intervened, Wes’ mother might
have gotten so angry that she could have made the situation
worse. Hopefully Wes’ mother will learn from his father the
importance of staying calm, because it is a much more
effective way of parenting.
Mary gets a letter informing her that
she will no longer receive the Pell
grant that she needs to help pay for
college. “The next day she called
Johns Hopkins and let them know she
was dropping out” (Moore 18).
Mary chose to drop out of school because she could no longer
pay for it. However, I wonder how hard she tried to find
another way to make it work. Because the book does not focus
much on it, it’s hard to say what she did or didn’t do. I would
like to think that she did everything she could before letting go
of her dream, but I also wonder if perhaps because it seemed
so out of reach, she let it slip away easier than she should have.
The choice to drop out of school was a bad one, because it
made her life much harder. She was stuck in a dead-end job
that she didn’t like, and didn’t pay much. Perhaps if she had
been able to stay in school, this story would not have had to be
written.
**On the other hand, you could just as easily argue that she
didn’t have a choice, that when the grant was taken away from
her, she was unable to pay for the tuition and that was that.
Evaluation
Evidence
Double Entry Journal Rubric:
o Does not provide
context before
introducing the
quote.
o Provides a quote that
does not relate to the
theme of choices.
o Attempts to evaluate
the connection
between quote and
theme, but misses
the point.
o Evaluation may not
be long enough.
Your score:
Evidence _____/4
Evaluation _____/8
o Attempts to provide
context before
introducing the quote.
Context may be too long,
or too vague.
o Provides a quote that is
vague or somewhat
relates to the theme of
choices.
o Attempts to evaluate
connection between
quote and theme.
o Evaluation may not be
long enough.
o Provides sufficient
context before
introducing the quote.
o Provides a quote that
relates to the theme of
choices.
o Provides sufficient
context before
introducing the quote.
o Provides a specific quote
that directly relates to the
theme of choices.
Evidence was the best
choice possible.
o Effectively evaluates
connection between
quote and theme.
o Evaluation may rely on
classroom discussion
or ideas in the text.
o Insightful evaluation of
connection between
quote and theme.
o Evaluation incorporates
the student’s own
thinking, and goes
beyond the obvious
answer.
What to work on for next time: