My seventh and eighth grade world history students took a four page test on World War II this week. It had all the usual items: names of people, places, and battles. It also had several fill-in-the-blank type of questions covering the major aspects of World War II. Those alone would have made it a decent test. But I like my tests to have a little more than that, because I like my students to think a little more than that.
I also like to include maps. Geography is important, especially with world events being what they are nowadays.
And since Jackson Pollock and abstract impressionism were covered in this chapter of our history book, why not add a little bit of art history to the test? Most of them loved doing it, and think it helped their attitudes and cleared their brains as they continued working on their tests :-). 
And grammar? Absolutely! I asked them to diagram a clause they included in one of their answers.
And yes, spelling does matter. Even on a world history test.
Since my students have been struggling with following directions,
I added some of that as well.
(And I threw in a little humor, too.)
And while the third draft of their research papers was due today, I didn't overload them with an essay, but I did ask them to write what impressed them most about our study of WWII.
There was some logic involved in this.
"What impressed me the most about WWII is how the big leaders used propaganda on the children, which then lured the children into helping with the war, which was not a good thing."
"What impressed me the most is how everybody was fighting, but Switzerland remained neutral; and I wish the U.S. could be more like them."
"I think what impressed me the most about World War II is the amount of life given for peace. Hitler thought one way, while Britain thought another, which made a fight, and many deaths happened because of this."
"From World War II I learned that people are very evil, and can do horrible things. Because Satan is still alive, there is bad in the world; however, Jesus says He has overcome the world."