Digital Unit Plan
United Nations U.N.
Student Learning Objective: During an in class discussion students divided into three groups will be able to analyze actions made by the U.N. and subdivide and rank their findings on whether the efforts of these organizations were successful.
Assessment: Summative - : Students will complete a 10 question quiz regarding the origins of the U.N. and its actions during the Cold War.
Teacher lectures with guided notes about the U.N.'s actions following WWII and throughout the Cold War.
Teacher poses three critical thinking based questions regarding the uses of the U.N. by superpowers and how effective the U.N. was at curbing conflict.
Student completes fill-in guided notes with the vocabulary section and critical thinking question writing portions. Students view various primary sources and videos to establish context.
Assessment: Formative - Students complete quick-write activity prior to lecture regarding what they already know about the U.N.
Students quickly review verbally what the U.N. is, where it is located, and when it came into being.
Primary Source
Subtopic
Objective: Students working in pairs will be able to analyze and evaluate three primary sources regarding the Vietnam War, including one song, one photograph, and one document and will complete a short in-class writing activity.
Formative: Prior to the analyzing sources I will monitor student questioning and assess their prior knowledge levels regarding the Vietnam War. As students converse about the timeline I will be listening for questions and misconceptions. When students are working collaboratively to complete the analysis organizers I will be walking around assessing their progress and answering any questions.
Students will use the primary sources including a photograph, a letter from JFK to Ngo Diem, and a Bob Dylan song entitled Masters of War to determine, in their opinion, why the U.S. wanted to involve itself in Vietnam.
Students will analyze the sources and input their thoughts and findings into the analysis organizer worksheets.
Summative: Students will engage in a QuickWrite activity to complete the lesson. Students will turn in their writing as an exit card for leaving class and they will serve as an assessment for the teacher in seeing where to pick up the following lesson.
The teacher will instruct students the proper methods for analyzing primary sources and show how to input in the analysis worksheets.
The teacher will pose a critical thinking question to guide the lesson: Why did the U.S. intervene in Vietnam?
Discussion Lesson
Subtopic
Objectives:Working in small groups, students will demonstrate their understanding of responsibility for the Cold War through a jigsaw type discussion using Primary Source documents.
Following the jigsaw discussion, students will independently receive instructions for a mock newspaper article determining responsibility for the Cold War using evidence from the primary sources used in the discussion.
Formative: Informal checking of timeline activity completion following “hook”
Students will use primary source documents to analyze whether the U.S. or Soviet Union is most responsible for the Cold War.
Students will participate in a jigsaw type discussion where they will act as an "expert" for their source. When other students are reporting on their source, students will be listening, asking clarifying questions, and answering written questions.
Summative: Formal – I will collect the written answers to the document analysis questions.
Summative: Informal – I will collect the questionnaires to estimate how many students chose a particular nation for the article.
The teacher will instruct students how to use the primary source documents to answer the written questions.
Teacher will explain to students how to complete the mock newspaper article using evidence from the primary source documents.
Reading Lesson Plan
Subtopic
Students working collaboratively in small groups will be able to read about and evaluate various domestic Cold War events and produce an accurate five tab foldable categorizing American involvement in the Cold War as well as a short written summary.
Formative Assessment: When students analyze the political cartoon I will be assessing their prior understanding of the origins of the Cold War by reading their responses to the image analysis questions.
Teacher will show a political cartoon accompanied by a list of questions analyzing the image.
Teacher will explain that what I want is for students to be able to understand and analyze how America became involved in the Cold War.
Teacher will ask students if they, right now, fear communism and why or why not it is something they are weary of.
Summative Assessment: Students will engage in a QuickWrite activity that has them summarize new knowledge of the Cold War into about five or six sentences. In this summary students will define and integrate the lesson’s three new vocabulary words.
Students will analyze the political cartoon and respond to the corresponding questions and share their responses with a partner.
Students will be given a piece of paper for the foldable prior to reading which already has predetermined segments for each writing section. This foldable was chosen because it’s five distinct sections for writing align with the jig-saw reading method of breaking the reading down into five different sections.
Students will complete the writing sections in their foldable as well as draw simple illustrations with pen or pencil in the appropriate sections.
Simulation Exercise
Subtopic
Students reading independently will analyze and connect the historical context of the relationships and previous disagreements among the three nations represented at Yalta.
Students working in small groups will assess the success of Great Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union in achieving both short and long-term national goals during the negotiations at Yalta.
Students will experience and understand the challenges and skills required of international diplomacy and will be able to write a letter to another world leader explaining their difficulties in negotiating at Yalta.
Formative – Prior to beginning any negotiations students will respond to a journal question asking, “Is it better to approach negotiations desiring what is best for your own nation, or what is better for the whole world?” Students will hypothesize, before negotiating, why nations should or should not approach Yalta with a specific agenda. This journal will be collected a reviewed while students are engaging in negotiations.
The teacher will explain to students that they are going to be diplomats at Yalta and it is their responsibility to negotiate terms that are beneficial to their particular nation, at the expense of other nations.
Teacher will ask students to respond to a journal question: "Is it better to approach negotiations desiring what is best for your own nation, or what is better for the whole world?”
walking around the room providing clarification and listening to the debates between groups. While walking around the class the teacher will be providing direct instruction to students who need additional help with verbalizing their negotiations.
Summative – After negotiations and the following class discussion students will write a short letter to a world leader not present at Yalta and detail challenges they faced during negotiations at Yalta, as well as specific goals they achieved and failed to achieve during negotiations. They will also imagine and write how things could have ended differently if the leader they are writing to was present during the negotiations at Yalta.
Students will understand their main goal is to negotiate, for their nation, as many of the listed goals that each nation arrived at Yalta desiring.
After ranking their goals, students will reconvene as a group of 6 and negotiate for 25 minutes the various issues each nation brings to Yalta. Each nation’s goals are listed on handout two, and students/diplomats are responsible for stating specific reasoning for advancing their nations’ priorities.
At the end of the negotiations students will calculate their point total and share with the other diplomats in their group.