Teacher Lesson Plans

Students will be discovering their own knowledge of why the United States was compelled to join the war in Korea and the attitudes toward it.

After addressing a central question, students will analyze primary source documents to formulate their own opinion on the Point IV program.

Students will get a chance to a hands-on project and will get to incorporate competition, propaganda, lobbying and victory or defeat.

Cooperative learning/using primary sources/critical thinking

Students will be creating their own Document-Based-Question. The assignment requires students to research and include primary and secondary documents that are related directly to the question they have written.

Students will analyze primary documents about the Truman administration and create a textbook page.

Students will work in cooperative groups using primary sources (photographs, maps and documents) and brief biographies to understand how the U.S. and Cuban relations were changed by the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The students (in groups) will work through a series of primary source documents related to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. In using the primary sources, the students will confront the difficulties of negotiating at the highest levels.

The students will engage in a cooperative learning assignment on the Cuban Missile Crisis. They will work in groups to explore the presidential decision making and the US, Cuban and USSR perspectives on the 1962 Crisis.

Students will read a document of Kennedy-Khrushchev exchanges. Students will take notes, write a summary, and answer questions on a primary resource. They will also take the role of Kennedy and write a response to Khrushchev.

Use of lecture/film with primary documents to increase student understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Students will examine and evaluate primary documents relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Teams of students will collect data to support a thesis regarding the firing of General MacArthur.

This lesson offers an SAQ (Short Answer Question) appropriate to the World War I time frame.

Individual research to find contrasting evidence for change based on the 1929 DePriest Tea Incident.

Students will research the historical cause of desegregating the Armed Forces.

Students will be placed in groups to analyze primary documents relating to civil rights during the post-WW1 to 1948 time period (both pro and con regarding desegregation). Together, they will create a timeline of the documents given.

Students will gain experiences in decision-making processes, analyzing primary source documents, technological research skills, and gain an understanding of President Truman's role in Civil Rights in America.

The students will analyze six groups of primary sources documents related to the desegregation of the armed forces on July 26, 1948. They will work together to gain a broader understanding of both the immediate and long-term ramifications.

This activity will give students an awareness of the types of documents that advisors consider as they advise a president. Their analysis will help them see the different viewpoints to consider.

Students analyze a collection of political cartoons and come up with questions find out more about the situations the cartoons depict

Students should be able to make inferences as to the tenor of each conference, the state of mind of the participants and the importance of the photographs in relation to their background knowledge to support or refute: FDR was too physically ill at Yalta.

The students will examine the experiences of Jewish displaced persons in the years immediately following World War II. They will explore photographs and primary source documents related to the DP camps in Europe.

Studying primary and secondary sources to discern Edith Wilson's role in the presidency.

Students will read and analyze the two parts of Eleanor Roosevelt's radio broadcast on Dec. 7, 1941. Through class & small group discussion, students will analyze what Eleanor’s message was intended to be and how it was delivered. Students will identify the talking points and how they differ from the original broadcast. Students will consider the effect of Eleanor’s speech, being the first, to address the attack on Pearl Harbor from the White House. Students will conclude the lesson with listening to the radio broadcast and discuss how hearing her voice might change tone of the speech they read.

Students will compare and contrast women's issues of two time periods.

Analyzing Eleanor Roosevelt and her role in the early civil rights movement.

Students will work in the computer lab to examine campaign methods of President Harry Truman during the 1948 campaign. They will compare these to methods being used by Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama in 2008.

This assignment will provide the students with a “hands on” experience by making a poster and a campaign button in support of his/her favorite candidate

Students will choose a presidential candidate and construct a campaign poster and a lapel campaign button in support of that candidate.

This lesson is to examine political symbols and how they have been used and continue to be used in political campaigns. Students will do individual research of memorabilia, posters, and cartoons using books provided as well as the internet.

Understanding the 1824 election

This will be an individual learning assignment that will require the use of artifacts and other primary sources from the Emma Goldman Papers project by the University of California-Berkeley and Public Broadcasting Station (PBS).

Using the primary sources provided, students will work in groups to evaluate four options available to President Truman to end the war in Japan and to end the Second World War.

This lesson will allow students to create a visual representation of the perceived threats to Europe during the Cold War. By placing cities on maps and evaluating the surrounding topography, the students will analyze the Soviet War Plan.

Students will look at a campaign button from losing candidate Dewey in the 1948 election. They will then weigh the merits of using the slogan in a short writing assignment.

Cooperative Learning - groups of two will research and report back to class. Class draws conclusion(s) as a group.

Students will analyze ten presidential executive orders that had consequential ramifications on American society.

Students will learn about exodusters coming to Kansas during the reconstruction period.

Students will discuss the difference between executive orders and bills becoming laws
Students will view examples of executive orders from various Presidents.

This lesson is designed to help students understand the complex issues that contributed to the US recognizing the State of Israel. In addition will it will help to put that action into a bigger picture of the Cold War diplomacy and politics.

Comparing and contrasting opinions that influenced Lincoln in making the Emancipation Procalmation

Students will take events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and place them into context of the Cold War. After students list and discuss the media available they will work with a partner to create a poster or diorama depicting a fallout shelter.

Students will study communism as it related to the Cold War. In particular, they will study the Korean War and the war in Vietnam. They will watch clips of speeches on the SmartBoard, read articles, and build a mock fallout shelter in the classroom.

The primary objective for this activity is to provide a medium for students to explore the Vietnam War thorough a multitude of camera lenses and personal experiences.

Draw conclusions about Pearl Harbor based on primary documents and reasoned discussion.

Research basic information about the four presidential elections of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944) to complete Presidential Election - Organizing Information Chart.

Most students would rather read fiction. The idea is for them to use fiction to learn history; thus increasing their understanding of history, and increasing the amount of reading they do.

Have the students research the phrase, find the document where it originally appeared, discuss its origin or what the people who first used it were trying to accomplish/say.

All students will be required to use primary and secondary sources to investigate the 1920s.