Cooperative learning assignment with students using primary sources to analyze the role of Presidents for four different wars.
I want to find a way for students to objectively analyze Presidential decisions for war in a way that will allow them to move away from political arguments and personal leanings. Sometimes, more recent conflicts are difficult to separate from politics, but this should set up the framework for more thoughtful discussion.
- Be able to effectively use primary sources to answer provided questions.
- Be able to explain the decisions made by Presidents regarding going to war.
- Be able to explain the similarities and differences about the beginnings of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and the current Iraq War.
All of these are from Oregon State Social Studies Standards for High School.
- SS.HS.HS.05.21 Understand the causes and impact of the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
- SS.HS.CG.03.03 Identify and understand the powers and limits to power of the Presidency.
- SS.HS.CG.07.02 Understand the purposes and functions of the United Nations, and the role of the United States in the United Nations.<
- SS.HS.HS.01.02 Interpret the relationship of events occurring over time.
SHOW ME STANDARDS
2. Continuity and change in the history of Missouri, the United States and the world
6. Relationships of the individual and groups to institutions and cultural traditions
7. The use of tools of social science inquiry (such as surveys, statistics, maps, documents)
KANSAS STANDARDS
Benchmark 3: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of individuals, groups, ideas, developments, and turning points in the era of the Cold War (1945-1990).
3. (A) evaluates the foreign policies of Truman and Eisenhower during the Cold War (e.g., establishment of the United Nations, containment, NATO, Truman Doctrine, Berlin Blockade, Korean War, Iron Curtain, U-2 incident).
Benchmark 4: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of individuals, groups, ideas, developments, and turning points of the World Since 1945.
(A) analyzes the Cold War as the competition between two competing ideologies or world views and its impact on various regions of the world. (e.g., roots in WWII, Mao’s China; the Cold War in Europe; NATO, Warsaw Pact, and the competition for nonaligned nations; collapse of Communism in Europe)
Benchmark 5: The student engages in historical thinking skills.
1. (A) analyzes a theme in United States history to explain patterns of continuity and change over time.
2. (A) develops historical questions on a specific topic in United States history and analyzes the evidence in primary source documents to speculate on the answers.
3.(A) uses primary and secondary sources about an event in U.S. history to develop a credible interpretation of the event, evaluating on its meaning (e.g., uses provided primary
4. (A) compares competing historical narratives in United States history by contrasting different historians' choice of questions, use of sources, and points of view, in order to demonstrate how these factors contribute to different interpretations.
Korea War materials
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/online-collections/korean-war-and-its-origins
Truman Doctrine speech
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/56/special-message-congress-greece-and-turkey-truman-doctrine
Telegram announcing invasion
http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1?file=truman_telegram_1
Time Magazine Article (7/10/1950)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805447,00.html
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/064/96/IMG/NR006496.pdf?OpenElement
Battle Map
http://www.learnkoreanlanguage.com/images/KoreanWarMap.jpg
Vietnam War
State of the Union Address (January 1965) - part would be sufficient
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650104.asp
National Security Action Memoranda #328 (4/6/1965)
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/NSAMs/nsam328.asp
Security Council Meeting Minutes - in binder provided at conference – could not find digitally.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=98
NY Times Article on Gulf of Tonkin
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0807.html - article
UN Resolution Lists 1964/1965 (shows no action on Vietnam)
Security Council - http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1964/scres64.htm
General Assembly - http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/18/ares18.htm
Persian Gulf War
National Security Directive 54
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/nsd.php (on this site, you have to scroll down and click on #54. I couldn’t get a web address directly to the document.)
President Bush’s letter to family 12/31/1990
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/archives.php (on this site, you have to click on the last document. I couldn’t get a web address directly to the document.)
President Bush’s speech announcing end of hostilities
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/bush-war.htm
NY Times Article (2/28/1991)
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0227.html
United Nations Resolution 668 (Many resolutions are passed; this one authorizes "all necessary means" to remove Iraq from Kuwait.)
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/575/28/IMG/NR057528.pdf?OpenElement
Congressional Resolution
http://web.utk.edu/~scheb/library/gulfwar.htm
Iraq War
France’s arguments against war<
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/16/60minutes/main544161.shtml
State of the Union Address (1/29/2002)
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/
Congressional Resolution
http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf
Participants in the Coalition of the Willing
http://www.pwhce.org/willing.html
Colin Powell to the Security Council
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/index.html (This is an extremely long speech.)
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6079&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect (You may choose to use this news article instead.)
President Bush’s 48 Hour Ultimatum Speech
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wariniraq/gwbushiraq31703.htm
Introduction
This lesson could be used to teach Presidential Powers (especially as Commander in Chief), but I will be using it to connect the past events we have studied (Korean War, Vietnam War) to more recent events (Persian Gulf War and Iraq War).
"Think, Pair, Share" Class begins with a free write by students.
The question is "What is a president’s role in the United States going to war? What should they do What should they not do?"
After 5-7 minutes of writing, the students can discuss with a partner and then with the class as a whole.
This will lead into the assignment for the day.
Cooperative Learning Activity with Primary Sources
Students will receive the attached matrix. Every student will be responsible for filling out the matrix, but they will work in small (ideally, no more than 3 or 4) groups to read through the documents.
Groups will be spread out at tables so that they have room to lay out the documents and study what they have to answer the questions. To start, each group will receive a folder for a specific war that holds the primary documents related to it. They will read through the documents to find the answers to the questions on the matrix. Some documents may help answer more than one question. Answers need to be as specific as possible, not just yes/no responses. As a group completes the matrix for one war, they can trade in their folder for another one.
As students work, I will be moving between groups answering questions and helping students with the documents. I will also be verifying that students are all working on documents and that answers are complete enough to reach understanding of the big picture. After the groups have completed all of their work, I will bring them back to a class discussion on what they see as the similarities and differences between the presidents and their decisions.
Homework
Students will write a 1-2 page paper on the question, "Evaluate the presidents and their pre-war decisions. What would you say were "good" decisions that were made? What about poor ones? Why do you evaluate them to be so? What was the impact of these decisions?"
Next class, I would spent 20-30 minutes discussing these questions. The students would start out with different groups than the class period before and have a few minutes to talk there before we open it up to an entire class discussion.
Students would have another 5 minutes to write after the class discussion to add things to their homework. Homework would then come in. The matrix could also be completed for evaluation, but it also could be kept by the student to prepare for a future exam. The analysis piece is the important one for evaluation.
War/ President Arguments for War?
Congressional Approval?
International Support?
Clear Objectives?
Korea/ Truman
Vietnam/ Johnson
Persian Gulf/ Bush I
Iraq/ Bush II
See above