Cold War Beginnings:
Unit Plan

This unit will meet the following standards:

• 10.9: Students analyze the international developments in the post–World War II world.

  • 1. Compare the economic and military power shifts caused by the war, including the Yalta Pact, the development of nuclear weapons, Soviet control over Eastern European nations, and the economic recoveries of Germany and Japan.

  • 3. Understand the importance of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, which established the pattern for America’s postwar policy of supplying economic and military aid to prevent the spread of Communism and the resulting economic and political competition in arenas such as Southeast Asia (i.e., the Korean War, Vietnam War), Cuba, and Africa. 

Students will create an argument that determines whether the United States or the Soviet Union was responsible for starting the Cold War by writing a chronological historical narrative that utilizes evidence from both primary and secondary sources as required by the Common Core Standards.

This two-week unit is primarily utilized in my on-level World History classes. All lessons are taught in-person in 90-minute block periods. The unit involves teaching historical content of the 1940s and early 1950s, practicing historical reasoning skills, and building writing skills. As the teaching profession transitions into the digital world, our school is now one-to-one technology campus. Thus, I make full use of the Google Suite to manage my classroom.  Since my curriculum is 100% digital, the following unit plan will include a number of links to web-based assignments, readings, and video resources. All of the instruction is done in-person, but video links for lecture and instruction are provided for students who are absent or have fallen behind. 

OBJECTIVE: Students will use primary source documents to evaluate the relationship between pre-war and wartime relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – “Stalin Falls” Primary Source Analysis: Students will evaluate a political cartoon that demonstrate the awkward nature of the World War II alliance between the democratic western allies and the Communist Soviet Union. [10 min]

2. Introduction to topic and essay [10 min]

3. Cold War Beginnings – Document Analysis: Students will evaluate a series of documents (Documents #1-10 from the document set) from the pre-WWII and WWII period. They will perform a number of tasks using different stimuli (e.g., text, images, maps, audio, etc…) The assignment is meant to mirror the type of questions that students will encounter in the standardized state exams. [65 min]

4. HOMEWORK: Chronology Research Notes – Students will read sections of the Modern World History textbook to explore the historical background for key events in the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  They will complete rows #1-6.

OBJECTIVE: Students will compare the American and Soviet point-of-views regarding the outcome of World War II and evaluate the American decision to intervene in the Greek Civil War.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – Iron Curtain Speech Review: Students will describe the “Iron Curtain” used by Churchill in the famed “Sinews of Peace” speech. [5 min]

2. LECTURE – Postwar Europe: Teacher will lecture on the changes brought about by the end of WWII and decisions made by the “Big Three” at the major Allied leadership conferences. As they listen to the lecture, students will answer related questions. [30 min]

3. PAIRS ACTIVITY – Kennan and Novikov – Analysis of the Other: Students will be paired up. One will read Kennan’s “Long Telegram” (Document #11) and the other will read Novikov’s Telegram (Document #12). They will answer their assigned questions, share with their partner and make a comparison between the two accounts. [15 min]

4. LECTURE – Postwar Europe, continued: Teacher will complete the lecture by explaining the occupation zones and the birth of the United Nations. As they listen to the lecture, students will answer related questions. [15 min]

5. GROUP ACTIVITY – Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War (Document #13): Students will be placed into groups of 3-4. They will evaluate a series of primary source documents (text and political cartoons) together. Upon completion, several documents will be reviewed as a class. [20 min]

6. HOMEWORK: Chronology Research Notes – Students will read sections of the Modern World History textbook to explore the historical background for key events in the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  They will complete rows #7-10.

OBJECTIVE: Students will evaluate the causes and consequences of the American Marshall Plan.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – The Greek Civil War Review: Students will explain how the United States supported pro-democratic forces in the Greek Civil War [5 min]

2. BACKGROUND READING – The Marshall Plan: Individually, students will read about the background of the Marshall Plan and answer the questions provided. Teacher will monitor students and review a select number of questions with the students to check for understanding. [20 min]

3. GROUP ACTIVITY – Perspectives on the Marshall Plan: Students will be placed in groups of 3-4. They will explore 10 primary source documents (Document #14-23) with evaluation questions. Groups will also discuss, not only the causes and consequences of the Marshall Plan, but whether or not the debate hurts the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. [60 min]

4. HOMEWORK: Chronology Research Notes – Students will read sections of the Modern World History textbook to explore the historical background for key events in the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  They will complete rows #11-16.

OBJECTIVE: Students will evaluate the causes and consequences of the Berlin Blockade.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – Reviewing the Propaganda: Students examine a pair of political cartoons, one from each side, to review the messaging that their citizens were receiving during the Cold War. [10 min]

2. LECTURE/DOCUMENT ANALYSIS – The Conflict Intensifies: Teacher will lecture on the context surrounding the Berlin Blockade, including the division of West Germany and the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. As they listen to the lecture, students will answer related questions and evaluate a primary source document (Document #24) regarding the Czech coup. [30 min]

3. VIDEO/DOCUMENT ANALYSIS – CNN Cold War – Berlin: Students will watch the video on the causes and consequences of the Berlin Blockade and answer the associated questions. The video will serve as context to help students evaluate a set of primary source documents (Documents #25-26) related to the Berlin Blockade. [45 min]

4. HOMEWORK: Primary Source Analysis – Students will complete the analysis of the remaining primary source documents connected to the Korean War and the Cold War Defense Pacts.

OBJECTIVE: Students will utilize the chronology surrounding WWII to generate a preliminary argument for who is responsible for starting the Cold War.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – Reviewing the Korean War: Students will compare the partition of Germany with the partition of Korea using the provided document. [10 min]

2. REVIEW LECTURE: Teacher will lecture on the key events of post-WWII era. As they listen to the lecture, students will determine who is more to blame for the increase of Cold War tensions in the Primary Source and Chronology Analysis document. [15 min]

3. APPLYING THE TIMELINE: Students will apply the notes from their Chronology Research Notes to describe the time periods associated with the post-WWII period. This will be used to create historical context of the primary source analysis that students will use for the essay. Based on their evaluation of the events, they will select the primary source documents that they will use for their narrative essay. [20 min]

4. PRIMARY SOURCE AS EVIDENCE: Students will continue working on Primary Source and Chronology Analysis document. In Part II, we will analyze Documents #1 and #2 together in a way that addresses the prompt and selects key passages from the documents as evidence. [30 min]

5. HOMEWORK – PRIMARY SOURCE AS EVIDENCE: Students will complete any sections that we have gone over in class and can review today’s lesson using the provided video.

OBJECTIVE: Students will utilize the primary sources provided to create an argument for who is at fault for increased Cold War tensions.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – Reviewing the Cold War Defense Alliances: Students will read the background and observe a timeline to determine if the creation of the Cold War defense alliances increased Cold War tensions. [10 min]

2. PRIMARY SOURCE AS EVIDENCE: Students will continue working on Part II of the Primary Source and Chronology Analysis document. In gradually releasing responsibility to students, the individuals will work with a partner to evaluate another two documents from Documents #3-8 on wartime cooperation. Afterwards, the teacher will instruct and provide examples of how the same documents could be used as evidence to support either side and how the documents can be grouped together. Students will then work individually to select and evaluate their own documents. [55 min]

3. THESIS FROM PRIMARY SOURCES: Students will craft a thesis statement using the primary source documents that they have evaluated. The teacher will provide specific examples of how the grouping of documents can be used to construct a thesis. [20 min]

4. HOMEWORK: Students will complete Part II and Part III of the Primary Source and Chronology Analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Students will use the data from their primary source and chronology analysis to create an essay outline that organizes their ideas into a chronological narrative.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER – Conclusions: Students will read about the Cold War and write an explanation of the long-term outcomes of the breakdown of the WWII alliance. This explanation will be used as the “big picture” conclusion to their narrative essay. [10 min]

2. REVIEW THE GRADING RUBRIC: The class will view the grading rubric for the essay in order to understand the goals for the essay. [5 min]

3. NARRATIVE ESSAY OUTLINE: The teacher will go through essential parts of the essay outline with the class. Students will create an introduction paragraph with a hook and their thesis statement. The teacher will then guide the class in the writing process of integrating quotes and their analysis (see bottom section of essay outline) into the prose format using the content of the first body paragraph (i.e., wartime cooperation). Once the students have an understanding of the writing process, they will start to copy and paste the data from Primary Source and Chronology Analysis document into their essay outline. The format of the essay outline helps the students to generate topic sentences, context/descriptions of the time periods, integrates the primary source documents, and transitions to the next time period/body paragraph. After going over the conclusion with the students, they will use the remainder of the period to construct their outline. [70 min]

4. HOMEWORK: Work on the essay outlines.

OBJECTIVE: Students will use the data from their primary source and chronology analysis to create an essay outline that organizes their ideas into a chronological narrative.

AGENDA:

1. OPENER #1 – Closing the Loop: Students will read a claim and an evaluation of Document #13. They will write a sentence to “close the loop”—a sentence which connects the document to specifically address the prompt. (This activity is typically done at the start of Lesson #8) [10 min]

2. OPENER #2 – Counterarguments and Rebuttals: Students will read a counterargument to their essay’s argument. They will then generate a rebuttal using a suggestion provided in the link. [10 min]

3. NARRATIVE ESSAY OUTLINE AND FIRST DRAFT: Different classes will vary in the amount of time necessary to complete the Primary Source and Chronology Analysis document, their essay outline, and their first draft. Some students may need up to two days to complete the outline and first draft. Students who have completed their first draft are given an extra credit assignment that will address the next topic in our course, decolonization. The teacher will provide help and answer questions. [Remainder of Period]

OBJECTIVE: Students will evaluate a peer’s essay and reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of his/her own narrative essay in order to make changes for the final draft.

AGENDA:

1. NARRATIVE ESSAY PEER EDIT: The purpose of the peer edit is to familiarize themselves with the scoring rubric and find/edit weaknesses in their essay. Students will be placed in pairs. They will share their essays (comment assess only) and a peer edit rubric. The rubric will have video links that students will provide guidelines for each rubric topic for them as they read and evaluate their peer’s essay. The video links can also be found in this link. [40 min]

2. FINAL DRAFT WRITING PERIOD: Students will reflect on their peer edit and use the rest of the period to write the final draft of their narrative essay on a blank Google document. The teacher will provide help and answer questions. Scoring of the narrative essays will be completed using this rubric and comments made on the Google document. [45 min]

CONCLUSIONS/REFLECTIONS: For most students, this unit is taught in the second semester of their sophomore year. Students who were in my class during the first semester already have experience in writing a document-based essay on the French Revolution, so the results were generally better with this narrative essay than the first. All essays are scored using this scoring rubric, which is similar to the ones used by students for the peer edit. The work samples provided show that stronger students were able to identify and explain the document and were capable of using the documents as evidence for their claim. Weaker students could follow the instructions, group documents together, but struggled to associate the document with the prompt. To mitigate this issue, I am planning on creating a set of videos that will break down some of the primary source document and discuss how to use them to address the prompt. This will give students who struggle with document analysis a chance to get the interpretation correct before attempting the essay.