Download Pearl Harbor lesson plan

Pearl Harbor Overview – World History, 9th grade Overview: This lesson is meant to be a used as an introduction Pearl Harbor and the start of declared war in America. It was created for a ninth-­‐grade world history class. This lesson was preceded by an introduction to World War II and the alignments of powers, the fall of the continent of Europe, and Japan gearing up for war. In a previous lesson, students had listened to segments of Winston Churchill’s “Their Finest Hour” speech, so students have some experience with primary source mediums used in this lesson. The following lessons are about the American naval war in the Pacific Ocean and the retaking of Europe. The objectives of this lesson are dual-­‐fold. First of all, a major theme of the class has been the introduction to primary sources and types of information outside of textbooks. Students are exposed to several different primary sources and types of information over the course of this lesson. This added exposure and variance in types of content information would develop students’ critical thinking skills and perspective skills. In addition, the lesson follows two major themes that were taught throughout the class, which was the triad of war, and the 3 R’s of conflict (race, religion, and resources). These two frameworks provide concrete, age-­‐appropriate ways through which patterns of human conflict are taught. This lesson is beneficial to students because the framework given is easily applicable to other conflicts. The majority of the students in this class expressed interest in World War II but have only look at it through popular culture, such as the movie Pearl Harbor, which is not entirely accurate. Plus, this event is considered a transitional event for both American and world history. The ramifications of the Americans entering the war and declaring war on Japan, then Germany, are numerous and undeniable. When the 9/11 aspect of the lesson is added, there is a relevance that students can apply to an event that happened in their own lifetime, make a connection to their grandparents’ generation. Lesson Plan Procedure: 1. Bell ringer activity: Students will answer the following prompt as they enter the classroom and get situated. a. Write your name and the date at the top of your paper and number it 1 through 10. List the first 10 things that come to mind when you think about Pearl Harbor. b. After making their list, students will read a paragraph from their textbook and add 2 new things they learned about Pearl Harbor from the textbook to their list. 2. Instructor leads a quick discussion to give students some background knowledge on Pearl Harbor and explain the mindset of the era. Compile a list of descriptors pulled from students’ bell-­‐ringer lists, write them on the board, and use it as a gateway to next activity. 3. Hand out the sound recording analysis worksheet and do section A as a class. The worksheet can be found here: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/day-­‐of-­‐infamy/sound-­‐
worksheet.html 4. Students listen to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech from December 8, 1941 and complete section B during the recording. Project the speech transcript if technology capabilities exist. It can be found here: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=73&page=transcript 5. Students then watch interview segment at the beginning of Part 1 of Band of Brothers. If you do not have the discs, it can be found on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfhsWM07gpM&feature=PlayList&p=B49B
BC000E1A9B52&index=0 6. Teacher-­‐led discussion on the “Triad of War” and its application to World War II. The “triad of war” is a concise way to look at what is needed for a war to beginning. Resources Will Cause 7. For a country to wage war successfully the country needs the following things: (1) the resources to supple and support the war effort, (2) a reason or cause to go to war, and (3) the will of the people. The concept of polling is introduced as a means of gauging public support of a war. Instructor pulls up the following website: http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/data/presidential_approval.ht
ml and follows FDR along his presidency. Ideally, students would have individual or paired access to a computer with internet so that they could explore the polling data more closely and personally. 8. Students use a group or pair-­‐and-­‐share method to discuss, specify, and apply each point of the triad’s triangle to the United State’s involvement in World War II. Students should also do the same activity for the other countries involved in World War II. This demonstrates their understanding of the concept and will be turned in for evaluation. 9. Application Question for homework: Explain how the United States government successfully used each corner of the triad of war concept for World War II to help bring the country out of the Great Depression? Lesson Addition: This lesson was originally taught with the additional aspect of comparing Pearl Harbor to September 11th. Students drew out vin-­‐diagrams to look at how the news was spread (media impact), types of targets attacked, and differences and similarities in the Japanese situation and Al-­‐Qaeda’s situation. The students also compared President Bush’s approval ratings across the timeline of his presidency using the same website noted above. Classroom Diagram White Board and projection screen Desk groupings This classroom diagram may need to be modified if students have individual laptops or if the teacher is projecting all of the websites. Students need to be able to hear and see the video clips, websites, and recording so any student that has a disability that would effect their ability to complete lesson should be taken into account before the actually class period.