7-12 Lesson Plans (World War II Period)

The Battle of the Bulge

This lesson addresses why the Battle of the Bulge was so significant through analyzing maps, viewing and analyzing a video and creating group-based articles demonstrating the student’s understanding of this content.

D-Day Invasion

Using primary sources including documents, letters, audio recording, memoirs, photographs, leaflets and interviews, students will write a newspaper account of the D-Day landing.  The article will incorporate diverse perspectives, including both Allied and German sources.

Japanese Relocation

Students will study the circumstances surrounding the relocation of individuals of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Music and World War II

This lesson seeks to determine how the contemporary music reflected the attitudes of Americans leading up to and during WW II.  An overview of contemporary 1930s and 1940s music is discussed, heard and analyzed to determine the national mood that helps the historian understand the popular culture’s view of events.

The New Deal

This lesson covers the political, social, and economic changes that occurred during the Great Depression and New Deal period through examining the impact of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, both positive and negative.  Through analyzing documents and interpreting statistics, the students will come to their own, educated solutions on the impact of the New Deal on curing the Great Depression.  This lesson will aid the students as a review towards the end of a New Deal Unit since it deals with evaluating the short and long-term affects of those programs.

Operation Barbarossa

In this one period lesson students will compare cartoons composed by Dr. Seuss regarding the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). This lesson is an educational and fun diversion from the more typical ways of teaching the battles of World War II.  Many of the cartoons relate to America’s response to the invasion so it will fit into your U.S. curriculum.

The Spanish Civil War

The United States has always been known for the freedom of opinion and speech that its citizens have.  In times of war those freedoms have been impinged upon, but never fully snuffed out.  In the mid-1930s the United States was officially neutral and non-involved in European politics, yet many were growing concerned with militarism and fascism in Europe and Asia. 

Top