Vietnam War History Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: 9-12
Subjects:
- Language Arts
- History
- Social Studies
Description:
The assignment will be to write a guest blog post entry about one event in the novel and relate it to the U.S. fighting in the Vietnam War at that time. This blog post will include a brief description of the event as well as the student’s own opinion about what happened.
Concept:
By focusing on one event, students will have the opportunity to delver deeper into what they thought about that specific event.
Objectives:
Students will better understand:
- The opposing views regarding the Vietnam War during that time period.
- The integration of African-Americans at that time — only six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
- The U.S. military then as well as the commitment of men and women who now serve.
Activities and Procedures:
Discuss the style and elements of a blog post:
- Typed single spaced with double spacing between paragraphs and no paragraph indentation and with short paragraphs.
- Headline: Use words that someone might search on Google for, such as: Vietnam War, Civil rights, Kent State University shootings, U.S. Army
- Length of the post: Between 300 and 500 words
Assessment:
Students should read their blog posts aloud to the class. The different events can be discussed in terms of these issues:
- Racial prejudice
- Religious prejudice
- Geographic prejudice
- Cultural prejudice
- Vietnam War opinions
- Military service: draft then vs. all-volunteer army today
- Comparisons to the U.S. deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan
Additional Activities:
Teacher can arrange with book author Phyllis Zimbler Miller to speak to the students via skype. Email pzmiller@gmail.com