Rationale

** Rational/Primary Question ** //__ World War II – Transformations away from the bullets. __// Our unit for this assignment is for a 10th grade World History class that takes a look at the Holocaust from a different perspective. We are assuming that our students have gotten an extensive amount of education on the Holocaust throughout their childhood, this includes 9th grade American history the year before and in both 7th and 8th grade history. We understand that these previous studies are primarily highlighted on the obvious events of World War II - the Holocaust, the War, the battles and the impacts. With that being said, for this unit we decided to focus a little bit more on the parts of World War II that are not as extensively covered. These include propaganda, women in the war, children in the war, Hitler’s logic, stories inside the camp and the negative aspects of the Atomic bomb. By focusing on these topics, we developed a rationale for students to understand that war effects and transforms everyone’s lives; not just soldiers and fighting.
 * For Unit Goals see Lesson plans & daily activities **

To accomplish this rationale we chose to target several areas of World War II that displays how the lives of ordinary people were affected. The first is by propaganda. Propaganda was obviously used by Hitler to gain support for his cause but it was also used by the United States to gain support for troops, the workforce, spending and confidence. We hope to examine how this propaganda affected the everyday individual in both Germany and America – what its goals were, who its target was and the affects of it. To exhaust the issue of propaganda we have used one day of the unit to concentrate on actual propaganda from this time. We have several pictures, posters and movies that we will show are students. We also will have a fishbowl discussion to ensure that the students understand the impact of propaganda, the use of it today etc. Lastly, to assess our students we will have them create their own propaganda poster.

The next aspect of our lesson focuses on women and children who were not fighting in the war and the role they played. By focusing on this we hope to give students a better understanding of what was going on in America and Europe away from the fighting as this is something absent in most high school curriculums. The things we will focus on our women in the workforce, freedom gardens, rationing etc. These lessons will be centered on a PowerPoint presentation for both as well as a discussion about students grandparents/great grandparents during the war. This will allow us to bring the events of WWII into the home of our students. This is primarily where connections between Elie Wiesel’s //Night// and Tadeusz Borowski’s //This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen// will be made. We also will show a clip from //The Boy in the Striped Pajamas// and excerpts from //The Diary of Anne Frank//.

The last part of our unit looks to establish student’s perspectives on lives closer to the war. These include Hitler’s reason for the Holocaust (touches on propaganda etc.), stories about life inside concentration/working camps in Europe, and the impact of the atomic bomb attacks in Japan. Again we feel as if these aspects of the war are not focused on much throughout a student’s education and by presenting different perspectives of these groups/events we hope students are able to understand the situations of World War II. Also an exhausted examination of these events allows our students to develop their own opinions and idea of WWII. The primary way we are going to present these subjects are a PowerPoint, primary picture documents, an iMovie and discussion. With a wide array of presentations of the material we hope to capture a bit of every student’s attention and interest. We also provide a very wide array of primary documents and discussion which will allow students to develop more of their own opinions about the topics at hand instead of having us tell them what to think.

For our assessment of our student’s progress, we have given them the assignment of putting together a group project of their choice. Students will be able to choose the subject of their project as well as what type of project they will actually do (see directions/rubric). We decided on this project so that students would be allowed to showcase their knowledge in the manner that best suits them. We also allowed them the choice of content so that they could further explore areas of their own interest. They will have three class periods to work on their projects in groups and two days to present. So that students benefit from their peers projects, non-presenters will take notes on the presentations they see. This assessment will conclude our unit on the study of WWII. Primary Question ** How does war affect the daily lives of people that aren’t physically fighting in the battles?

1. How does war change the social norms of society? 2. Does it take a catastrophic event to create patriotism and unit a group of people?
 * 2 powerful concepts:**