Takaki - Chapter 9

My practicum is really trying to emphasize with me the importance of warm ups and their necessary place in the classroom routine. In addition, he is also trying to help me focus on effective warm ups that will tie together the previous day's lesson and/or homework, as well as set the stage for that day's lesson.

With that said, and assuming that my students read Takaki chapter 9 the night before, I would pose the following question to my students for their warm up: Did Indian assimilation work? In answering the question, be sure to consider the cultural pros and cons of assimilation in general. Today, does the United States government want all citizens to be exactly alike?

This warm up would not only allow for students to think reflectively on Takaki's chapter, especially about Francis Amasa Walker, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, as well as the Dawes Act. If I had students who required a more specific question or more direction in coming up with their answer, I might provide them with a list of people and terms pertinent to the question, including Walker and the Dawes Act.

In general, this response would set up students for almost any lesson that covered this chapter because it is not only open ended but also reflective of the gist of the chapter.

Developing a Performance Assessment

United States Foreign Policy Choices after World War II

Level:

11^th grade

Connections to Curriculum:

This assessment is intended to be administered during the first half of a unit on the Cold War, which will allow students to examine the political, economic, and social consequences of World War II, and how those consequences impacted foreign relations with the Soviet Union.

Author:

Kathryn Leighton

Advisor:

Adrea Lawrence

Inquiry Question:

How did the impact of international affairs and the political, economic, and social consequences of World War II affect the United States’ post-war foreign policy, specifically its relations with the Soviet Union?

Fairfax County Public Schools Social Studies Standards Assessed:

12.1 The student analyzes the impact of international affairs on the foreign policy of the United States after World War II.

12.3 The student traces the rise of the United States as a major economic power in the Post-War Era.

Overview:

In this assessment, students will answer the inquiry question through a debate on US foreign policy options towards the Soviet Union after World War II. In order to better understand the implications and consequences of the four options that US foreign policy makers faced in the post-war era, students will be divided up into four groups, each with the task of arguing in favor of their foreign policy option. This simulation is meant to reconstruct the debate that took place among US policymakers in late 1946. Each option, as outlined by the Choices Program curriculum simulation which will be used for this assessment, is grounded in a clearly defined philosophy about the US role in the world, Soviet ambitions in Europe after World War II, and the future of international relations. Choices Program readings, which will be used to supplement the classroom textbook, center around primary sources, including speeches, newspaper articles and editorials, and political cartoons from the mid-1940s. The ultimate goal of the debate is for students to place themselves within the context of the material. Students will then analyze such choices after the debate and use them to clarify their own perspectives on the US Cold War strategy and articulate their own views on US foreign policy, which will be conveyed through a two page reaction paper.

Materials Needed:

• Choices Program curriculum unit, The Origins of the Cold War: US Choices after World War II
• Rubric

Time Allotment:

135 minutes – one and a half 90 minute class periods

Prior Learning:

• Identification and understanding of cause and effect relationships
• Understanding of how to read and analyze primary sources
• Development of skills needed to compare and contrast different sources
• Identification of the major events that led to the US involvement in World War II
• Understanding of how World War II affected the home front
• Identification of the impact of World War II on science and technology
• Public speaking skills
• Development of persuasive writing skills

Teacher Administration Instructions:

DAY ZERO: 1. Distribute background readings from the Choices Program unit guide. These should be read for homework in preparation for the next class meeting.

DAY ONE: 1. Divide students up into four groups and carefully distribute packets to each of the groups. They should have already read through the background readings the night before as their homework. Make sure that each person only receives the background material for their stance, and not all four of the stances.

2. Go over the directions for the assessment, their role in the debate, and what a general overview of what their culminating task will be – to write a two page paper persuading the reader as to the choice that they believe the US should have made in late 1946. Make sure that the rubric for the debate part of the assessment is clearly understood by all students.

3. Make it clear to students that they should be spending the rest of the period planning with their group for the debate.

4. Once all questions have been answered, allow students to work within their groups to prepare for the debate. Any preparation that is not completed in class is to be assigned as homework.

DAY TWO: 1. Before students come into the classroom, have the desks arranged into four different groups around the room, in a “square” formation so that all students are facing the center of the “square.”

2. Carefully go over the ground rules for the debate.

3. Proctor the debate. Make sure that you leave at least ten minutes at the end of the class period so that you can go over the directions for the response paper.

4. Go over the directions and rubric for the response paper. Allow time for students to ask clarifying questions before the period ends.

Bibliography:

Choices for the 21^st Century Education Project, The Origins of the Cold War: US Choices after World War II (Providence, RI: Brown University), http://www.choices.edu.

United States Foreign Policy Choices after World War II

Directions: For this assessment, you will seek to uncover the different options that US foreign policy makers faced after World War II. The class will be divided up into four groups, and you will be provided with one of four choices to defend during an in class debate. After the debate, you will be responsible for writing a two page response paper in which your goal is to persuade the reader as to which of the four options, or your own development of an option that is either different from or a combination of parts of the choices, is the best fit for the US.

Scenario: It is late 1946, and World War II has just recently ended. In order to better understand the implications and consequences of the four options that US foreign policy makers faced in the post-war era, the class will be divided up into four groups, each with the task of arguing in favor of their foreign policy option. This simulation is meant to reconstruct the debate that took place among US policymakers in late 1946. Each option is grounded in a clearly defined philosophy about the US role in the world, Soviet ambitions in Europe after World War II, and the future of international relations.

Tasks to Complete:

1. OVERALL TASK: Your overarching task is to better understand what US foreign policy makers thought might work in the post-war era. Through your background readings and organization of materials in favor of your policy choice, your eventual goal is to understand how that option fits within the context of the other options that your classmates will outline for you. You are then to decide which option will work best for the US in light of current political, economic, and social constraints.

2. DEBATE PREPARATION: You are to spend your class time working with your group mates to organize effective arguments in favor of your choice. You should also be prepared how to defend your choice against any counter arguments that other groups may bring up. In addition, you should prepare questions to ask the other three groups that show the weakness in those other foreign policy options.

3. THE DEBATE: Your teacher will be proctoring the debate in order to ensure that the debate runs smoothly. Do not worry about who will keep the debate in order. Instead, worry about the construction of your arguments – those in favor of your own choice that you are defending as well as those that bring out the weaknesses in the other three choices.

4. REACTION PAPER: For homework, you will be asked to complete a two page reaction paper, in which you are to analyze the four choices and use them to clarify you own perspective on the US Cold War strategy that might have been used in late 1946. As a result, you need to articulate on your own views of US foreign policy, and argue which choice is best for the US, whether it is one of the four choice specifically or a development of your own option, which might combine parts from two or more of the choices outlined in the debate. You are not necessarily going to argue for the foreign policy option that your group defended in the debate. Instead, you are to critically think about the four options and determine what is best for the US.

Takaki - Chapter 8

This week's chapter on the Chinese immigration to the United States focused very specifically on the racial suffering of the Chinese. When I read passages such as this, I am immediately driven to want to help students develop their creative writing skills as a reading response activity in an attempt to understand historical events from a more personal perspective. However, since our assignment for this week was to develop method with which we are unfamiliar with, my teaching method for this week will look at personal stories from a different perspective.

Once I find a search engine or archive that I particularly like, I tend to rely solely on that database once I become comfortable with it. In this class, Danna's weekly use of the Library of Congress website has opened my eyes to another available tool, one that I want to push myself to use as I develop lesson plans. I also want my students to become familiar with different search engines and archives as well, so that this research knowledge can be applied to various projects. For this week's teaching method, I intend to do just that.

The overall goal is that students will create a small scrapbook of 5-7 items that collectively show their understanding of Chinese immigration, particularly that in California. Students will search for their mementos using the "Chinese in California 1850-1925" page, which is part of the American Memory section of the Library of Congress' website. Although students will have a choice of which items to incorporate into their scrapbook, they will be required to incorporate at least one letter, one photograph, and one advertisement into their scrapbook. At least one of their items must specifically address the Chinese Exclusion Act. For each memento the students will then write a one paragraph explanation for each item on how it specifically addresses Chinese suffrage in California.

Learning Processes Entry #4 (Second Official Submission)

I've been in test mode today, as I've spent the majority of the day preparing for my final midterm of my undergraduate career!!! Because of this and our need this week to look at how we can take our learning strategies and apply them towards helping students use them, I've chosen to attempt to outline my study habits, both throughout a unit and in preparation for an examination on that unit.

Two different processes occur as I prepare throughout a given period of time to prepare for an exam - those that I partake in as I complete readings and assignments for the class and then those that I partake in as I prepare for the exam itself.

Process One: During the Duration of the Class
Many of these processes include those that I have outlined in previous entires, which I'll summarize and add to here:
1. As I'm reading through assignments for the class, especially those that I find more challenging, I tend to use the following method in order to highlight the most important parts of the reading:

• Read the topic sentence in order to preview the paragraph.
• Read the topic sentence again, along with the rest of the paragraph, and highlight the crux of the material.
• Reread the paragraph sentence by sentence, determine its importance, and highlight it if necessary.
• The highlights then serve as a way to quickly refer back to important parts of the reading, whether during class discussions or while studying.

2. If I find that students are having difficulty in paying attention to their reading or their work, I will encourage them to take frequent, but brief breaks. I can incorporate this into my class lessons but not allowing activities to go on for too long without letting students take a "mental" break from thinking about the class material, whether this is through transitions or some other productive use of class time.

3. Because History papers are structured much differently around sources than other subject area papers are, I will emphasize outlining skills to my students. For the first paper assignment for the class I can walk students through a mock outline in order to exhibit for them one way in which they might approach the assignment.

4. During lectures, I will determine the best way in which my students are able to retain the most material. Although my classroom may not have the technological capability to do so, my preference will be to use PowerPoint to supplement my lectures. If I find that my students are able to best understand the material and take notes on it using outlines of the slides, then I will provide them with a hard copy of it. If I find that my students prefer to have fill in the blank or short answer questions to go along with the lecture then I will provide them with that. Because PowerPoint will offer me a lot of flexibility in giving my lectures, I will be able to provide a lot of flexibility for students in order to assist them with their note taking.

Process Two: Preparing for the Exam
In preparing for the exam, I will emphasize the importance of good study skills and how they need to look back at all of the materials for the class, not just the notes that they have taken from the lectures. They need to look back through all of their readings, especially the areas that they highlighted. Just like they should throughout the rest of the class, they will not be able to review all of the material in one sitting. Not only should they not wait until the last minute to begin preparing for the exam, but they should also give themselves frequent mental breaks so that they can process the information that they are reviewing. They should look back at their paper assignments and analyze their conclusions, and reflect on how those contribute to the themes and objectives of the unit. Finally, they should use their notes as an outline from which they should add the other information to.

If my students follow these two processes just as I do now, then they should have no problem in succeeding in my class.

Takaki - Chapter 7

This is the second week in a row that I've become extremely frustrated with Takaki. I understand that his objective is to present the "other" view on American history; however, he is as much an instigator in failing to tell the entire story as textbook writers are in telling the "white man's history." In this chapter, Takaki fails to lay out why Americans sought to expand west. Instead, he only focused on Mexican reaction to the desired expansion.

If it were my choice, I would not use Takaki's book in its entirety in my classroom. Although I have found that certain chapters do a good job of explaining the other point of view and would nicely complement a classroom textbook, the past two chapters have not done so. And although I was encouraged to revise my post from last week, I think the explanation here should suffice for that.

If I were forced to use this particular chapter of Takaki in a high school US History class, I would definitely have students read both the classroom textbook chapter(s) on the US landscape prior to the Civil War and chapter 7 from Takaki. For example, my classroom textbook for next semester's student teaching, America: Pathways to the Present, does a phenomenal job of outlining the underlying reasons why the United States sought to expand west. I would have students read both the chapters from the textbook and Takaki, and make a chart showing the causes and effects of events involved in the Mexican-American War. One column would be a major event that occurred during the war, and another column would be the result of effect of that event. For example, at the end of the table the end result listed for the Mexican-American War was that the United States gained Texas, New Mexico, and California. This table would then assist students in their preparation for an exam.

This kind of table as opposed to an outline would be preferable for two reasons. First, there were so many events that occurred in such a small amount of time that students may have difficulty in trying to get so many events into the time line. Also, this table would allow for details about the events to be organized as opposed to being squished into a box within a very narrow window of space on a timeline. Unless students completed the timeline on the computer, it would be near impossible for them to effectively organize the information by hand. An organized table could be completed by hand or on the computer.

Learning Processes Entry #4

In reading this chapter from Takaki, I found myself thinking about one of my other classes that I'm in this semester. Its kind of ironic that we just had a lesson on the Irish Potato Famine in my Human Geography class. However, this was a nice timing of events since I found that Takaki focused so strongly on the Irish adaptation to America and the comparison of themselves to the slaves that he neglected to tell the full story of how the Irish Potato Famine originated. Because of this, I found myself referring back to my notes for my Human Geography class in order to better understand Takaki's conclusions.

Takaki - Chapter 6

I think that Takaki does a good job of laying out how life was difficult for the Irish both before and after their immigration to America. However, I think that some underlying statistics about the number of people who were affected by this is clearly missing from Takaki's story, and I think these statistics would help students in better understanding just how dramatic this event was for the Irish.

First, I would divide students in small groups, probably no more than 4 people, and ask that they do some research on the Internet about the number of people who died in Ireland as a result of the famine, how many people left for America, and how many people remained in Ireland despite their struggle to survive. By taking the research into their own hands, students would be able to discover for themselves their own statistics as opposed to just having them handed to them. This would allow for them to develop their research skills.

Next, I would have the groups come up with a way to visually represent their information, with the expectation that they would present this information to the class. They would have the option as to how they would do this. Some ideas that they may come up with could be a representation through acting it out in front of the class, making a graph, or making a poster with different symbols for each group of people.

Lastly, they would present their findings to the class. In the end, this lesson would incorporate all three types of learning.