EDU 344 Unit Plan

WWII Freshman American History

Julie Burnett

This is a 5 week unit encompassing the United States entry into World War II beginning
with the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 through V-J Day and the Japanese surrender in 1945.
The students will place themselves in the story through the production and presentation of
scrapbooks based upon their backgrounds or interests in that era. We will utilize the scrapbooks
my grandmother made during that time chronicling the entire war and the home-front activities
supporting the troops as examples. The students may chose to do a digital scrapbook or an hard
copy--the content and how it relates to the learning will determine the grade, not the actual
scrapbook itself. The students will also be required to tell their story based on the war events
we study.

Several Michigan State Standards for Social Studies (HSCEs) are represented in this unit.
They are as follows: H1 National Standards for Historical Thinking, 1.1 Temporal Thinking, 1.2
Historical Analysis and Interpretation, 1.3 Historical Inquiry, 1.4 Historical Understanding, and
1.5 Historical Issues--Analysis and Decision Making. The Unit also covers the W7 standard of
Global Crisis and Achievement, U7 standard of the Great Depression and World War II, and the
C4 standard of Conflict and Cooperation Between and Among Nations.

The ISTE standards for students are also addressed with the technology pieces in this
unit. Technology is utilized on a daily basis over the 25 day span of the unit. If the student

chooses to make their end product with a digital program it addresses standards #1 Creativity and
Innovation, #3 Research and Information Fluency, and #4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving,
and Decision Making. The Padlet, Quizlet, Socrative, and Blendspace quizzes meet standard #4.
The Jigsaw Presentations meet the three aforementioned standards and include the last standard,
#2 Communication and Collaboration, and the What We Know and the Whats Important
documents address standards #2 and #4.

The I Can statements for each day were not listed in the Blendspace Lesson Plans as
they will be manually written on the whiteboard and gone over one at a time with the entire
class. Teachers can adjust how many I Can statements are used each day according to the
learning needs of the class. The statements can easily be derived by looking at the days lesson
and writing one statement for each task, or grouping them together if the number of tasks are too
overwhelming. This unit does set the bar rather high for student expectations, but I believe that
if you set the bar high your students will stretch to meet it.

The daily lessons are as follows:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Introduction
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Holocaust
Japanese Internment Camps
Review Day
1942 Pacific Theater Battles
1942 European Theater Battles
Jigsaw--Home Front Efforts, New

Weapon Technology, Womens Roles, and Propaganda

9. Jigsaw Presentations
10. Review Day
11. Tehren Conference
12. D Day Part 1
13. D Day Part 2

14. Liberation of Paris and the Battle of

the Bulge
15. Jigsaw Day--the Battle of Iwo Jima,
The Death of President Roosevelt, Patton Crossing the Rhine, and
Hitlers Suicide
16. Jigsaw Presentations
17. End of the War
18. Wrap Up Day
19. Review for Summative Assessment
20. Summative Assessment
21. Presentation of Scrapbooks
22. Presentation of Scrapbooks
23. Presentation of Scrapbooks
24. Presentation of Scrapbooks
25. Presentation of Scrapbooks

Aside from the scrapbook end product, there are three writing assignments. The first is a
blog assignment on the Holocaust. The other two are diary entries where the students writes as a
character that has been randomly chosen. They are asked to include all five senses in their diary
entries and the use of figurative language, similes, and metaphors are both encouraged and
rewarded. The Quick Writes are shared with either Round Robin Volunteers or Pick Sticks.
Sensory questions are also posed in all group discussions as are gut punch moments thereby
encouraging students to place themselves in the situation and to experience it at a visceral level.
This is designed not only to encourage critical thinking and deeper understanding, but also to
help students identify times when they see people building grit and can apply those experiences
to their own growth as both students and young adults. Students are taken out of their comfort
zone on a daily basis and it is by design that they are pushed to place themselves in the story and
to feel and not just absorb and spit back the information.

Almost every day of the unit there is a formative assessment of prior knowledge with a
Padlet. Most days have either a Blendspace or Socrative quiz at the end to check for
understanding and clarification. These quizzes do have a small bearing on the overall grade for
the unit, but are more to check for complete understanding than for a grading tool. The end
product and presentation account for 50 points of the 100 available for the unit. The daily
lessons, formative assessments, and other short assignments have a cumulative total of 30 points.
The summative assessment counts for 15 and there is a 5 point citizenship buffer that I can award
to push a student to the next grade level if I feel they deserve it.

This unit is challenging, creative, differentiated, and a little out of the box. It is designed
to spark the quest for knowledge and the understanding that comes from thinking about the past
in terms of the present. I hope that my students will enjoy learning about World War II once they
put themselves in the story.