1200 U8 Guide
Unit 8 Guide
2Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization 1945 to 1990 CEAs the world recovered from the devastation of two world wars, a new conflict erupted between the two superpowers who emerged from the Second World War stronger than ever. At the same time, colonized peoples around the world rose up and cast off the chains of empire. The Cold War and decolonization collided to reshape global power dynamics. But many old inequalities remained in place. This unit asks how our understanding of each of these events changes when we view them together.
Unit 8 Learning Objectives1.Evaluate how the Cold War and decolonization are intertwined in the history of this period.2.Analyze how political and economic power shifts occurred as a result of World War II and how these shifts led to the Cold War.3.Evaluate the connection between nationalism and decolonization movements during the period of the Cold War.For individual lesson learning objectives, please review the lesson teaching guides.
Big Questions In this unit, students will consider this Unit Problem: What can we learn when we study the Cold War and decolonization together?To help them answer the Unit Problem, students will also consider the following questions:1.What were the causes and effects of the Cold War?2.What factors made it possible for anticolonial movements around the world to achieve independence during this period?3.How did the Cold War and decolonization end, and how were theysimilar and different in the ways in which they concluded?
Lessons Overview Lesson 8.1 Cold War and Decolonization The Cold WarLesson 8.2 Origins of the Cold WarLesson 8.3 The Global Cold WarFollow the links above to explore each lesson in this unit. Look for this symbol to find the lesson guides, which provide teacher guidance, including sample answers.DecolonizationLesson 8.4 The End of Empire Lesson 8.5 Decolonization Around the WorldLesson 8.6 Communism in ChinaLesson 8.7 Connecting Struggles for Liberation
6Teaching Tips
Openers and ClosersYou’ll find quick opener activities at the start of each lesson. They’ll help students preview the upcoming material and engage their prior knowledge. Although we’ve written them to align with the content of each lesson, feel free to swap in any openers/do-nows/bell-ringers that you already use! You’ll find closer activities at the end of all lessons—they’re meant to give students the opportunity to reflect and show their understanding. While we’ve written them to align with the content of each lesson, feel free to swap in exit tickets or other checks for understanding. For more information, check out Openers and Closers Quick Tips.
Unit NotebookUnit Notebooks are found throughout this course and offer a great opportunity for informal writing and assessing understanding. The aim of these activities is to keep students and teachers connected to the core themes of the unit. The first time students encounter the Unit Notebook (Unit 8 Notebook: Part 1), they’ll be asked to evaluate each of the statements based on what they currently know. The second time they encounter the Unit Notebook (Unit 8 Notebook: Part 2), they’ll be asked to more thoroughly respond to the questions and revise and refine their initial understanding of the unit’s core concepts. The point here is for students to focus on concepts rather than formal writing. Additionally, the Unit Notebook helps both you and your students assess how their thinking is progressing, where they’re gaining mastery, and where they might need additional instruction.Click here for the Unit 8 Notebook: Part 1Click here for Unit8 Notebook: Part 2
Historical Thinking SkillsThe integration of skills and content is foundational to OER Project courses. Skills development is just as important—if not more—than content knowledge for student thinking and learning in social studies classes. Throughout this course, students encounter numerous, scaffolded opportunities to practice causation, comparison, continuity and change over time, contextualization, sourcing, and making and testing claims. Practice progressions are made up of three categories: progression activities, thinking tools, and feedback forms. Each step in a progression is more sophisticated than the one before, challenging students along the way but also supporting them as they do this work. You can find the following progression activities in Unit 8:•Comparison: Decolonization•Continuity and Change Over Time: World War II to the Cold War•Sourcing: Who Started the Cold War?Learn more in our Historical Thinking Skills Guideand see where all the progression activities live in the World History 1200 Practice Progressions Placement document.
Frames of World HistoryThis course asks you and your students to examine world history through different lenses, or frames. The frames are communities, networks, and production and distribution.The frames help students organize the vast amount of information they will encounter in world history, giving them a framework to help make sense of all the ways in which someone might tell the history of the world. This approach highlights the idea that historical accounts are based on particular perspectives. More important, these frames provide students with big picture, historical “stories,” thus providing a cohesive backdrop against which students can construct their historical understanding. As students move through the course, they will examine how each frame has changed over our long history. Learn more in our Frames Guide.
ReadingsOER Project includes primary sources and articles written by a diverse group of scholars and OER Project staff. Some of the reading involved in OER Project courses can be challenging, but it is vital for engaging with the course content. All texts in the course—other than those that are part of DBQs (document-based questions) or are primary source materials—have been Lexile leveled, and each article has three or four versions to accommodate students of all reading abilities. OER Project provides Guiding Questions alongside each reading. These questions encourage students to approach the text at three levels—first by skimming the text, next by reading to answer Key Ideas questions (“While You Read”), and finally by evaluating the text through “After You Read” questions that encourage connection and synthesis.For more information, see our Reading Guide.
ActivitiesActivities are an important part of OER Project lessons and serve to build student understanding and engagement. Activities provide an opportunity to get students moving and “doing” history through exercises like informal writing, group work, simulations, and debates.Progression activities appear in multiple units and are based on historical thinking skills like sourcing and contextualization. Each activity in a progression is meant to be more sophisticated than the one before, challenging students but also supporting them as they do this work.For all activities in OER Project—except for some openers and closers—teachers can find directions and sample answers in the accompanying lesson guides. Click here to learn more about activities.Click here to learn more about historical thinking skills.
VideosWe use videos as a visually engaging approach to course material. While students are often excited to learn that they’ll be watching a video in class, video-watching is a skill, just like reading an article. Here are a couple of quick strategies to get you started:•We suggest students first read the video description and Guiding Questions, or even skim the video transcript. We’ve provided you with time stamps and sample answers, which students will not see. •We recommend chunking the videos using the Key Ideas feature, which pauses the video at the specific times of the corresponding Guiding Questions, and provides an opportunity for discussion or note-taking.•You can also play the video twice: once straight through and once with pauses at key ideas.For more information, see our Video Guide.
Graphic BiographiesOER Project’s graphic biographies are one-page histories of people. Whether they’re “important” or “everyday,” each of these individuals has their own story, their own history, and those stories weave in and out of the global themes of their era. Their experiences highlight, and sometimes bring into question, developments on a global scale that students are studying as part of the frame narratives presented in the course. These biographies are one of the best ways for students to zoom in, and doing so helps bring nuance to their understanding of history. In some cases, the biographies will complicate the frame narratives—the experience of an individual will not necessarily fit with the global experience—but they don’t invalidate the frames; they just deepen and enrich them.Check out How to Read Comics for an introduction to reading graphic biographies. Click here to learn more about our Graphic Biographies.
WritingAt OER Project, we encourage students to write. A lot. At times, we want them to write informally, in order to express their initial understandings. Other times, we have them write formally, to solidify their thinking and refine their arguments. They will write, review, and refine their work multiple times. This isn’t easy for most students. However, our research has shown that this hard work makes a real difference in the quality of their writing—a terribly unsurprising conclusion. Clear, consistent expectations, frequently revisited, is not a magic formula; it’s just good teaching.In each unit of this course, there are opportunities for students to participate in a formal writing activity that results in an essay. These assessments can take the form of document-based questions (DBQs) or open-ended long-essay questions (LEQs). Each prompt is offered on its own, if you’d like to assign an LEQ, or with an accompanying set of sources, if you’d like to assign a DBQ. Lesson 8.5 offers a writing opportunity on the Cold War and decolonization in which students respond to this prompt: What were the most significant effects of decolonization during the Cold War (post-1945 CE)?Click here to learn more about our writing approach.Click here for informal writing routines.
AssessmentOER Project values a comprehensive approach to assessment. We embed assessments throughout the course—every activity is developed to allow students and teachers to gain insight into their understanding. Our courses give teachers many opportunities to review student work—both formally and informally—and determine areas for improvement and enrichment. However, all assessments are optional and to be used at the teacher’s discretion. We stress the use of rubrics throughout the course. We have a set of rubrics for teachers to use to give consistent feedback to students on their participation in discussions, their presentations, and on their writing. We also provide a standardized set of “thinking tools,” with accompanying feedback forms, to help students understand the goals and targets of each activity.OER Project does not provide guidance on grading. Teachers know their students, instructional context, and routines best, and are without doubt in the best position to assess them fairly. Learn more in our Assessment Guide.