Social Studies - United States History II
Lesson Plans

U.S. II Strand 6: ANOTHER GLOBAL CONFLICT AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE COLD WAR

(Ca. 1930-1950) Possible Guiding Questions to Consider:

• How did decisions that leaders made during World War II change the rules of warfare?
• What arguments were made for employing the tactics of "total war"?
• How do local conflicts escalate to become global conflicts?
• What were the interests and primary objectives of the U.S. in entering into World War II?
• How was the impact of World War II reflected in the culture of the United States home front?
• How did the events of World War II set the stage for the Cold War?
• How did the United States seek to halt the spread of communism in Europe?

U.S. II Standard 6.3:

Students will cite and compare historical arguments from multiple perspectives regarding the use of "total war" in World War II, focusing on the changing objectives, weapons, tactics, and rules of war, such as carpet bombing, civilian targets, the Holocaust, and the development and use of the atom bomb.

• African-American Soldiers in World War I: The 92nd and 93rd Divisions
  Late in 1917, the War Department created two all-black infantry divisions. The 93rd Infantry Division received unanimous praise for its performance in combat, fighting as part of France's 4th Army. In this lesson, students combine their research in a variety of sources, including firsthand accounts, to develop a hypothesis evaluating contradictory statements about the performance of the 92nd Infantry Division in World War I.
• Reality Check: The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
  On July 16 1945, the nuclear age began with the world's first nuclear weapons test explosion in the New Mexico desert. In this annotated video essay from the Arms Control Association, they describe the events that transpired three weeks later with the atomic attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Topaz
  Topaz is the story of the thousands of San Francisco Bay Area Japanese who were separated from their property, livelihoods and constitutional rights, removed from their homes and shipped to a windswept stretch of Utah's roughest rangeland. There, for more than three years, these men, women and children were forced to call row after row of tarpaper barracks "home." This was Topaz, a War Relocation camp near Delta, Utah, which overnight became the fifth largest city in the state.

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http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Robert  Austin and see the Social Studies website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

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