California Social Science Content Standards
10.6 Students analyze the effects of the First World War.
- Analyze the aims and negotiating roles of world leaders, the terms and influence of the Treaty of Versailles and Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and the causes and effects of the United States's rejection of the League of Nations on world politics.
- Describe the effects of the war and resulting peace treaties on population movement, the international economy, and shifts in the geographic and political borders of Europe and the Middle East.
- Understand the widespread disillusionment with prewar institutions, authorities, and values that resulted in a void that was later filled by totalitarians.
- Discuss the influence of World War I on literature, art, and intellectual life in the West (e.g., Pablo Picasso, the "lost generation" of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway).
- Understand the causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution, including Lenin's use of totalitarian means to seize and maintain control (e.g., the Gulag).
- Trace Stalin's rise to power in the Soviet Union and the connection between economic policies, political policies, the absence of a free press, and systematic violations of human rights (e.g., the Terror Famine in Ukraine).
- Analyze the rise, aggression, and human costs of totalitarian regimes (Fascist and Communist) in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, noting especially their common and dissimilar traits.
- Compare the German, Italian, and Japanese drives for empire in the 1930s, including the 1937 Rape of Nanking, other atrocities in China, and the Stalin-Hitler Pact of 1939.
- Understand the role of appeasement, nonintervention (isolationism), and the domestic distractions in Europe and the United States prior to the outbreak of World War II.
Essential Historical Questions
• How do major world events affect the course of history?
• How did the culmination of World War I lead to World War II?
• How did World War I affect the various aspects of society?
• How does public opinion shape foreign policy?
• How did public disillusion with foreign military involvement allow for the seeds of World War II to sprout?
• How can we learn from history to avoid mistakes of the past?
• How might things have been done differently to avoid World War II?
• How did the culmination of World War I lead to World War II?
• How did World War I affect the various aspects of society?
• How does public opinion shape foreign policy?
• How did public disillusion with foreign military involvement allow for the seeds of World War II to sprout?
• How can we learn from history to avoid mistakes of the past?
• How might things have been done differently to avoid World War II?
Big Ideas
• The transition between the World Wars
• Global politics/foreign policy
• Causes and effects of social, political, and economic turmoil
• Global politics/foreign policy
• Causes and effects of social, political, and economic turmoil
Unit Assessments
• Photo-Reaction Journal Writing entry-level
• Students informally record their reactions to a series of photographs depicting the dire circumstances of the post-World War I period
• Guided Notes progress-monitoring
• Students fill-in blanks, select answers, and answer questions on a scaffolded accompaniment to a lecture
• Economic and Political Systems Project progress-monitoring
• Students engage in a project in which groups are assigned certain governmental and economic systems. Students demonstrate
understanding of content by simulating scenarios within their system assignments
• Graphic Organizers progress-monitoring
• Students complete two Venn Diagrams, one which compares and contrasts a pair of nations in regards to their economic and political
structures during the inter-war period, and one which compares and contrasts Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin
• Thesis Paper summative
• Students will write a three-page hybrid paper that includes a 1-2-page, original summary of events leading from WWI to WWII and a
1-2-page, source-cited thesis arguing what an Allied Power of their choosing could have done differently to avoid the path to WWII
• Unit Exam summative
• Students are formally assessed on their learning from the unit with a comprehensive exam comprised of multiple-choice,
fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, and brief essay questions
• Students informally record their reactions to a series of photographs depicting the dire circumstances of the post-World War I period
• Guided Notes progress-monitoring
• Students fill-in blanks, select answers, and answer questions on a scaffolded accompaniment to a lecture
• Economic and Political Systems Project progress-monitoring
• Students engage in a project in which groups are assigned certain governmental and economic systems. Students demonstrate
understanding of content by simulating scenarios within their system assignments
• Graphic Organizers progress-monitoring
• Students complete two Venn Diagrams, one which compares and contrasts a pair of nations in regards to their economic and political
structures during the inter-war period, and one which compares and contrasts Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin
• Thesis Paper summative
• Students will write a three-page hybrid paper that includes a 1-2-page, original summary of events leading from WWI to WWII and a
1-2-page, source-cited thesis arguing what an Allied Power of their choosing could have done differently to avoid the path to WWII
• Unit Exam summative
• Students are formally assessed on their learning from the unit with a comprehensive exam comprised of multiple-choice,
fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, and brief essay questions