Enhanced scope and sequence

Essential Understandings, Knowledge, and Skills

Skills (to be incorporated into instruction throughout the academic year)

Sequence events in United States history from 1865 to the present.

Interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives.

Analyze and interpret maps that include major physical features.

Content

Explain that the rise of fascism threatened peace in Europe and Asia.

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  Political instability and economic devastation in Europe resulting from World War I:
  

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  Worldwide depression
  
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  High war debt owed by Germany
  
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  High inflation
  
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  Massive unemployment
  

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  Rise of fascism:
  

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  Fascism is a political philosophy in which total power is given to a dictator, individual freedoms are denied, and nationalism and, often, racism are emphasized.
  
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  Fascist dictators included Adolf Hitler (Germany), Benito Mussolini (Italy), and Hideki Tojo (Japan).
  
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  These dictators led the countries that became known as the Axis Powers.
  

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  Isolationism (Great Depression, legacy of World War I)
  
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  Economic aid to Allies
  
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  Direct involvement in the war
  

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  Democratic nations (the United States, Great Britain, Canada) were known as the Allies. The Soviet Union joined the Allies after being invaded by Germany.
  
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  Allied leaders included Franklin D. Roosevelt and, later, Harry S. Truman (United States), Winston Churchill (Great Britain), and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union).
  

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  Rising tension developed between the United States and Japan because of Japanese aggression in East Asia.
  
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  On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor without warning.
  
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  The United States declared war on Japan.
  
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  Germany declared war on the United States.
  

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  Germany invaded Poland, setting off war in Europe. The Soviet Union also invaded Poland and the Baltic nations.
  
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  Germany invaded France and captured Paris.
  
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  Germany bombed London, and the Battle of Britain began.
  
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  The United States gave Britain war supplies and old naval warships in return for military bases in Bermuda and the Caribbean (Lend-Lease).
  
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  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
  
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  After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States.
  
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  The United States declared war on Japan and Germany.
  
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  The United States was victorious over Japan in the Battle of Midway. This victory was the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
  
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  Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union defeated Germany at Stalingrad, marking the turning point of the war in Eastern Europe.
  
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  American and other Allied troops landed in Normandy, France, on D-Day to begin the liberation of Western Europe.
  
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  The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan (at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) in 1945, forcing Japan to surrender and ending World War II.
  

Define the Holocaust as an example of prejudice and discrimination taken to the extreme.

Summarize the following viewpoints and tactics of Holocaust leaders and their followers:

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  Viewpoints
  

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  Anti-Semitism
  
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  Aryan supremacy
  
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  Systematic attempt to rid Europe of all Jews
  

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  Tactics
  

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  Boycott of Jewish stores
  
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  Threats
  
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  Segregation
  
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  Imprisonment and killing of Jews and others in concentration camps and death camps.
  

Describe the impact of World War II on American life on the home front, emphasizing that every aspect of American life was affected.

Identify the sacrifices Americans were asked to make in support of the war effort and the ideals for which Americans fought.

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  American involvement in World War II brought an end to the Great Depression. Factories and workers were needed to produce goods to win the war.
  
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  Thousands of American women took jobs in defense plants during the war (e.g., Rosie the Riveter).
  
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  Americans at home supported the war by conserving and rationing resources.
  

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  The need for workers temporarily broke down some racial barriers (e.g., hiring in defense plants), although discrimination against African Americans continued.
  
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  While many Japanese Americans served in the armed forces, others were treated with distrust and prejudice, and many were forced into internment camps.
  

Sample Resources

“Anti-Semitism.” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005175. This site explains the history of anti-Semitism in Germany and the issue as a part of the Nazi’s agenda.

“‘A Date That Will Live in Infamy’: FDR Asks for a Declaration of War.” History Matters. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5166/. This site offers the text of the speech.

AtomicBombMuseum.org. http://www.atomicbombmuseum.org/index.shtml. This site provides information concerning the impact the first atomic bomb had on Hiroshima, as well as the context for a constructive discussion of what the world can learn from this event.

Dear Home: Letters from WWII. HistoryChannel.com. http://www.historychannel.com/dearhome/. This site gives access to a letter describing an American’s first-hand account of the horrors of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich.

“Human Needs Analysis: An Introductory Activity to the Holocaust.” Educator’s Reference Desk http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Social_Studies/World_History/Holocaust/HOL0200.html. This site provides a lesson that is intended to help students understand the emotional and psychological effects that occurred through the dehumanization of individuals.

Lachenmayer, Henry, “Word for Word/Pearl Harbor Diary; ‘The Grace of God and the Mailed Fist’: A Calm Sunday Abruptly Shattered,” http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/06/weekinreview/word-for-word-pearl-harbor-diary-grace-god-mailed-fist-calm-sunday-abruptly.html?scp=1&sq=Pearl%20Harbor%20Diary:%20A%20Calm%20Sunday%20Abruptly%20Shattered&st=cse. The article includes excerpts from the diary of Henry Lachenmayer, who was aboard the USS Pennsylvania on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page: German Propaganda Archive. Calvin College. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/index.htm. This Web site offers access to various materials used by the enemy as propaganda.

Pearl Harbor: Remembered. http://my.execpc.com/~dschaaf/mainmenu.html. This Web site gives access to a numbers of resources.

Smithsonian Education: Japanese American Internment. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japanese_internment/lesson1_main.html. This site consists of primary source letters from Japanese internment camps and includes lessons to use with these letters.

“Suffering Under a Great Injustice.” Ansel Adams’s Photograph’s of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar. American Memory Collection, Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/. This site provides access to Adams’s superb and moving images.

“Teaching with Documents Lesson Plan: Powers of Persuasion—Poster Art of World War II.” U.S. National Archives and Records Administration—Digital Classroom. http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion.html. This site features an entire lesson plan on this topic.

“Wartime and the Bill of Rights: The Korematsu Case” found on the Web site The Bill of Rights in Action, The Constitutional Rights Foundation, http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-18-3-a-wartime-and-the-bill-of-rights-the-korematsu-case.html. This article discusses the constitutional challenge to President Roosevelt’s executive order concerning the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II.

Zimbalist, Alison. “Daily Lesson Plan: ‘I’ Witness to History.” New York Times of the Web Learning Network. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/1998/12/07/i-witness-to-history/?scp=6&sq=Pearl%20Harbor%20Diary&st=cse. In this lesson, based on the article “Word for Word/Pearl Harbor Diary; ‘The Grace of God and the Mailed Fist’: A Calm Sunday Abruptly Shattered,” listed above, students read Lachenmayer’s first-hand account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as a springboard for researching a significant historic event and writing a set of diary entries from the perspective of a person involved in that event.