Title: Vietnam

Grade: 11th Grade

Team Member Names: Ryan, Jason, Tabitha
Overall Goal:

This lesson is for students to reflect on the Vietnam War and how it changed America.
They will learn how things worked before the war and how they changed after the war. Students
should show examples of what is different from the past and how American ideas today are
influenced by the war. They have the choice to think if America has really changed after the war.
How the ideas clash and the development that comes from these clashing ideologies. The
lesson consists of the students ending their lesson in WWII prior and then it leads into the start of
the cold war. With the start of the cold war we transition into the Vietnam War and students get
their first look at the Vietnam War here. They go into the lesson only knowing about the basic
ideas of war and some of the ideologies that go into the Vietnam War such as the tension
between the U.S. and Russia. The lesson then introduces the general methods of warfare in
Vietnam and differences in American tactics and the Viet Cong’s tactics. We then tie in the
weapons used by each side and how it enhanced their use of certain tactics. The students would
then reflect on the tools used by both sides and discuss how they affected America. After such
they would then prepare for a mock debate to see if it was good to join the war. The debate
would work as an assessment of if they understood what changes happened in the war and what
would happen should the war have not. To fit the needs of students hard of hearing we would
have a speech to text machine for them to read. We would have the subtitles on during video
showings. Audio will still be very prevalent because someone may have poor eyesight.
Language will be watched as to not offend anyone whom may be vietnamese or to insinuate that
anyone is inferior or to give the students bias and ideas without proper presentation of all sides.

Standards Learning Objective Assessment

USH.7.9 Students will be able to explain A mock debate on whether it

Analyze the consequence/impact of the war and was good for the United
foreign and domestic be able to explain the implications States to join the Vietnam
consequences of U.S. for American culture and policy to War or if they had no place in
involvement in their classmates. joining it
Vietnam.

Key Terms & Definitions:

● Communism: An economic and political system in which the government controls industry
and business
 ● Capitalism: An economic and political system driven by private ownership of businesses,
rather than by the state
● The domino theory: the belief that communism would continue to spread to new
countries much in the same way that dominoes fall. And that the “falling dominoes” could
only be stopped by direct (American) intervention.
● Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: An action passed by congress giving the president almost
exclusive authority over military presence and action in Southeast Asia
● Agent Orange: Weapon used by the U.S. that destroyed lots of forests and was deemed
unethical to use after the war due to its widespread destruction
● Rat tunnels: Method used by Viet Cong to hide and run away from U.S. troops. Often
booby trapped to kill any U.S. soldiers who tried to enter.

Lesson Introduction (Hook, Grabber):

The introduction would be a showing of clips of vietnam and a general overview of the war
without getting too specific. The students would be used to the idea of war because this would
be out of the WW2 unit but would be interested by the contrast from the new techniques used in
the war. The video would quickly feature techniques and weapons that were used in Vietnam or
were notable at the time.
We would use a crash course video to open the lesson. This series is sufficiently informative and
entertaining to hold the attention of the students. It contains information that addresses the cold
war as a whole giving them breadth into some of the ideologies at war

Main Lesson:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15LHu9zzJlvWxcM7crHQfQH-
vxZJVrBNGLoq3imDnMkc/edit?usp=sharing

Students will follow along to powerpoint while taking notes of the bullet points. First they will be
given a brief overview by watching a crash course of the Vietnam War. Then we will methodically
go over the reasons for vietnam and the after effects. They will then test their knowledge by
playing kahoot that is focused on the Vietnam War.

Lesson Ending:

While this lesson specifically would end with a Kahoot to provide a fun assessment to see how
much the students learned, we would end this unit with a mock debate during which the students
would argue about the positive/negative consequences of the war and whether it was a wise
decision to enter in the first place. Students must come up with three source to support their
arguement.

Assessment Rubric of Assignment/Activity:

Great Average Poor

Indicator Student demonstrates
ample knowledge of the
subject and reasons to
why it affected(or not)
american culture
Student showed that Student did not speak
they know important
parts of the war but
not how it affected
America

Resources / Artifacts:

Ryan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2IcmLkuhG0

Jason: https://create.kahoot.it/details/the-vietnam-war/cb8e9867-a1b1-4bb3-9544-e1cfdc574d38

Differentiation:

This section should describe how you could to differentiate your lesson for learners with diverse
needs. Some ideas would be to offer differentiated solutions for English Language Learners,
students with mobility challenges, students on the autism spectrum, students with emotional or
behavioral challenges, students with auditory or visual impairments, gifted students, etc. You
should address

1. Differentiation for ability levels

● High ability learners, low ability learners

2. Differentiation for demographics

● The only thing that comes to mind is being careful with our language so as not to sound
offensive to possible minorities like the Vietnamese. (Which shouldn’t be difficult)
 3. Differentiation for languages
● ESL, EFL, ENL
● If we’re teaching in a public high school, then there will be a English proficiency
requirement for non-native English speakers to be in all-English classes, so this shouldn’t
be a problem.
In regards to the deaf, they will almost certainly have either an ASL interpreter or assistive
technology to supplement their learning, e.g. speech-to-text programs

4. Differentiation for access & resources

● Computers, Internet connection, and/or Wifi access

Anticipated Difficulties:

As for difficulties that we face some of the students may have an inherently hard time
understanding how the effect plays out and why it happened. It help the students understand
better we can link this to other events that played out similarly and they can try and see the
effects that came from that event.