Grade: Elementary
Subject: History

#1717. World War II

History, level: Elementary
Posted Tue Apr 25 10:11:32 PDT 2000 by Andrew Katzmire (KXHH@grove.iup.edu).
Indiana Univ. of PA, Indiana
Materials Required: Make packets of info up.
Activity Time: two class times


OBJECTIVES:
- The student will receive a different perspective of WW II at the end of this
class.
- The students will learn how WW II began and ended by the teaching
groups.
- The students will be able to know one of the four countries perspective of
the war well enough to teach it.

Class Activity:

The teacher will teach the students how to take packets of information on a
topic and how to decipher what is important and why it is important. The
teacher will take a small packet of information on a topic and have the students
search out the most important parts of the packet.
Four packets of information will need to be made by the teacher for each
country represented (U.S.A, Russia, Germany, France/Great Britain). Each
packet should cover important roles for each country that the teacher thinks is
important for the students to know. Articles of how that country felt during the
war, poster propaganda, maps of each country, and important reasons why that
country was in WW II. Most of the packets should have articles of information
from at least five different sources (no less than three).
The students will be put into four groups. These groups will be called the
expert groups. The students should be picked out by the teacher to make sure
that the class has a well even strength. The students in the groups will look at
one packet of information about one country. They have the entire time for
social studies to read, talk over with the group the most important parts of the
articles, make notes and decide what they will teach to the other students. The
teacher can put in some guide line questions that keeps the students answering
the same questions for each country. This will keep confusion to a minimum
and helps the teacher accomplish the main points that he/she wants to tie into
the lesson.
When the students are ready, the expert groups will be broken up into
groups of four. Each person in this group each has his/her own country that
they studied. Each person in each group will present their country to the
group. The students must teach the students the important parts of the packet
and they must answer the guideline questions. The students will ask the expert
teacher of that country questions.
Each student will have an opportunity to teach and will learn about the
main countries involved in WW II. The students will have a mini test to see
how they did on finding information and how each teacher did for each group.
Certain questions will be focused on a particular country. Students can use this
mini test to review before the main test. This activity allows students to be
more involved in learning as they learn. The students will learn study habits