Cold War America, Day 3 (The Korean War) - Class Recap

The "Bridge of No Return" between North and South Korea, in the De-Militarized Zone. Photo taken in January of 2014.

Dear class,

I barely get to see you this week, with the testing days and teacher work days! I hope we were able to pack a lot in to what we did in class today. Here's what happened:

Learning Targets:
SS.HS.KN.ALT.09: I can identify how technological knowledge and innovation shapes a society, place, or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.17: I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.23: I can describe the influences, impacts and resolutions of historical conflicts.

Soundtrack: “Gone But Not Forgotten” by TQ. Selected because we talked about the "Forgotten War" in Korea today in class. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 4/22/14:
News Brief
Debrief Primary Sources
The Korean War
Unforgettable

Homework: Read the blog! Next class: OAKS reading test (no news brief).

News Brief: Nickolas chose this story to talk about as the news brief for today: CNN.com - Teen stowaway raises questions about airport security. What a super fascinating case. It is incredible that the young man survived the trip (just read the article to see how unlikely it is). It also might speak to our airport security again that this could apparently happen unnoticed.

Debrief Primary Sources: I gave the class a few more minutes to finish this up, then we started talking about the sources and what they meant for the start of the Cold War. The four sources and worksheets are here:

Stanford.edu - Cold War Primary Sources

Please keep this for future reference in class!

The Korean War: This was the first actual war of the "Cold War" period in America. Remember, the term "cold" is used to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, because we were never actually at war them directly, just in various wars with allies around the world. Here is the presentation I made, if you missed class, or I went too fast (as is definitely possible):

Google Drive: The Forgotten War PowerPoint

This was a fairly lengthy PowerPoint, I know. I tried to pack the entire history of the Korean War into one presentation. Students were asked to take notes of information that related to the learning targets of the unit (above). Most students did really well with this, it seemed! Thank you! All of the pictures in the PowerPoint are my own - most of them from my trip to Korea in January! I love it when I get to travel to places that I then teach about.

Here is the video that I tried to get working in class, about the geography of the war. It settled back almost exactly where it started, which is another reason people tend to forget about it.

This is the link I showed Period 1, which goes over six different stages of the war:

PBS.org - American Experience: The Korean War

Unforgettable: We either watched a few minutes of this (Period 1) or did not get the chance to at all (Period 3). I will probably return to this next class. If you are interested in getting ahead of the game, here it is to watch:

Again, I really appreciate your focus, effort, and participation today in class! Presentation days can be super boring, I know. Good questions and involvement make it more interesting for everyone. See you next week!