Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Unit Title
Teacher(s)
Name

World War II

Position

Teacher

School/District

Dalton High School / Dalton Public Schools

E-mail

nick.amonett@dalton.k12.ga.us

Phone

(706) 876-4800

Grade Level(s)

10th

Content Area

ESOL World History

Time line

10 Days

Nick Amonett

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.
SSWH17 The student will be able to identify the major political and economic factors that
shaped world societies between World War I and World War II
b. Determine the causes and results of the Russian Revolution from the rise of the
Bolsheviks under Lenin to Stalins first Five Year Plan
f. Explain the aggression and conflict leading to World War II in Europe and Asia;
include the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, the Rape of Nanjing
in China, and the German annexation of the Sudetenland.

Content
Standards

SSWH18 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the global political, economic,
and social impact or World War II
a. Describe the major conflicts and outcomes; include Pearl Harbor, El-Alamein,
Stalingrad, D-Day, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and the end of the war in Europe
and Asia
c. Explain the military and diplomatic negotiations between the leader of Great Britain
(Churchill), the Soviet Union (Stalin), and the United States (Roosevelt/Truman)
from Teheran to Yalta and Potsdam and the impact on the nations of Eastern
Europe

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1 Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative

products and processes using technology
a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes
b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression
c. Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues
d. Identify trends and forecast possibilities
2 Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively,
including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of
others.
d. Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems

NETS*S
Standards

3 Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information

a. Plan strategies to guide inquiry
b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from
a variety of sources and media
c. Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the
appropriateness to specific tasks
d. Process data and report results
4 Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve
problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources
b. Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project
c. Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)
The beginning of the Twentieth century was a very trying time in World History. In almost 30 years, from 1914 to
1945, countries of the world had to settle their differences through warfare. History was reshaped and redefined
during this time. This unit tries to focus on what events caused and why the world to go to war, why the peace did
not last, and what factors led to the outbreak of a second conflict that pushed several countries in the world to
unite against each other. This lesson begins with signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the peace that came
from the Great War. Students will look at what all transpired in three countries (Russia, Germany, and Italy) after
the end of the first World War and analyze how these events led to the country feeling that war was the only
course of action just 20 years after the end of the first World War. In addition, students will analyze how events in
one country led to future events in the other countries. After beginning the war, the students will begin to
understand the importance of key conflicts in the battle to determine the significance and result of each conflict.
The students will determine the impact each battle played on the overall outcome. The students will end the unit
with a video discussion of the similarities between the different causes of bot WWI and WWII. The focus of this
unit is for students to be able to determine similarities and analyze these similarities between the war to ultimately
discover that World War I and World War II were fought of the same ideals and the same focus. While the
players may have changed in World War II and other factors may have been introduced, the reason for fighting
was the same. The students will evaluate the causes of the two wards to determine similarities and ultimately
how the second war could have been avoided.

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Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important
aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring
to this topic and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry.
They should not be answered with a simple yes or no and should have many acceptable answers.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Determine and compare the similarities between the cause of World War I and World War II?
What were the important provisions of the Treaty of Versailles?
How did the Treaty of Versailles help lead to conditions for a Second World War?
How did the rise of fascism impact the development of (a) Italy (Mussolini), and (b) Germany (Hitler)?
How did totalitarian regimes and aggression lead to WWII? What were the steps to war?
Explain how the aggressions in Europe and Asia lead to WWII; include (a) Italy invading Ethiopia, (b) Spanish Civil
War, (c) Japanese rape of Nanjing, and (d) Germany invasion of Sudetenland and Poland.
How did the outcome of the major conflicts of WWII impact the end of the war in Europe and Asia? Include Pearl
Harbor, El-Alamein, Stalingrad, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Guadalcanal, and the Philippines (Iwo Jima and
Okinawa).

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.
Students will produce three things during the lesson to illustrate their learning. The first thing they will create is a
timeline of an assigned country (Russia, Germany, and Italy). Students will work in groups to help build the
timeline, and each person must submit one element of the timeline and explain to the class the importance of the
event. Students will build their timelines on Timetoast to share with the class and allow the class to access their
group timelines throughout the unit. The next production is a new Wiki page to explain a specific battle of World
War II. Students will work in groups to design a wiki page for a battle of their choice, including images, videos,
and text. At the end of the unit, students will work in groups to create a video-discussion, comparing and
contrasting the similarities between the causes of World War I and World War II. Students post these videos on a
discussion thread through the Learning Management System we use in class. All three will be assessed through
the use of a rubric. The rubrics are attached at the end of this lesson plan. The final activity will be a summative
assessment, because students will need to use information from the previous two activities to determine a
response to the final activity. Groups will be determined by the teacher based on students STAR reading levels,
and students will be given the opportunity to choose the response they feel they know the most about for the
summative assessment. Students will generate new knowledge through the creation of the wiki space and the
discussion videos.

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Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resourcesonline student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etchelp elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)
For this unit, technology plays a major role! Students will use the iPads and access the
pdf version of the class textbook, Canvas information pages, Canvas discussion page,
Canvas wiki pages, and sites like Wikipedia and TimeToast. Students will use digital
worksheets to help guide their research for the wiki pages and as directions to create
the discussion post comparing the causes of WWI and WWII. For this lesson to go
smoothly, students need to have experience using the iPads for research and for
navigation of the LMS in order to access information, create video posts, wiki pages,
and discussion threads. Students will be introduced to Timetoast, but must be able to
research dates and be able to understand the importance of events.
For each assignment, students will be given a copy of the rubric to understand what is
required for the task. For the Timeline, I linked a timeline widget to the homepage of our
class LMS to help students locate the dates and quickly find the information on each
event (pictured right). Additionally, I provided the students a direction page on our LMS
with links to other sites to help determine events. The students typed in the country and
date to find what events took place. For the Battle Wiki, students will be given a
handout to guide their thoughts as they begin working on their wiki. For the causes discussion, I provided an
electronic discussion thread with the directions on the page for the students to read. All directions are given at
the end of the lesson plan.

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

Students need to have prior knowledge of World War I, which was the previous unit of study before this unit. One
thing that I have found my students have an interest in, but need to have more opportunity in exercising, is the
connections between events in history. Especially for the ESOL students, teacher seem to only focus on the facts
in order to teach English vocabulary, but never stress connections. This lesson will build on previous knowledge.
Having worked with this same group of students for two years, the students also enjoy being able to recall
information from a previous unit, so to build on this, I planned to incorporate the content learned in the previous
unit and apply it to the current unit of World War II. A need to focus on is for the students to spend less time
listening to the teacher, and more time expressing their opinions in English to a small group and to the large
group. One skill that myself and my co-teacher have focused on working on this year is for the ESOL students to
work on public speaking in English, to gain confidence. Students need to be able to verbally explain concepts
from the previous unit in order to work through the current events. This will be a difficulty for the class, because
for most of the students, they are struggling with public speaking. To help combat this, I have the students
working in groups. This way those students who struggle with speaking to the entire group will be able to talk in
small group and as a group, talk to the class; the same is true for creating a video. The topic being covered is
naturally interesting to most students, because these topics are the first major events of the twentieth century and
begin to explain current events.

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Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
trouble-shoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.
For this lesson, I used small groups and whole group on multiple occasions. The use of controlled small groups
helps the ESOL students feel more comfortable because, if there is a word they cannot understand, they can ask
their group members, and usually the group can determine the correct definition. To ensure equitable access to
the Internet, all students will use their class assigned iPads, laptops checked out from the Media Center, or
personal devices brought from home. My classroom is a BYODBNCP classroom (Bring Your Own Device, But
No Cell Phones). Trouble-shooting tends to be an unwritten rule for education these days. To ensure that
everything runs smoothly, I first test out the website or application on my own, using the classroom iPads to
ensure it will work for all students. I also try to have the CP students in my 8 th period class complete a similar
assignment to ensure that it can be done before implementing lessons with ESOL students. If problems do come
up during a lesson, I assess how difficult the solution is before I act. If it is a simple fix through something like
refreshing the webpage or correcting a weblink, I will talk the students through to ensure they learn how to fix the
problem. If there is a major problem, like the students are unable to use the Internet, I always have a paper
method that can be used to complete the assignment until Internet returns and students can then input what they
originally wrote on paper. For this lesson, the students struggled with posting the videos into the discussion post.
To solve this problem, I had students who were having trouble hold off on posting until the end of class so I could
show them on the projector. For most students, they did not want to wait, so they sought out a friend in the class
who had posted correctly to get their help. Students are urged to do this, because when one student receives
help, he will be able to pay the other student back on a later assignment.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Blooms Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge
and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?
During the entire unit, there will be several instructional strategies used. Each activity will involve teachercentered front loading and students-centered work. Students will work with classmates to collaborate and create
several different activities. The sequence of activities are designed to increase along Blooms Taxonomy and
built upon each other. The first activity will allow students to begin by recalling knowledge about different events
in the history of a given country and be able to comprehend the importance of the given events. The second
assignment will allow students the opportunity apply their comprehension of battles to create a wiki page. The
final activity will allow students to analyze the different causes of World War I and World War II. The use of
technology for the lesson will help emphasize each level of Blooms Taxonomy throughout the unit, allowing
students the platform to discover the events and read about the events in order to share with classmates. Each of
these activities are meaningful because it requires some level of application of learning for the purpose of sharing
with classmates. The students go from just taking in knowledge to helping create new knowledge. The use of
technology will also help students to create their wikis and video discussions. Students will use TimeToast to help
communicate with the class, given the students are all using the same log in for the site, to allow access to the
timelines.

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Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)
Students will be given access to websites, readings, and topic choices based on their ability level. In all my
lessons with this group, I strive to make sure that there are multiple ways for students to access information and
learn the material. It is especially important for ESOL students, since each student learns the content differently
and their ability to speak the language is different. For differentiation within all of my classes, I use the student
STAR Reading Levels. Students with higher STAR Reading Levels scores will use harder material than students
with lower STAR Reading Levels. For the timeline activity, student will first be divided into heterogeneous groups
based on their STAR Reading Levels, ensuring that each small group has one student who can comprehend the
more difficult material and explain the material to the group. On the second day of the timeline, students will be
re-divided into homogeneous groupings, allowing the students who have higher STAR Reading Levels to work
together, allowing for learning to happen at the level of each students and to give each student practice explaining
an event to students similar to themselves. For the second assignment, students will be assigned to a battle
group based on a heterogeneous grouping of the STAR Reading Levels. This way there is at least one student in
each group who has the ability to enter the text into the Wiki space. For the final activity, students will be allowed
choice. They will be allowed to choose their own groupings based on whom they believe will help them master
the topic. Topics will be assigned based on the overall STAR Reading Levels of the group members, ensuring
that students composed of the more advanced students are given the more advanced topics, requiring slightly
more research to complete the activity.
Had there been students who needed adaptive technologies, applications such as Dragon Dictation could have
been used to help students create the class wikis. Another example of how an adaptive technology would be the
layout of the wikis. Each battle wiki was required to have audio/video along with the reading text to ensure that
students could learn the material in a variety of ways.

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
In what ways was this lesson effective?
What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?
How would you teach this lesson differently?)
The final activity will require students to reflect and use information from previous assignments to complete.
Students will be given the opportunity on the last day of the unit to provide feedback through a ticket-out-thedoor method to explain what were the most beneficial part of the unit and a few brief facts they learned during the
unit. Through this ticket-out-the-door, students will be able to address what parts of the lesson were meaningful
and how the lesson was effective. Before this last event, I will ask the students to recap what the unit was
about, to determine what went well and what did not. I will be able to determine why based on the enthusiasm the
students express while discussion the overall concepts and the caliber of comments on the tickets-out-the-door.
Based on the depth of knowledge in the timelines, the wiki pages, and the video comments I will determine what
to teach differently. If the final grading of each of the components is not as robust as hoped, I will focus on how to
adjust for the sake of the content.

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Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
Upon the completion of this unit, I feel that I focused too much on the technology and not the flow. While there
is a definite link between the assignments and the students used concepts from previous assignments, I struggled
with the knowing if the students learned the basic information about World War I. While I am confident the
students saw the connection between the causes of World War I and World War II, I am not confident if the
students learned information about the war itself. The information given in the timeline was good, and I was
proud of the students, but I am not sure that all students understood each event as I had hoped. For any teacher
to use a similar lesson, I would urge them to spend some time between the timeline and the battles explaining the
significance of each event. With that said, I did like the lesson. I enjoyed the videos the student creates, and was
proud of their work. Since ESOL classes focus on content and vocabulary, it was uplifting to hear the students
struggle with the concept of delivering a conversation, but put caution to the wind and makes it happen. In
comparing how the videos the kids made this last time with the first videos made at the beginning of the year, it is
obvious the students have improved. My goal of the lesson was for students to understand the similarities
between the causes of the two World conflicts, and I feel that was accomplished. While walking around to the
small groups, the students seemed excited to show off what their knowledge of the causes.

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Directions for Group Timeline:

Page 8 of 13

Rubric for Group Timeline:

Number of
Events

Timeline
Layout

Group completed no
events on their digital
timeline or a paper copy
of the timeline

Group completed all of

their events on a paper
copy of the timeline
AND/OR some of the
events, but unable to
enter the required amount
of events into their
groups timeline

All events are in the

digital timeline, but the
events are not in the
correct order for timeline,
dates (years) are
incorrect for events.

All events are correctly

placed in the sequence of
the digital timeline and
all dates are correct for
the given events

Digital Timeline is not

complete

Group
Explanation

Individual
Participation

Group did not

verbally present
their timelines to
the class

5
Group completed all of
the required events for
the digital timeline.

15

20

30

Group presented a
portion of the
timeline, but some
events were left
out

Group presented a
portion of the
events in the
timeline with each
person
participating in
the verbal
description

Group presented
all events on their
groups timeline
to the class AND
all group members
participated in the
verbal description

0
Student did not
participate in the
creation of the
Timeline and in the
verbal description infront of the class

7
Student participated in
the creation of the
Timeline OR the verbal
description in-front of
the class

10
Student participated in
the creation of the
Timeline and the
verbal description infront of the class

Total

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Handout for Battle Wiki:

Directions: You have been assigned a battle of WWII either in the European Campaign of the Pacific Campaign and will
work in small groups to create a wiki page on Canvas for your battle. This Canvas page will be used by your classmates to
learn about and answer questions about the battle. You will need to answer the following questions in your wiki page.

Which Campaign:

Europe

Pacific

Where was this battle fought?

When did the fighting start?

How long did the fighting take place?

Fought between what countries?

Who won the battle?

Important information about the battle.

Why is this battle important? (hint: how does this lead to final outcome of the war?)

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Rubric for Battle Wiki:

0

Image

The group battle Wiki does not have at

least one image on the page

Video
Link

The group battle wiki does

not have a link to at least
one video on the page

The group battle wiki has at least one image on the

page

Who?

Where?

When?

10

Battle wiki just lists

the countries or
alliances fought in
the battle

Battle wiki gives the

countries or
alliances engaged in
the conflict with a
description about
each on, but fails to
indicate who won
the conflict

Battle wiki gives the

countries or alliances
engaged in the conflict with
a description about each one
AND indicates who won the
overall conflict

10

Battle wiki does not

give any
information with
regards to the
location or
campaign of the
battle

Battle wiki gives

information about
the campaign
(European or
Pacific) OR country
location

Battle wiki gives no

information on what
happened during the battle

Battle wiki gives

information about
the campaign OR
country location.
Group explains the
significance of
either

7
Battle wiki gives a very
basic level of information
on what happened during
the battle, but leaves out
key events highlighted in
the readings and by the
teacher

Battle wiki does not give

the beginning date, the end
date, or amount of
days/months/years the
battle took place

Battle wiki gives part of the

information of when the
battle was fought, but
missing the entire date
range.

0
Why?

The group battle wiki has at least

one active, working video link

Battle wiki does not

include information
about the countries
or alliances that
fought in the battle

What?

The group battle wiki has

links to at least one video,
but none of the links work

Battle wiki gives no

mention of why this battle
is important

Battle wiki gives

information about the
campaign AND country
location and explains the
significance of both

10
Battle wiki clearly describes what
happened during the battle and
includes key events during the
battle as indicated by the readings
and by the teacher

10
Battle wiki gives the start date, the
end date, the year, and the amount
of days/months/years the fighting
took place

10

Battle wiki mentions why

the battle was important
with regards to WWII, OR
gives information on why
the battle is significant for
future events

Battle wiki mentions why the battle

was important with regards to
WWII, AND gives information on
why the battle is significant for
future events

Total

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Video Discussion Directions:

Page 12 of 13

Rubric for Causes Video Discussion:

0

Discussion
Format

WWI
Cause

WWII
Cause

Technical

There is no
video to
grade

10

Video is submitted,
but no evidence of a
conversation. Both
people just read their
causes in turn.

Video submitted and

students provide a
conversation style,
but there is no flow
between the two
sides.

Video submitted and there is

a flow of information
between the two sides. Both
build their explanation of the
cause off of the others
explanation, giving a true
comparison and contrast of
the two sides.

15

WWI cause is
not present in
the final
video

WWI cause is
present in the video,
but there is no
explanation of the
cause

20

30

WWI cause is
present and
thoroughly
explained for the
importance of the
outbreak of WWI,
but no link between
the years between
the wars or WWII

WWI cause is present and

group members thoroughly
explain the importance of
this cause for the outbreak of
WWI, the events between
the wars, and the outbreak of
WWII

15

20

30

WWII cause
is not present
in the final
video

WWII cause is
present in the video,
but there is no
explanation of the
cause

WWII cause is
present and
thoroughly
explained for the
importance of the
outbreak of WWII,
but there is no link
to WWI or the years
between the wars
present

WWII cause is present and

thoroughly linked to a cause
in WWI and events between
the wars. Group gives
evidence events that led to
this cause of the war

Video was not uploaded to

the discussion post

Video was correctly

uploaded to the discussion
post, but was posted after
the assigned date

5
Video was correctly uploaded to
the discussion post on or before
the assigned date

Total

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