Goals and Objectives
Students will experience the McCarthyism Era and explore the social responses to Communism.
Students will be able to role play various characters in a simulation of a McCarthy Hearing.
Students will be able to defend against accusations, in a 1-2 minute speech, of being a Communist in front of the classroom.
Students will be able to reflect on how the McCarthy Hearings garnered paranoia within our society at that time in a Class Discussion.
Students will be able to role play various characters in a simulation of a McCarthy Hearing.
Students will be able to defend against accusations, in a 1-2 minute speech, of being a Communist in front of the classroom.
Students will be able to reflect on how the McCarthy Hearings garnered paranoia within our society at that time in a Class Discussion.
Content Standards
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Common Core Standards
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11.9.3.Trace the origins and geopolitical consequences (foreign and domestic) of the Cold War and containment policy, including the following: • The era of McCarthyism, instances of domestic Communism (e.g., Alger Hiss) and blacklisting • The Truman Doctrine • The Berlin Blockade • The Korean War • The Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis • Atomic testing in the American West, the “mutual assured destruction” doctrine,and disarmament policies • The Vietnam War • Latin American policy |
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7
Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem. |
Anticipatory Set (10 minutes)
Students will watch a video clip on a committee hearing. It features a solider being questions by Joe McCarthy asking him to prove the innocence of himself and various other officers of not being a Communist:
Students will be posed with these questions:
"How does this video show the amount of pressure that someone being questioned during a committee experiences?"
"Is being a Communist even a crime? Why do you think it was possible for hearings like these to even occur?"
Students will discuss this with a partner and then share their opinions with the class.
Students will be posed with these questions:
"How does this video show the amount of pressure that someone being questioned during a committee experiences?"
"Is being a Communist even a crime? Why do you think it was possible for hearings like these to even occur?"
Students will discuss this with a partner and then share their opinions with the class.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary will be defined as the lesson is explained.
Treason - the crime of betraying one's country
Communism - is a socioeconomic system structured upon common ownership of the means of production and characterized by the absence of social classes, money, and the state; as well as a social, political and economic ideology and movement that aims to establish this social order.
Testimony - a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law.
Treason - the crime of betraying one's country
Communism - is a socioeconomic system structured upon common ownership of the means of production and characterized by the absence of social classes, money, and the state; as well as a social, political and economic ideology and movement that aims to establish this social order.
Testimony - a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law.
Content Delivery (35 minutes)
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Student Engagement
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The main content delivery method in this lesson will be a simulation of the McCarthy Hearings.
There will be 3 students selected to be the ones conducting the hearings and listening to testimonies of the accused. A student will be Joe McCarthy and the other two will be Senators assisting in the hearing. The point of these three students will be to determine if the people (students) giving these testimonies are Communists or not. The rest of the students will be assigned real characters from history who were victimized by Joe McCarthy. These characters will have background knowledge and the crime of the accused. Students will study these characters and give a 1-2 minute testimony as to why they are not communists. |
The three students selected to play Joe McCarthy and the two Senators assisting the hearings will listen to all testimonies given by the students. They will be given a few guiding questions to ask. The students will ask these questions to their peers role playing different suspects. At the end of each testimony they will decide if the suspect is innocent or not.
The other students will be given a character to role play. They will be given background information and why they have been accused. It is up to these students to come up with reasons why they are innocent based on the background knowledge given. Each student is given about 1-2 minutes to plead their case. The teacher will announce to the class that there are guaranteed Communists in the class, but the teacher will not tell them how many. The teacher will secretly give two red dots to two individuals that are designated communists. These two students will be assigned the task to avoid being persecuted as a Communist. The students are not allowed to tell anybody that they are Communists. |
Lesson Closure (10 minutes)
At the end of the simulation, the teacher will announce who the Communists were. The students will reflect on who was persecuted and why. It will be a fun experience for the students to see if they actually persecuted the Communists or not.
The teacher will pose these critical thinking questions for students to discuss:
"Now that you have experienced a simulation of the McCarthy Hearings, what are your reactions to this simulation?"
"How does this simulation tell you about the paranoia experienced during that time period?"
The teacher may ask followup questions to responses.
This discussion will close out the lesson and will inform the instructor if they have met their learning goals/objectives or not.
The teacher will pose these critical thinking questions for students to discuss:
"Now that you have experienced a simulation of the McCarthy Hearings, what are your reactions to this simulation?"
"How does this simulation tell you about the paranoia experienced during that time period?"
The teacher may ask followup questions to responses.
This discussion will close out the lesson and will inform the instructor if they have met their learning goals/objectives or not.
Assessments
Formative
- The teacher will be progress monitoring the students while they give their testimonies.
- End of class discussion summarizing the the simulation.
Accommodations for students with special needs, english learners, and struggling readers
For these students, the instructor will spend extra time with them to help them formulate a testimony for the simulation.
The teacher will go over vocabulary and sentence structure in order for these students to actively participate in the simulation.
The teacher will go over vocabulary and sentence structure in order for these students to actively participate in the simulation.