Article+on+Vietnam+Critical+Thinking+Project

Nathaniel MacDonald Abstract 10/3/12 Teaching Writing

Howlett, C. (2004). [|Public Opinion on Long Island about the Vietnam War: A School Year Project…] //The History Teacher, 37//(4), 457-472.

In this article, the benefits of working together, and the ability to learn something about the past and bring it into context in a modern setting is seen. During this project, the students were able to see how a movement to oppose the war swept the nation, and in the end, proved to be a critical factor in the government's decision to cease hostilities. The government lost most of it's public support for the war, and when that happens, it becomes very hard to justify the sacrifices that the soldiers were making. People joined together for rallies, teach-ins, and various groups to raise awareness and support for the anti-war movement. The article shows that through the use of materials such as primary sources, and first hand recounts, students of various academic levels were able to get together to collaborate on this project. The point of the project was to learn about history by re-living it, and seeing things from a different perspective.

The article showed me that it is important to have students realize the impact that history has upon them, and how they too can make history. By taking a topic such as the Vietnam War protests, students were able to explore how a generation influence their government and society. While reading this, I liked how the text book was avoided. The use of extended research is interesting, and I would like to know more about how the project time is fit into the lesson plan. I would also like to know more about how she was able to coordinate the project with a college for the college students. I feel that this article gave me some ideas as to how to focus on primary sources and the ability to empathize with the plight of others.

In my classroom, I would use some aspects of this project. I feel that it would be too time consuming to use, considering we only have 45 minutes to teach. But I do believe that I could use some aspects of it. I believe that collaboration between college students and high school student can be helpful, especially when preparing for the college workload. I also feel that the ability to identify and use primary sources is key. I'm sure that I could cut this project down to a few weeks and still get the message across, but the lesson should relatively remain the same. The focus on collaboration, primary sources, and critical thinking can all be satisfied by this lesson, no matter it's length.

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