Crossroads: High School Curriculum
Unit XI: Leader of the Free World: 1945-1975
Lesson 2
TOPIC EVALUATION Dramatic narrative/dialogue on the impact of the Cold War
Directions: In this exercise, you will use previous learning from the topic to synthesize an answer to an open-ended question. You may pick any one of the situations below. Each narrative/dialogue must contain specific factual information from study of the Cold War. An appropriate rubric will be used to evaluate the class presentation.
Question: How would the effects of the Cold War/Red Scare affect the responses of people to the situations below?
Situation 1: A public-school teacher holding a class discussion about the Truman Doctrine in 1960.
Situation 2: A candidate for the United States Congress -- either the Senate or the House of Representatives -- in 1964 explaining to a campaign crowd why his youthful membership in a Communist youth organization during the 1930s was a forgivable mistake.
Situation 3: A U.S. soldier in Vietnam in 1965 explaining to a European journalist why his country is involved in a war there.
Situation 4: A movie producer in 1958 explaining to an Academy Award-winning director who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era why he can't hire the director to work on a mainstream film.
Situation 5: A 7th-grade teacher in 1960 explaining "duck-and-cover" drills to her students.
Situation 6: A U.S. President in 1963 explaining to a nationwide television audience why a small and strategically insignificant Asian country must be saved from Communism.
Situation 7: A movie producer in 1957 telling one of his writers why a film stressing the U.S.- Soviet alliance in the Second World War will not be made.