Crossroads: High School Curriculum
Unit XI: Leader of the Free World: 1945-1975

Lesson 6

Contents

Major Concepts

Objectives

Suggested lesson/activities



Major Concepts:
A succession of hammer-blows between 1963 and 1974 -- the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the collapse of the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968; and the Watergate crisis that drove President Richard Nixon from office in 1974 -- shattered Americans' confidence in the nation's future.
Objectives: The student will be able to:

  1. Assemble and absorb a chronology of events, from the Kennedy assassination through the resignation of Richard Nixon, that sparked among the American people a growing concern about the power given to the Presidency and the overall effectiveness and trustworthiness of government.

  2. Demonstrate that a governmental crisis can reveal the sophisticated ways in which politics is conducted in a complex representative democracy.

  3. Describe and analyze the role that one of the following groups or constituencies played in the Watergate crisis -- the press, the judiciary, party organizations, Congress, and the Special Prosecutor's office.

  4. Provide evidence to demonstrate an understanding of the long-term impact of the Watergate scandal on the institution of the Presidency and the constitutional system.

Suggested lesson/activities:

  1. Play the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and ask students to describe who or what the flowers are; what the lyrics are asking us to recall; and why the songwriter used flowers as a metaphor for life.

  2. Divide the class into five study groups. Write Objectives Two and Three on the chalkboard or use an overhead projector to display them. Explain that the activity is designed to construct a classroom bulletin-board that presents a schematic diagram of the various elements of the Watergate conspiracy. Distribute the CROSSROADS Resource "Watergate and the Political System." Assign groups to one of the constituencies or groups given in Objective Three.

  3. This Activity, which explores the long-term effects of the Watergate crisis on the Presidency and the constitutional system, should take place concurrently with Activity Two. Therefore, distribute the CROSSROADS Resource "Watergate's Long-Term Effects on the Presidency and the Constitutional System" along with the CROSSROADS Resource "Watergate and the Political System."

  4. Work with students to construct scoring rubrics for assessing their attainment of Objectives Two through Four.

 A Crossroads Resource: Lesson 6 - Resource 1
A Crossroads Resource: WATERGATE'S LONG-TERM EFFECTS ON THE PRESIDENCY AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM

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