Canada's Reaction to the Outbreak of War: 1914-2001

In this task, students will research Canada's reactions to various wars throughout the last couple centuries. 

This task includes:
1. Task Description
2. Additional Resources: Lesson plan, rubrics, photos, worksheets

Cause and Consequences as Seen Through Decades

In this task, students will explore the different ways that the War of 1812 has been described in various texts throughout time.

This task includes:
1. Task Description
2. Additional Resources: Learning goals, detailed lesson plan, appendices 1-2

China's Cultural Revolution

This task assesses students' knowledge of the past—but rather than measure rote recall of decontextualized facts, this assessment requires students to make connections across time and construct an argument about how events are connected.

Students with a strong sense of the past will be able to identify that the poster promotes Maoist teachings and explain that Mao Zedong rose to power during the Chinese Revolution.  Strong students will also note that the utter failure of the Great Leap Forward diminished some of Mao’s power and reputation.  They will elaborate that this failure contributed to Mao’s initiation of the Cultural Revolution in an attempt to eliminate critics and win back popular support.

Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment with source materials, as well as the Rubric containing benchmark descriptors.

Cold War Foreign Policy

This task assesses students’ ability to contextualize two historical documents, sequencing them in the correct chronological order.

Document A is an excerpt from the joint resolution by the Allies at the Moscow Conference in 1943.  Document B is from an article published in the Chicago Daily News on February 14, 1951. This task draws on students' knowledge about American foreign policy but in a way that goes beyond the simple recall of facts and dates. Students must show that they have a broad understanding of how American foreign policy changed over time, and demonstrate the ability to use knowledge about the past place the two documents in context.

Students who correctly contextualize the documents will see that Document A, which describes an alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China against Germany, was a product of World War II foreign policy and therefore likely written before Document B, which refers to American Cold War containment policy in Korea. 

Resources available with this task include PDF documents of the assessment itself (with sources), as well as a rubric.