Homefront

This lesson is designed to improve content reading comprehension with an engaging array of source documents – including journals, maps, photos, posters, cartoons, historic data and artifacts. I developed it to serve as a model for blending essential questions, higher order thinking and visual interpretation. I intentionally refrained from explaining the documents, to afford students the chance to do the work of historians. A variety of thinking exercises are imbedded in the lesson to support reading comprehension. Graphic organizers support differentiated activities to assist the students in extracting meaning from the documents.Most importantly, it is designed around an engaging essential question - “How did Americans change their lives to support the war effort?” Since September 11th, the notion of the “homefront” has been altered. The lesson invites students to construct comparisons between the experience in WWII, the war in the Iraq, and the on-going war on terrorism. Hopefully this lesson serves as a model of how to infuse rigor and relevance while supporting content mastery. Link to Lesson