A Victory of Democracy?

Students have been learning about the Great War this week. In class today, they will read and highlight Part II – Securing the Peace, from the Choices Program packet on the League of Nations debate. Copies will be available in class. Students will then read President Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Copies will also be available in class. They will discuss collaboratively the strengths and weaknesses of the 14 points and then individually answer the prompt: “To what extent was the Great War, and by extension, the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, a victory for democracy?” Students will answer the question collaboratively, in DBQ format. They must demonstrate a thesis statement, inferences and details from primary sources and a list of outside information in their answer. Their work must be individually posted on the online discussion forum, to demonstrate how each person contributed to the response. Students may choose to divide the tasks among each other, including writing the final essay, which also should be collaboratively written (demonstrating who wrote which sections). Each class will submit one essay. It will be due Monday, Feb 22nd. For homework, students should also answer questions from the Study Guide and Advanced Study Guide on pages 79-81 of their PDF packet on the League of Nations debate. Wish everyone a great vacation, and thanks!

So, B block asked to do a debate about to what extent the Great War, the Treaty and the League was a victory for democracy. We broke the work down into the three tasks that made sense in writing a DBQ: 1) creating a thesis statement, 2) gathering primary sources (from the PDF file and outside sources) and using them to support your thesis and 3) gather a list of outside information and again, use it to support the thesis.

So let’s see some work! My B blockers said they would get most of the work done in the first weekend, but now that the fire is lit – let’s get some debatin’ done!

Here’s the link for the online discussion forum: here, as well as some good links for research here, a great debate from the Harvard Gazette here, and finally some Congressional testimony here.