What are we doing, exactly?
This is kind of a three-part exercise.
One task is to see if you can figure out what these artifacts are inside this PDF document by carrying out a "See Think Wonder" exercise into a Google doc or mind-web.
Task: First, examine each image and write down key details - symbols, colors, actions, people, etc. Do this either on the PDF itself or write them down separately on paper, on a google doc, etc.
Then develop hypotheses about this information. What do you think they all mean? What stories are being told here? Why do these documents exist? What might they refer to?
Then, develop a series of questions that you need to answer in order to understand the REAL meaning of these documents, or to prove that your hypotheses are correct.
All this needs to be written down into this document that you are going to share with me. This is your first benchmark. Check Schoology for the due date.
One task is to see if you can figure out what these artifacts are inside this PDF document by carrying out a "See Think Wonder" exercise into a Google doc or mind-web.
Task: First, examine each image and write down key details - symbols, colors, actions, people, etc. Do this either on the PDF itself or write them down separately on paper, on a google doc, etc.
Then develop hypotheses about this information. What do you think they all mean? What stories are being told here? Why do these documents exist? What might they refer to?
Then, develop a series of questions that you need to answer in order to understand the REAL meaning of these documents, or to prove that your hypotheses are correct.
All this needs to be written down into this document that you are going to share with me. This is your first benchmark. Check Schoology for the due date.
There are 2 main assignments once you have completed the Artifact Examination:
Answer your investigation questions w/r/t to the artifacts, by creating mind-webs from the provided resources and participating in the online forums or class discussions.
More importantly, use what you have learned about the artifacts to answer the question below.
From an analysis of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
"...What emerges is a portrait of an entity that seeks to establish total control within the state, absolute control not only of the government but also of every aspect of the lives of those who reside within it. Whatever the political philosophy—and political philosophies differed greatly between Nazism and Communism—no deviance in thought or action was permitted. In fact, to a totalitarian regime, ideology is secondary. What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state. The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one.
Every agency of the totalitarian state has but one function: to enforce uniformity, to stamp out deviance. The forms of enforcement or enculturation may differ from regime to regime, as they in fact did in Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia, but the ultimate purpose remains the same..."
Answer your investigation questions w/r/t to the artifacts, by creating mind-webs from the provided resources and participating in the online forums or class discussions.
More importantly, use what you have learned about the artifacts to answer the question below.
From an analysis of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
"...What emerges is a portrait of an entity that seeks to establish total control within the state, absolute control not only of the government but also of every aspect of the lives of those who reside within it. Whatever the political philosophy—and political philosophies differed greatly between Nazism and Communism—no deviance in thought or action was permitted. In fact, to a totalitarian regime, ideology is secondary. What is of prime importance is the state itself. The state is above the individual, and both the individual and the party exist for the state. The state itself is the cause, the cause to which all belong and in which all submerge their individual identities and become one.
Every agency of the totalitarian state has but one function: to enforce uniformity, to stamp out deviance. The forms of enforcement or enculturation may differ from regime to regime, as they in fact did in Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia, but the ultimate purpose remains the same..."
Task 2: Write a short explanation of her argument in your own words, explaining the following -
what is totalitarianism? (you will need to look this up if you don't know it)
what is she saying about totalitarian regimes?
So, where do we go from here? You are being tasked with writing an essay that compares and contrasts Stalin and Hitler to determine if they are truly alike or different. The question is, can we use the artifacts to determine if she is correct? This historical skill we are developing is:
how to evaluate a secondary source.
Next: You are going to be gathering information that will help you decipher the artifacts and then answer the essay question.
I have collected information for you and grouped it into 6 topics
The history skills you will be practicing for these tasks are:
Here is a proposed schedule that will break these tasks down by day and benchmark. Go at your own pace and look for the correct Schoology forum to post your required summaries. The more you talk to each other in those forums, the more successful I think you will all be. You can do this by posting questions for each other there and responding to each other.
what is totalitarianism? (you will need to look this up if you don't know it)
what is she saying about totalitarian regimes?
- Look for the Schoology discussion prompt for this assignment
So, where do we go from here? You are being tasked with writing an essay that compares and contrasts Stalin and Hitler to determine if they are truly alike or different. The question is, can we use the artifacts to determine if she is correct? This historical skill we are developing is:
how to evaluate a secondary source.
Next: You are going to be gathering information that will help you decipher the artifacts and then answer the essay question.
I have collected information for you and grouped it into 6 topics
- Ideology
- Rise to Power
- Internal Policies
- Methods of Internal Control
- Foreign Policy
- Propaganda
The history skills you will be practicing for these tasks are:
- how to evaluate a primary source
- how to collect, annotate and organize information
- how to compare and contrast information, and think about cause and effect
Here is a proposed schedule that will break these tasks down by day and benchmark. Go at your own pace and look for the correct Schoology forum to post your required summaries. The more you talk to each other in those forums, the more successful I think you will all be. You can do this by posting questions for each other there and responding to each other.
Ideology?
Task 3: Ideology Day! We are going to examine the ideologies of the USSR and Nazi Germany to determine how similar or different they are to each other, and the degree to which they help illustrate Hannah Arendt’s point about totalitarian states. Follow the steps below, each of which has its own benchmark.
Step 1: Watch the first two videos below on the Communist Manifesto AND/OR the Crash Course video on Capitalism and Socialism on the right. My videos try to give you a more thorough explanation of Communism according to what I think are more important, but with lower production values, and you know all about the Crash Course video style...
Step 2: Create a mind-web of the key points in the sketch book I gave you and bring it to class.
Step 1: Watch the first two videos below on the Communist Manifesto AND/OR the Crash Course video on Capitalism and Socialism on the right. My videos try to give you a more thorough explanation of Communism according to what I think are more important, but with lower production values, and you know all about the Crash Course video style...
Step 2: Create a mind-web of the key points in the sketch book I gave you and bring it to class.
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We are trying to solve a problem - we have seen documents that suggest that the rulers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union hated each as enemies, but also that they were allies, and even were perhaps similar to each other. To solve that, we need to understand the beliefs of each system to see just how far apart or similar they were. Therefore, our goal is to understand the differences and similarities in the ideologies of the leaders of the Soviet Union and Fascist Germany.
Step 3: Now, read the two documents on the right and add to your mind-web the key details of these two ideologies. One is an excerpt from the foundational text of communism - the Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. The second document is from a secondary source - a historian explaining what fascism is. There is a foundational text of fascism (written by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, but it makes absolutely no sense at all.) |
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Step 4: On your mind-web, summarize in a paragraph whether or not Soviet Communism and German Fascism or more or less similar based on their key ideals. Save this mind-web for later and you will start a new one for the next topic. Then take your summary and key evidence and paste that into the appropriate discussion forum on Schoology.
Rise to Power
Task 4: We are going to conduct a comparison of the rise of Soviet leadership to that of the Nazis to see if they are more similar or different. We are going to start by reading a document by V.I. Lenin, who was the main leader of Soviet Russia from when it first arose in 1917, to about 1923. We will use that document to help us understand the way the Soviet leaders rose to power and use that as a basis for comparing Hitler and the Nazi leadership. Follow the steps below, with each step having its own benchmark.
Step 1: We are going to read the "blueprint" for the 1917 Russian Revolution in the form of an excerpt from Lenin's "What is to be Done" from 1904.
How would you summarize the key points of his strategy? What is his step-by-step process for success? Put this step-by-step description at the center of a new mind-web.
Step 1: We are going to read the "blueprint" for the 1917 Russian Revolution in the form of an excerpt from Lenin's "What is to be Done" from 1904.
How would you summarize the key points of his strategy? What is his step-by-step process for success? Put this step-by-step description at the center of a new mind-web.
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Step 2: This vodcast covers the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Lenin, with special emphasis on his strategy, as outlined in the document "What is to be Done?"
How closely did Lenin follow the strategy for successful revolution? Add to the mind-web details that capture the key events leading to Lenin's rise to and consolidation of power.
Step 3: Provide some comments in your mind-web to respond to this question: How closely did Lenin follow the strategy for successful revolution? Explain how the actions Lenin took from 1917 to about 1922 are examples of his strategy from the document you read. Did Lenin follow a clearly recognizable strategy for gaining and holding power in Russia? Then take your summary and key evidence and paste that into the appropriate discussion forum on Schoology.
How closely did Lenin follow the strategy for successful revolution? Add to the mind-web details that capture the key events leading to Lenin's rise to and consolidation of power.
Step 3: Provide some comments in your mind-web to respond to this question: How closely did Lenin follow the strategy for successful revolution? Explain how the actions Lenin took from 1917 to about 1922 are examples of his strategy from the document you read. Did Lenin follow a clearly recognizable strategy for gaining and holding power in Russia? Then take your summary and key evidence and paste that into the appropriate discussion forum on Schoology.
Step 4: Then, watch this video which covers how Stalin rose to power after Lenin's death. Create a new mind-map of these details.
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Step 5: write a summary on the Stalin mind-web that compares and contrasts Stalin’s Rise to Power with that of Lenin’s. Different? Similar? |
What about the Nazis, you say?
Step 6: I need you to watch this short version of Hitler's rise to power here. You will also create a mind-web for this video, focusing on the key points.
Step 7: How would you compare the rise to power of the Soviet Union's leadership and the Nazis in Germany? Different or similar? Are we proving or disproving Hannah Arendt's thesis? Your task is to use the mind-webs we have created in this topic to answer the questions below - writing your response in the form of a outline that gives a clear statement and points to key, relevant information.
Save the mind-map and the outline for later. Then take your summary and key evidence and paste that into the appropriate discussion forum on Schoology.
Policies?
Task 5: We are going to compare and contrast internal policies in the USSR and Nazi Germany to see how similar or different they are, and for both, what the actual purposes of those internal policies were.
We will look at more primary source documentation, as well.
We will look at more primary source documentation, as well.
Step 1: These two videos cover Stalin's economic policies, and the horrifying toll on the population of the Soviet Union from his “5 year plans.” The file on the far right shows you a picture of a collective farm. How did these policies help him achieve his goals for Russia, but also to help his own personal ambitions?
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Create a mind-web that shows these key policies and make summary statements on it that respond to these questions: What were Stalin’s goals for Russia, and how did these policies help him achieve his goals for Russia - yet, how did these policies another function, to help him realize his own personal ambitions?
Step 2: Now, watch these two movies on Hitler's policies throughout the 1930s and then read the document below - the 25 policy goals of the original Nazi Party (which was then called the National Socialist German Worker's Party in 1920 - Hitler was an early member but as saw, rose to the top of the party very quickly.)
Create a mind-web that tries to show what these policies were intended to do - both to help Germany achieve Hitler's ambition, but also in the way they helped Hitler's personal goals.
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![](http://www.weebly.com/weebly/images/file_icons/pdf.png)
early_nazi_program_1920.pdf | |
File Size: | 53 kb |
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step 3: Create an artifact that answers this question, with evidence:
Once again, are the USSR and Germany more different or more similar?
Post your response to the appropriate Schoology Forum
Once again, are the USSR and Germany more different or more similar?
Post your response to the appropriate Schoology Forum
Control
Task 6: In this section, we are looking at some of the different techniques used by totalitarian states to control their own populations. We will use this section to once again evaluate Hannah Arendt’s argument
Step 1: Read these two websites (1, 2) and then "enjoy" these videos concerning Stalin's use of terror in the USSR. Just watch up to minute 6:30 for the first video ("Stalin the Myth.") Create a mind-web that gives key details and use summary statements to provide an overview of how these methods worked.
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Step 2: Compare that to what you see here in Nazi Germany... Create another mind-web that illustrates the basic elements of control in Nazi Germany.
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For Step 3, You are going to read an excerpt from a memoir written by a man you lived in Germany during the years of the Third Reich. He is going to describe to you what it was like watching people begin to "disappear," and how ordinary Germans dealt with living in such conditions. Add some details to your Nazi mind-web to provide more details and illustrations of some of the methods you already wrote down. Step 4: What kind of artifact would you create to show me that you have some understanding of what life might have been for you had you lived in Nazi Germany or the USSR in the 1930s? How would you use that artifact to help someone who has not studied this era understand it better? What have you learned, between this and 1984, about what life is like under a totalitarian regime? Add your ideas to the appropriate discussion forum on Schoology. |
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Propaganda
Task 7: I am going to throw a new challenge at you after the usual comparison and contrast rounds from the vodcasts. In Step 4, you will compare and contrast a set of documents in order to evaluate the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda. This is the college level task you have been preparing for - to be able to juggle five documents of different types and think critically about not only what the documents are telling you, but who wrote the documents and why.
Steps 1 & 2: Create mind-webs for the key details from my vodcasts first about Soviet propaganda and then Nazi propaganda
Steps 1 & 2: Create mind-webs for the key details from my vodcasts first about Soviet propaganda and then Nazi propaganda
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Step 3: create a summary statement with key details as evidence that compares and contrasts USSR and Nazi Germany's propaganda methods and ideas. Again, are we proving or disproving Arendt's thesis? Place this summary statement in the appropriate Schoology forum.
Step 4: Use the documents in the file to the right to respond to this prompt: How successful was the Nazi regime at controlling the thoughts of Germans in the 1930s and 40s? I am not looking for an essay. I am looking for a response that looks at key details in the documents, and then refers to the documents themselves, in your answer. For instance, you should say, "As document one indicates, the Nazi party..." or, "As seen in document five..." Unlike most essays in history, you don't really need any history knowledge to answer this. All of the information you need is in the documents themselves! I will accept an outline response, a mind-map, a short story, a movie...anything you feel like making to show your understanding of the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda |
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Now, for the weird stuff...
The following animations were made by artists working for the gov't. In order, they are:
A. A depiction of the wealthy classes in Russia (1924)
B. A statement about the way America treated non-white nations (1933)
C. An anti-German cartoon created after the German invasion of Russia in 1941
D. A cartoon mocking American musical culture (1948)
I only found this one particular Nazi war-era cartoon. |
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And here's an American response (one of my favorites when I was a kid...) |
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Foreign Policy
Last task: We will be looking at the foreign policies of Hitler and Stalin (since Lenin didn't really get a chance to do much apart from fighting an internal, civil war to have a real foreign policy.) This is the final step and the last research you will need to evaluate Hannah Arendt's statement about totalitarianism.
It will also be useful for you to reflect on the meaning of this cartoon before we start:
It will also be useful for you to reflect on the meaning of this cartoon before we start:
Step 1: Write a short summary of what you think this image means, concentrating on the key details, in the appropriate Schoology forum
Step 2: So, this video takes you through Nazi foreign policy up to 1939. Develop a mind-web with a summary statement that explains Hitler's main goals and explains his major actions during the 1930s.
Step 3: Finally, we have Soviet foreign policy here. You need to figure out from it the basis of Soviet aims with regard to international relations. You will then compare and contrast Soviet goals and policies with those of the Nazis by use of a mind-web.
Step 4: Here is the final document-set-based question of the unit. Use the documents linked below to respond to this prompt in the most effective way possible for you and your talents/interests:
What is the most logical explanation for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and why was it considered so shocking at the time?
Remember to identify the documents you are taking ideas and information from and consider the authors.
What is the most logical explanation for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and why was it considered so shocking at the time?
Remember to identify the documents you are taking ideas and information from and consider the authors.
![](http://www.weebly.com/weebly/images/file_icons/pdf.png)
dbq_molotov-ribbentrop.pdf | |
File Size: | 309 kb |
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