Digital Unit Plan Template

Table 1
Unit Title: The Rise of Dictators (after WW1)

Name: Anthony Palmer

Content Area: History

Grade Level: 10

CA Content Standard(s)/Common Core Standard(s):

10.7 Students analyze the rise of totalitarian governments after World War I.
10.7.1. Understand the causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution, including
Lenins use of totalitarian means to seize and maintain control (e.g., the Gulag).
10.7.2. Trace Stalins rise to power in the Soviet Union and the connection between economic
policies, political policies, the absence of a free press, and systematic violations of
human rights (e.g., the Terror Famine in Ukraine).
10.7.3. Analyze the rise, aggression, and human costs of totalitarian regimes (Fascist and
Communist) in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, noting especially their common
and dissimilar traits.
Big Ideas/Unit Goals:
Big ideas:
What factors cause governments to fall?
Why do entire populations allow dictators (such as Hitler) to take control of a country?
What factors lead to the fall of a country?
How does a dictator take power forcibly? (do they have help or is it mostly by their-self)
Unit Goals:
Students will be able to understand what totalitarianism is and how it has been used in the past.
Students will be able to identify the elements of totalitarianism and identify them in locations other than the ones studied in class (other world leaders).
Unit Summary:
In this unit students will learn about the rise of totalitarian governments after World War 1 and the men who brought these dictatorships into reality. In the end,
students will be able to explain the big ideas of what factors cause governments to crumble, how dictators rise to power, and what factors cause entire populations to
allow a dictator to gain power. Students will be able to show their understanding through debates, comparing and contrasting using Venn Diagrams, completing
graphic organizers, completing research, and performing research and using that research to write a biographic essay. Your learning of these subjects will take place
through an impromptu quiz, reading, class discussions, lectures & note taking, a guided webercize, and structured abstract thinking by putting yourself in the shoes of
the Russian people during totalitarian rule.
Assessment Plan:

Entry-Level: quick-write
Students will participate in a quick-write to gauge
their initial perceptions of large concepts. The
concepts will include what factors cause
governments to fall and how dictators rise to
power, both forcibly and voluntarily.

Formative: clicker survey

Students will participate in a clicker survey to
gauge their understanding of new material.
debate
students will engage in a debate about the pros and
cons of a dictatorship to demonstrate understanding
of material.
quiz
Students will take a quiz to track understanding of
material.

Summative: research paper

Students will produce a research paper to gauge
their understanding of totalitarianism and its affects
by identifying these concepts in a dictator not
previously studied in class.
in-class essay
Students will have an entire class period to
complete an essay which will be about
Totalitarianism: what is it? how did the dictators we
studied use it (and its affects)? what would cause a
country to voluntarily allow a dictator into power?

graphic organizer
Students will complete a graphic organizer to solidify
and demonstrate understanding of European
dictators.
Lesson 1
Student Learning Objective:
Be able to compare and
contrast totalitarian leader
of Italy, Germany, and the
Soviet Union. compare and
contrast Communism and
Fascism and be able to
recognize these systems
effects, politically and
socially.

Acceptable Evidence:
Students will use the
information from this section
to complete a graphic
organizer comparing and
contrasting Stalin, Hitler,
and Mussolini and their
dictatorship styles and
successfully find similarities
and differences.

Lesson Activities:
Students will complete guided notes that go along with a lecture about the three big dictators of Europe:
Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. We, as a class, will discuss big ideas and our thoughts after watching and
listening to historical content.

Acceptable Evidence:
In groups, students will
debate about the pros and
cons of totalitarianism
including the affect on the
people while using Lenin and
the dictators of Europe as
primary examples of
totalitarian leaders. There
will also be a quiz on sections
one and two.

Lesson Activities:
Students will take time to complete a webercise designed specifically for this section. Using assigned websites,
students will answer key questions about Lenin and the Russian Revolution as well as use the information in
the websites to draw conclusions and infer information about important ideas.

Lesson 2
Student Learning Objective:
Students will be able to
explain totalitarianism and
how Lenin used it to rise/
maintain power.

Lesson 3

Student Learning Objective:

Understand Stalins rise to
power and his economic and
political policies. Understand
what it means to have your
rights removed and what the
consequences of having your
rights removed are.

Acceptable Evidence:
Students will successfully be
able to see connections
between different types of
totalitarian tactics and see
how they do/dont work well
together.

Lesson Activities:

Students will complete a graphic organizer detailing Stalins rise of power. They will explain the ways
Stalin manipulated censorship, human rights, government, and the economy and how they are related
to Stalins main objective.

Unit Resources:
Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century / Edition 4 by Bruce F. Pauley
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately
Webercize:
http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-427_t-1086_c-4201/bolshevik-establishment-of-power/nsw/history/the-russian-revolution/revolution
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/gcse/russia/5b_roleoflenin.htm#.WAr1opgrKHr
https://www.historytoday.com/russel-tarr/lenin-power
http://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/russian-rev.htm
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/vladimir-lenin/
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6011444
Graphic Organizer:
http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Economics/Command_Econ/planning/stalins_first_5yp.htm
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Stalinism
https://censorshipissues.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/censorship-of-books-in-the-soviet-union-from-1920-1940/
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2042
Guided Notes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFNUdCtMXWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzIbF9ouMlc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7lw30qKFLw

Useful Websites:

http://www.historydoctor.net/Advanced%20Placement%20European%20History/Notes/rise_of_the_totalitarian_states.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/russia/lifeinleninsrussiarev1.shtml
http://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/inv/prop_inv_ins.htm
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/new-economic-policy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/russia/stalinfiveyearplansrev1.shtml
http://ibhistory.wikidot.com/the-purges
http://digitalvaults.org/