Katelyn Blake’s

U.S. History Post

1945
Table of Content
 1. Learning context
David Douglas High School is rather scattered and incoherent. Many
who reside in the neighborhoods cannot formulate a concise description
of the area. Unlike some neighborhoods in Portland, that are
specifically characterized, the area around David Douglas is not. The
general consensus, from people in the area, is that this was not a
distinct community, with many individuals citing a lack of neighborhood
associations or commonalities. Nonetheless in the community around
David Douglas, one commonality that some people recognized was that
there are a lot of hard working members of the community who work in
the construction industry or the retail and service industries.
The geographic area for the district includes the Powellhurst-Gilbert
neighborhood, which is the most concise neighborhood. The other areas
include Hazelwood and Mill Park; these are the two neighborhoods
north of Powellhurst-Gilbert. The Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood has
a neighborhood association. This is a strong and active organization
promoting civic involvement in the neighborhoods near David Douglas.
This organization keeps watch on the neighborhood crime statistics and
notifies members of upcoming events in the community. The
neighborhood association has a popular website that directs individuals
to multiple resources which relate to the community status.
 These communities are mostly residential neighborhoods, which have quite a few
low incoming housing projects. There is one shopping mall in the area, Mall 205, which
in the scope of Portland malls this is the smallest of them all. The businesses in the
area are mostly fast food restaurants and bars/clubs. Although this neighborhood has a
reputation for being at low socio-economic levels there are many growing businesses in
the area; there is an increasing number of medical businesses entering the community.
Many people feel that this growth in business will help the area transition out of
poverty. According to individuals who live and work in this community, the
neighborhood has it challenges to overcome but is overall a diverse and productive
area of Portland.
One of the greatest assets of the community is its cultural diversity. The area has
multiple ethnicities including, Slavic, African, Black, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hispanic,
Korean, and Native American. People have the general opinion that the diversity in the
neighborhood makes for a rapidly growing economy. Businesses are booming
throughout the area, which gives many people hope that the area will flourish more as
the year’s progress. Although there is great optimism about the area, there are still
concerns about the community. The area has a high crime rate and gang problems,
which plague the businesses throughout the community. Police involvement in the
community and the schools has increased in recent years, which is helping the crime
problems.
The other challenge of the neighborhood is the poverty that has traditionally
characterized this part of Portland. The numbers of free and reduced lunches at David
Douglas schools has been steadily rising over the past few years and is projected to
continue to increase. The community definitely reflects this trend in poverty, but some
hopeful members of the community feel that there is a transition taking place that will
help the neighborhood economy grow, eventually lowering the numbers of poverty of
the area. There are many community churches in the area that are vital resources for
people. Many of the popular churches are Slavic and Vietnamese, which reflect their
large populations of people in the David Douglas school district. The Native American
 Description of School
David Douglas has a very large campus. The social studies building
where my classroom is located is the newest building in the school. All of the
classrooms have new desks and large windows. There are all wired for
internet and there is a projector system that allows me to project my
computer onto the front board. Each classroom also as a SMART board slate,
which is a fabulous piece of technology that allows me to access my
computer from anywhere in the classroom and make notes on the board
using the SMART pen technology. The school is on block scheduling with 4
class periods each day. The class periods are 90 minuets long. For David
Douglas High School, student achievement is low but improving and
assessment scores are slightly below the state averages.
David Douglas School District is a high poverty school district. There are
no schools that are above poverty or even at a low poverty rating according
to the federal governments standards. The numbers of free and reduced
lunches at the schools have been steadily increasing over the past decade.
David Douglas School mirrors the socio-economic trends of the school
district, with the percent of students in poverty rising drastically. The
following graphs are a bit out-dated but the progression towards higher
percentages of students in poverty has maintained through the most recent
years.
Description of Classroom
The class that I am teaching at David Douglas is an 11thgrade class on U.S. History
since 1945. At the beginning of the semester there were 29 students registered for
each of the classes I am teaching but on average there are only 20 students in class.
The attendance at this school is a severe challenge. The following graphs represent the
ethnicities, languages and ages of the students. This is a very typical classroom. The
students are sometimes hard to motivate, especially on Monday mornings but once the
class gets started the students are engaged. There are a many languages spoken at the
homes of the students, all of them speak English well in the classroom and all the
students are ELL program graduates. Nonetheless, vocabulary will be a focus of all of
the lessons.
As a teacher in this school district I need to be intentional about the crime and the
poverty that plague this community. I cannot assume that students will have time and
other resources outside of class to do multiple homework assignments. Since many
students work after school, some are in gangs and still others are homeless most of
their education needs to take place in the classroom. In general I need to be aware of
the diversity of the classroom, because the community is not entirely under the poverty
level, my teaching strategies need to include provisions for the students who are
economically just fine but still need to have educational resources that work for them.
In this case simply having a diversity of teaching strategies that matches the student
population. This means that for a given assignment students can use Internet
resources, textbook resources, news and video resources depending on their needs.
This type of individualization also works to account for the ethnic and cultural diversity
in the class.
The fortunate thing about teaching history is that incorporating diversity into the
classroom is actually quite simple. For nearly every subject there is a group of people
affected and that allows for a huge variety of cultural education tailored to multiple
2. Unit goals and objectives
The unit goal is make connections between multiple perspectives of
historical events and to analyze the major themes that connect events in
U.S. history since the Vietnam War.

The objective is that students will be able to analyze primary source

documents successfully enough to make connections between multiple
perspectives of significant events in U.S. history.

Students will also be able to synthesize the significant factors

contributing to a historical event or concept.
Grade Level Content Standards and Benchmarks
High School Curriculum -U.S. History post 1945 will explore post war America
and the rise of the U.S. as a global power. The containment of
communism as it shaped U.S. policy will be evaluated, especially as it
relates to global conflict. Civil Rights, the counterculture movement and
the changes that shaped current culture will also be explored.
State Standards:
CCG: Define and clarify an issue so that its dimensions are well understood.
• SS.HS.SA.01 Define, research, and explain an event, issue, problem, or
phenomenon and its significance to society.
CCG: Acquire and organize materials from primary and secondary sources.
• SS.HS.SA.02 Gather, analyze, use, and document information from various
sources, distinguishing facts, opinions, inferences, biases, stereotypes,
and persuasive appeals.
• SS.HS.SA.03 Understand what it means to be a critical consumer of
information.
CCG: Explain various perspectives on an event or issue and the reasoning
behind them.
• SS.HS.SA.04 Analyze an event, issue, problem, or phenomenon from
varied or opposed perspectives or points of view.
CCG: Historical Skills: Identify and analyze diverse perspectives on and
historical interpretation of historical issues and events.
• SS.HS.HS.04 Understand how contemporary perspectives affect historical
Rational
Type the Rationale statement here
 Pretest
Please answer the following questions with as much detail as
you have.
1. What is the liberal party?
2. What are conservatives?
3. Describe what happened at Tiananmen square.
4. How does propaganda teach us history?
5. In what ways did the civil rights movement affect
history?
6. How did Malcolm X and MLK differ?
7. What is unique about the Vietnam war?
8. How do we fight guerrilla’s?
9. What is the role of communism in U.S. wars?
10.What is the Cold War?
11.How do we learn history?
12.How did the Cold War start?