Big Era Nine: Closeup Unit 9.7.1


		Complete Teaching Unit in PDF format

1968: A Year of Global Protest

Why This Unit?

There have been few times in history when there has been a clear demarcation when changes occurred in the same year in many countries throughout the world: 1968 was one of those rare times. A new generation of women and men made it clear that the values that they had inherited from their parents were in question, in large part revolving around an anti-war movement. This unit examines these core changes in context, as well as the unusual cross-class alliances that emerged so that students can assess their significance, both at the time and afterwards.

Unit Objectives

Upon completing this unit, students will be able to:

1. Identify the problems that led a new generation of educated women and men to reject their parents' values in many countries of the world.

2. Assess the different and similar solutions that these reformers or revolutionaries presented to solve the abovementioned problems.

3. Analyze their similar and different goals.

4. Assess the ability of cross-class and cross-national alliances.

5. Identify the reasons why in the immediacy of 1968 most of these goals were not met and why historians assess the impact differently.

6. Assess the long-term impact of these movements in the long run.

Time and Materials

This unit should take four class periods.

Materials required: Laptop and InFocus machine with speakers.

Table of Contents

Why this unit?	2
Unit objectives	2
Time and materials	3
Author	3
This unit's Big Question	3
The historical context	3
This unit in the Big Era timeline	5
Lesson 1: The role of music in changing youth culture	6
Lesson 2: Readings on New York, Paris, Prague, and Mexico City: Jigsaw Activity	12
Lesson 3: Debate on meaning of revolutions in 1968: DeGroot v. Kurlansky	26
Lesson 4: Discussion of legacies	32
This unit and the Three Essential Questions	35
This unit and the Seven Key Themes	35
This unit and the Standards in Historical Thinking	36
Resources	36
Correlations to National and State Standards	37
Conceptual links to other lessons	38
Complete Teaching Unit in PDF Format

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