Unit 6: Cold War America

“Unit 6: Cold War America” covers the roughly 44 years of the Cold War. The unit begins with an introduction activity that explores several songs from the era as well as an interactive timeline from retroreport.org that students can reference throughout the unit. Students will be provided a space to record what they explore in each lesson as the class progresses through the expanse of years. Students will also use the songs and timeline for the assessment activity at the end of the unit.

In the first lesson, “Post-War America featuring Elvis Presley”, students investigate how Rock and Roll music reflected a cultural shift among teenagers in Post-War 1950s America. Specifically, how the rise of teenagers as a distinct consumer group contributed to an historic societal change in attitudes, style, and social identity. During their investigation, students explore the G.I. Bill, the Marshall Plan, the rise of suburbs, teenagers, and Elvis Presley by examining archival documents, viewing video, analyzing music, and exploring written historical reflections.

The second lesson, “Communism and the Beginning of the Cold War featuring Bone Music” introduces students to the Soviet phenomenon, “Bone Music” (“roentgenizdat”) and the totalitarian society that produced it. Students analyze primary and secondary sources to determine how this history can provide insight into the political and ideological differences that led to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. These sources include contemporaneous propaganda pamphlets and film clips, as well as books, maps, and speeches connected to the early era of the Cold War.

The third lesson, “Containment: U.S. Foreign Policy during the Cold War featuring Punk Songs” has students examine the U.S. policy of containment during the Cold War, and analyze how the policy was put into practice in Europe, South America, Central America, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and East Asia. Students explore these policies and their implications by annotating lyrics to songs by The Clash, Sex Pistols, Anti-Flag, and Gang of Four while also examining interviews with diplomats from the Library of Congress’ Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training collection. At the end of the lesson, students compare and contrast the lyrics with primary sources to develop a summary that weighs the pros and cons of the U.S.’s containment policy.

In the fourth lesson, “The Red Scare: The Cold War at Home Featuring Pete Seeger”, students investigate the Second Red Scare by analyzing Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Television and Radio, and the life and work of singer-songwriter Pete Seeger. Students build context knowledge of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare by examining newspaper headlines, archival film, and political cartoons. After their investigation of the Second Red Scare, students explore the Space Race, Arms Race, and other ways life at home in the U.S. was impacted by the Cold War.

The fifth lesson, “The Vietnam War featuring Edwin Starr” has students identify American public opinion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War by examining polling data from 1965 to 1973. Students investigate the important role of U.S. television news coverage of the war to determine its effect on American public opinion and they analyze a variety of contemporaneous American popular songs that express varying American perspectives about the war. Utilizing this knowledge, students collaboratively create a music news report where they conduct song lyric analysis, scrutinize data, and practice journalism role playing. The lesson concludes with students participating in a classroom poll where they express their own opinion about music’s role in American public opinion of the Vietnam War. They support their opinion for the poll by writing a short response based on the knowledge they acquired throughout the lesson.

In the sixth and final lesson of the unit, “The End of the Cold War featuring Billy Joel” students identify the four factors that led to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and the end of the Cold War. By analyzing key economic, military, diplomatic, and civil events during the 1970s and 1980s through primary sources, students make connections to see how the combination of various factors contributed to the end of the Cold War. They also examine how cultural events such as Billy Joel’s concerts in Russia in 1987 precipitated the eventual end of the U.S.S.R in 1991.

“Unit 6: Cold War America” concludes with an assessment activity where students revisit the list of songs found in the unit’s Introduction Activity. For this assessment, students assign a different song from the list to each decade of the Cold War. They then explain why they assigned the specific song to a specific decade through an argument supported by evidence from the unit lessons and with a rubric to guide them.