Course: AP US History

Grade Level: 12
Unit: Vietnam War
Time Frame: 42 minutes
Date: February 6, 2014 Preparer: Halli Gerin
Essential Question: (May apply to more than one lesson in the unit)
How does public opinion influence foreign and domestic policy?
What effect does the development of a counterculture have on a democratic society?
How did the counterculture of the 1960s impact Americas involvement in the Vietnam
War?
Lesson Title: The American Response to Vietnam War through Songs
Measurable Learning Objectives (3 part):
Students will be able to investigate the development of the
counterculture of the 1960s as well as positive and
negative public opinion of the Vietnam War by analyzing
protest songs and citing evidence from song lyrics pertinent
to the time period.
Student Friendly Version:
Students will examine song lyrics in support of and against
the Vietnam War in order to draw conclusions about public
opinion of the war in the 1960s.

Standards Addressed:
(NJCCCS and CCSS)
6.1.12.D.12.d, 6.1.12.D.12.e,
6.1.12.D.13.d
RH.11-12.1, RH.11-12.2, RH.11-
12.7
Key Historical Content:
Draft reform Nuclear weapons Draft dodgers Hawks
Hippies Haight-Ashbury 26
th
Amendment Doves
Woodstock Civil disobedience Students for a Democratic Society
Silent majority Kent State New Left
Pre- lesson assignments and Prior Knowledge
This lesson takes place near the completion of a unit on the Vietnam War. The students have
participated in a gallery walk in order to understand the scope of the war, examined poll data
from presidential elections which occurred during the war, investigated primary sources from the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and made connections to their own lives by analyzing photographs
published in this time period. In addition to these assignments and activities, they have
identified major turning points in the war (Tet Offensive, My Lai Massacre, etc.) by participating
in a modified lecture. Domestic policy was also highlighted during the modified lecture, with a
focus on the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Society. Students should conceptualize that
the public opinion during the Vietnam War was divided and outspoken due to increased media
coverage and advances in technology.

Concepts/Vocab
Vietnam War Credibility gap Escalation
Cold War Imperialism My Lai Massacre
Civil Rights Movement Gulf of Tonkin Vietnamization
Domino Theory Great Society Tet Offensive

Materials Needed:
Lyrics from pro and anti war songs from the 1960s/70s
Markers
Audio recordings of relevant songs
CD players
Headphones
Smartboard
Timer
Protest songs graphic organizer
Record exit ticket
Blank lyric templates for homework
Hook/Do Now/Warm Up:
Warm Up Question:
In which ways does music lend itself to protest demonstrations? Why was it a successful vehicle
for the time period we have been discussing?

Lesson Summary:
The purpose of this lesson is to encourage critical thinking, text analysis, and creativity through a
variety of modalities in order to allow students to draw conclusions about public opinion during
the Vietnam War. Students will be applying details mentioned in the song lyrics to the wider
scope of the war and connecting the sentiments of public opinion to the success or failure of the
political actions taken during this time period.

The lesson begins with a broad warm up question asking the students to examine the role of
music in protests. This will activate prior knowledge from the gallery walk, which included
some song lyrics and audio recordings, as well as the modified lecture. Students will be
encouraged to make connections to other periods in history in which music was used to unify a
community for a larger purpose. When the students have an answer to the warm up written in
their interactive notebooks, they will discuss their thoughts with a partner before participating in
the whole group discussion of the warm up.

Next, students will divide into randomly created groups by selecting grouping sticks. There will
be four groups and four stations around the room. Each station contains the lyrics of different
pro and anti war songs, complete with a poster-sized copy of the lyrics for the group members to
annotate. There will be three anti war songs and one pro war song but the students will need to
decide for themselves which songs fall into which category. The selected songs are Eve of
Destruction by Barry Mcguire, Draft Dodger Rag by Phil Ochs, The War Drags On by
Donovan, and Okie from Muskogee by Merle Haggard. Some of the stations will include audio
recordings of the songs as well to expose the student to multiple learning modalities. Students
will have five minutes at each station to read the lyrics, listen to the recording, and analyze the
song before the timer goes off and their group must move on to the next station. They will work
within their cooperative learning groups to complete the graphic organizer by citing text
evidence from the lyrics as well as using prior knowledge from the preceding lessons in this unit.

After each group has been exposed to every song, the teacher will lead a whole group discussion
on the students initial insights and observations. The discussion will provide more detail about
the socioeconomic component of American attitudes towards the war by making connections
between selected lyrics and the political landscape of the time. Students will be encouraged to
share their own interpretations of what life was like during the late 1960s. To conclude the
discussion, parallels will be made between the Vietnam War to the modern day situations in the
Middle East.
As a closure activity, students will complete the record exit tickets in their cooperative learning
groups by creating their own title to a protest song from the Vietnam War. Each group will share
their title with the class. As students leave they will receive a blank song lyric template to
complete for homework by rewriting any of the songs to fit an issue they feel strongly about in
todays society.

Lesson Development (Including teacher input, student activities, transitions,
differentiation, and planned questions):
3-5 minutes: Students will complete the warm up question and think-pair-share to make
connections about the role music plays in protests.
20-25 minutes: Students will work in cooperative learning groups at separate stations for each
song. The groups will rotate stations every five minutes after the timer alarm sounds.
10-15 minutes: Teacher will facilitate a whole group discussion by asking critical thinking
questions, relating the lyrics to other protest movements of the era, and highlighting the political,
economic, and social attitudes of the time period. Connections will be made to today through
questioning and discussion.
2-5 minutes: Students will complete an exit ticket by writing their own song title to a Vietnam
War-era protest song.
If Time/If Needed:
Students will turn over their record exit tickets and create a B-side title in their cooperative
learning groups. If their A-side title was pro war, the B-side must be anti war and vice versa.
Closure:
Each group will receive an exit ticket in the shape of a record and will work together to create an
original title to a protest song from this era using content knowledge, the examples they have
investigated through the activity, and the information they have gained from the whole group
discussion.
Assessing Performance Objective and Overall Learning
In Class (formal/informal):
Informal: The bulk of informal
assessment will be through teacher
observation of verbal student
participation in the whole group
discussion after the activity.
Additionally, students will be assessed
by their abilities to stay on task during
the activity.
Formal: Students will be formally
Homework:
The students will choose a song they
have analyzed through the lessons
activity and rewrite the lyrics to
represent an issue they wish to protest
in contemporary society.
assessed based on their completion of
the graphic organizers as well as the
record exit tickets.

Standards:
NJCCCS:
6.1.12.D.12.d: Compare and contrast American public support of the government and military
during the Vietnam War with that of other conflicts.
6.1.12.D.12.e: Analyze the role that media played in bringing information to the American public
and shaping public attitudes toward the Vietnam War.
6.1.12.D.13.d: Determine the extent to which suburban living and television supported
conformity and stereotyping during this time period, while new music, art, and literature acted as
catalysts for the counterculture movement.

CCSS:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary
and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of
the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or
secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key
details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information
presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in
order to address a question or solve a problem.



The 2009 Core Curriculum Content Standards for Social Studies can be found at
http://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/standards/6/index.html
The New Common Core Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies can be found at
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12