Korean War Module

Korea's Place in Teaching World History

People and states around the world challenged the existing political and social order in varying ways, leading to unprecedented worldwide conflicts.

This module will help students build the following skills:

  • Explain a historical concept, development, or process.
  • Identify the evidence used in a source to support an argument.
  • Compare the arguments or main ideas of two sources.
  • Explain how claims or evidence support, modify, or refute a source’s argument
  • Corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument using diverse and alternative evidence in order to develop a complex argument. This argument might:
    • Explain the nuance of an issue by analyzing multiple variables.
    • Explain relevant and insightful connections within and across periods.
face of solider statue

Day 1: Was the Korean War a product of Decolonization or the Cold War?

Students will engage in a Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) to develop historical thinking skills in argumentation by making historically defensible claims supported by specific and relevant evidence.

Students will analyze primary and secondary sources to construct arguments with multiple claims and will focus on creating a complex thesis statement that evaluates the extent to which the Korean War was a product of decolonization and the Cold War.

Day 2: Evaluate the extent to which historical developments in the post-war period were caused by Decolonization or the Cold War?

Students will analyze multiple primary and secondary sources while participating in a gallery walk activity. Students will also evaluate to what extent each source reflects the historical developments of the Cold War or the process of decolonization. Students will need to consider issues of sourcing and how the author supports his/her claim.

Students will complete a short answer question and/or nine multiple-choice questions that focus on whether decolonization or the Cold War played a more significant role in post-war historical developments.

statue of liberty

Day 3: How did the United States and the Soviet Union differ in their efforts to influence Korea between 1949-1953?

Students will examine primary sources in order to analyze how the point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience shape our understanding of what the document says. As an extension activity, students read and listen to veteran interviews in order to analyze how the veterans’ experiences as remembered in oral histories shape our understanding of the causes and effects of the Korean War.

Document-Based Question: Evaluate the extent to which the United States and the Soviet Union differed in their efforts to influence Korea between 1949-1953.

city scene with pagoda roofs

Day 4: Explain the extent to which the effects of the Cold War were similar in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Students will practice three targeted document-based skills: argument construction, making a claim, and complexity. While developing these targeted document-based skills, students will develop a basic understanding of the historical developments of the Cold War. Teachers may choose to have students write the full AP-aligned DBQ.

Document-Based Question: Explain the extent to which the effects of the Cold War were similar in the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

statue of woman with sword