CANADIAN HISTORY 1929-1945 UNIT PACK

Abstract

The purpose of this resource pack is to provide the teacher with lesson planning materials to educate students on unit two from the Grade 10 academic History curriculum. The lessons provided in this course pack focus on four major historical thinking concepts from Peter Seixas and Tom Morton’s “The Big Six”. The first lesson in this resource pack explores the Great Depression through the lens of social history. Students will work to answer the question “What was life like during the Great Depression” by using primary source documents to create short skits. This lesson is designed to use the concept of Historical Perspectives, and show that different groups of people faced different challenges during this era. The second lesson of the sequence focuses on the Canadian government’s response to the Great Depression. Students will use facts and quotes from political leaders to draft proposals. This lesson is designed to demonstrate the concept of Continuity and Change, as students will see how different political leaders attempted to fight the Great Depression, and how their approaches varied. Lesson three will engage students with primary resource documents regarding the Dieppe Raid and the D-Day Landings. Students will demonstrate their ability to examine primary sources and make inferences. Students will look at the failures of Dieppe and how these failures led to reforms that made D-Day successful. The lesson is focused on the Causes and Consequences of these battles. Lesson four uses the concept of Historical Significance, students will examine the actions the Canadian Government took when interning Japanese Canadians. The lesson asks students to critically think about the lasting legacy of Internment and its implications for different Canadian groups. Through the completion of this resource pack, students will have worked with key historical thinking concepts to understand an overall expectation from the Ontario History curriculum. This resource pack is beneficial for teachers who are working through the Great Depression and World War II with their students.