Modern World History

Ms. Portman

World War II 

After you read the assigned section, you need to answer the following questions for that section in note form. Be prepared for a homework check or a possible reading quiz each day.

Assignment 1                        pages 685-690                                                                      Totalitarianism

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a totalitarian state?

2. What strategies did Hitler use in order to gain support?

Assignment 2                        pages 690-694                                                                  Path to War

Fill Out Totalitarianism Chart

Assignment 3                        Packet                                                                               Rape of Nanking

1. What was the “Rape of Nanking?”

2. Why isn’t this atrocity as well publicized as the Holocaust?

Assignment 4                        pages 710 (Bombing of Cities)-714                                    The Aftermath

1. What are the similarities and differences between conventional bombs and the atomic bomb?

2. Why did the conclusion of the war bring out tension between the Soviet Union and the United States?

Making Connections

Assignments 1-4

Outside Resources

Speeches by Hitler

Causes of WWII Activity

“Saving Private Ryan” excerpts

Rape of Nanking packet

NPR reports on Japanese-Chinese relations

Answering the DBQ

Advice from: http://www.collegeboard.com

Your goal: a unified essay that integrates your analysis of given documents with your treatment of the topic.

The source materials are chosen for two reasons: the information they convey about the topic and the perspective they offer on other documents used in the section. There is no one perfect DBQ answer; a variety of approaches and responses are possible depending on your ability to understand the documents and, ultimately, judge their significance.

Remember: You'll most fully understand some of the documents when you view them within the wider context of the entire series.

When writing the document-based essay, it's important to:

• Refer to individual documents within the framework of the overall topic.
• Be sure to discuss a majority of the documents individually and specifically.
• Discuss the materials in reference to the question -- don't just summarize them.
• Cite documents by naming the author and/or by naming the document number so that the readers scoring the exam can easily tell which document you are discussing.

Also keep the following in mind:

• Apply critical thinking skills to the documents; assess their reliability and the ways in which they reveal authors' points of view.
• There are no irrelevant or deliberately misleading documents.
• It's important that you put your analytic skills to work and demonstrate that you understand context, bias, and frame of reference regarding the documents' sources and the authors' points of view. Group or juxtapose documents in a variety of ways (e.g. according to their ideas or points of view); suggest reasons for similarities or differences in perspective among the documents; and identify possible biases or inconsistencies within documents.
• The author and source are provided for each document. You should make appropriate interpretative use of this information within your essay.
• Pay attention to the content and tone of each document as well as the identifications of authors, the documents' purpose or intended audience, and the date when each document was written.

You can refer to historical facts and developments not mentioned in the documents. Just be sure the references are accurate and relevant.