AP WORLD HISTORY: MODERN

(SECONDARY)

ESSENTIAL UNIT 8 (E08)

(1900 to the Present: Cold War and Decolonization)

(July 2019)

Unit Statement: After WWII, the world split due to the spheres of influence created by the
USA and the USSR during the ideological struggle that was the Cold War. In this unit, the
students will examine the causes and consequences of the Cold War along with the response
from countries that sought to separate themselves through the creation of the Non-Aligned
Movement. It is important to approach instruction through the emphasis of the themes in AP
World History Modern while also integrating historical thinking skills in daily lessons.

In Unit 8 of the AP World History Modern course the AP exam weighting is 8-10% while it is
suggested by the College Board that anywhere between 14 and 17 class periods are used to
cover the material outlined below.

Essential Outcomes: (assessed for mastery)

1. The Student Will explain the historical context of the Cold War after 1945. (LO 8A;
KC 6.2.II, 6.2.IV.C.i)
2. TSW analyze the causes and effects of the ideological struggle of the Cold War. (LO
8B; KC 6.2.IV.C.ii and 6.2.V.B)
3. TSW compare the ways in which the USA and the USSR sought to maintain
influence over the course of the Cold War. (LO 8C; KC 6.2.IV.D)
4. TSW outline the causes and consequences of China’s adoption of communism. (LO
8D; KC 6.2.I.i and 6.3.I.A.ii)
5. TSW evaluate the causes and effects of movements to redistribute economic
resources. (LO 8E; KC 6.2.II.D.i)
6. TSW compare the processes by which various peoples pursued independence after
1900. (LO 8F; KC 6.2.II.A, 6.2.I.C, 6.2.II.B)
7. TSW explain how political changes in the period from c. 1900 to the present led to
territorial, demographic, and nationalist developments. (LO 8G; KC 6.2.III.A.i
and 6.2.A.ii)
8. TSW analyze the economic changes and continuities resulting from the process of
decolonization. (LO 8H; KC 6.3.I.C and 6.2.III.B)
9. TSW describe various reactions to existing power structures in the period after 1900.
(LO 8I; KC 6.2.V, 6.2.V.A, 6.2.V.C, and 6.2.V.D)
10. TSW evaluate the causes of the end of the Cold War. (LO 8J; KC 6.2.IV.E)

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 11. TSW compare the effects of the Cold War in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
(LO 8K; KC 6.2, 6.2.ii, 6.2.IV.C, 6.3, 6.3.I)
Practiced/Ongoing Outcomes: (not assessed for mastery)
1. TSW identify and apply course themes across periods and regions. (Humans and
Environment [ENV], Cultural Developments and Interactions [CDI], Governance
[GOV], Economic Systems [ECN], Social Interactions and Organization [SIO],
and Technology and Innovation [TEC])
2. TSW identify and explain historical developments and processes.
3. TSW analyze sourcing and situation of primary and secondary sources.
4. TSW analyze arguments in primary and secondary sources.
5. TSW analyze the context of historical events, developments, or processes.
6. TSW use historical reasoning (comparison, causation, change over time) to analyze
patterns and connections between and among historical developments and
processes.
7. TSW develop arguments based on historical claims and evidence.
Key Terms and Concepts:
Cold War Decolonization Non-Aligned Movement
John Foster Dulles Bandung Conference Sukarno
V. Molotov Yalta Conference Potsdam Conference
Kwame Nkrumah Contras and Sandinistas Korean War
Angolan Civil War NATO Warsaw Pact
Proxy War Nuclear Proliferation Ho Chi Minh
Mengistu Haile Mariam Kerala White Revolution
Great Leap Forward Cultural revolution Gamal Abdul Nasser
Muslim League Quebecois Movement Biafra Movement
Partition of India Julius Nyerere Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Francisco Franco Augusto Pinochet Idi Amin
Shining Path Al-Qaeda Military Industrial Complex
Marshall Plan European Community Truman Doctrine

Suggested Materials: (provided by school)

• Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past, publisher: McGraw
Hill, 2007 by Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler.
Chapters 35, 37
• 1200 Update Ways of the World, publisher: Bedford St. Martins 2019 by Robert W.
Strayer and Eric W. Nelson
Chapters 14
• Documents in World History: The Human Record: Volume II
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Additional Resources:
AP Course Review Books:

• Cracking the AP World History: Modern Exam 2020 Edition (available in November
2019)
• AMSCO® Advanced Placement® World History: Modern. Perfection Learning Corp,
2019.

Suggested Activities:
• Personal Progress Check: Have students make a habit of completing the Personal
Progress Check on the AP College Board website; it will give them feedback related
to their readiness and mastery of the content in this unit. It is comprised of 25
Stimulus Based Multiple Choice questions (SBMC’s), 2 Short Answer Questions
(SAQ’s), and 1 Document Based Question (DBQ).
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-world-history/exam
• SOAPSTONE: This method is used to analyze documents. There are many teacher
created worksheets available online or you can make your own. The pneumonic
device represents: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject and Tone.
• Notetaking Method: It is important that students adopt a method that is used
consistently for taking notes. Here are two methods that are used by many AP
teachers:
• Cornell Notes are created by dividing the paper in three sections, each
section includes: key points, notes, and summary.
• InSPECT is an acronym used as a device for students to remember the
AP themes and use them to take effective notes (Interactions with the
environment, Social interactions, Political systems and ideology,
Economic systems, Culture and interactions, and Technology and
innovations). You can either create note sheets of your own to assign,
find one online created by other teachers, or have the students create
them by themselves.
• Fast Write and Debriefing: Display Paul Plaschke’s cartoon of the Yalta Conference
(1945). Ask students to write a quick reply to the following prompt: Predict how this
cartoon might provide context for understanding Unit 8. Ask a few students to share
and debrief by discussing how the events of World War II provide essential context
for understanding the Cold War.
• Fast write prompts should be formulated using “task verbs” designated and
used by the AP College Board in their free response questions. The task verbs
and their descriptions can be found on page 200 of the Course and Exam
Description; they are: compare, describe, evaluate, explain, identify, and
support an argument.
• Fast write prompts should be completed under given time constraints like the
Free Response questions on the AP exam.
• DBQ: 15-minute reading time and 45-minute writing time

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 • LEQ: 40 minutes
• Self/Peer Revision: Provide excerpts from John Foster Dulles’s “Dynamic Peace”
speech (1957), V. M. Molotov’s “The Task of Our Time: Unite Against the
Enslavement of the People” (1947), and President Sukarno’s speech at the opening of
the Bandung Conference (1955). Have students use the documents to respond to the
learning objective for this topic with a claim/thesis statement and then practice writing
explanations on how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, situation, or
audience is relevant to that argument. As students work, ask them to seek feedback
and suggestions from classmates.
• Create Representation: Have students read and annotate “The Events of 1989–1992”
section of “1789–1792 and 1989–1992: Global Interaction of Social Movements” by
Patrick Manning (available on World History Connected) before class. In small
groups, have students discuss the author’s argument and then create a political cartoon
that summarizes and explains the social movements discussed.
• Guided Discussion: Provide students with the following claim: The Cold War
increased the influence of the United States in the world but ultimately weakened the
influence of Russia. Lead a discussion about how to develop a complex argument that
supports a claim like this as well as acknowledges and discusses evidence that
contradicts it.
• Critique Reasoning: Through collaborative discussion, students critique the
arguments of others, questioning the author’s perspective, evidence presented, and
reasoning behind the argument.
• Debate: Students present an informal or formal argument that defends a claim with
reasons, while others defend different claims about the same topic or issue. The goal
is to debate ideas without attacking the people who defend those ideas.
• Debriefing: Students participate in a facilitated discussion that leads to consensus
understanding or helps students identify the key conclusions or takeaways.
• Discussion Groups: Students engage in an interactive, small-group discussion, often
with an assigned role (e.g., questioner, summarizer, facilitator, evidence keeper), to
consider a topic, text, question.
• Fishbowl: Some students form an inner circle and model appropriate discussion
techniques, while an outer circle of students listens, responds, and evaluates.
• Jigsaw: Each student in a group actively reads a different text or different passage
from a single text, taking on the role of “expert” on what was read. Students share the
information from that reading with students from other groups and then return to their
original groups to share their new knowledge.
• Look for a Pattern: Students evaluate data or create visual representations to find a
trend.
• Making Connections: Write concepts related to one of the course themes on cards,
place them into a box, and have students pick a concept at random. Give students a
few minutes to gather and recall information about the term and then pair students and
ask them to find the connection between their concepts. Finally, ask the pairs to write
a brief explanation of how the concepts are related.

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 • Match Claims and Evidence: Students are given sample claims (most of which can
be improved upon) to evaluate and revise. Then students match their revised claims
with pieces of evidence that can be used to support the claims. Once matched,
students write a statement explaining how and why the evidence supports the claim.
• Shared Inquiry: Students actively read a provocative text, asking interpretive
questions (questions for which there are no predetermined right answers) before and
during reading. After reading the text, students engage with their peers to make
meaning from the text, offer different answers to the questions, and debate one
another, supporting their positions with specific evidence from the text.
• Socratic Seminar: Students engage in a focused discussion tied to a topic, essential
question, or selected text in which they ask questions of one another. The questions
initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional
questions.

Technology Links:
• Destiny Discover (see Librarian) Use this search engine to find age-appropriate
websites that align with your unit.
• Crash Course World History episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I&list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Su3rBxea8
• Facebook: Join the AP World History teacher community on Facebook, you will gain
access to the Google Drive that contains hundreds of lessons, articles and ideas from
other AP World History teachers. www.facebook.com
• Internet History Sourcebook: Fordham University has catalogued primary source
documents available for use by history teachers and students. All of the sources
needed for this unit can be found here: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/index.asp
• World History Archives: This website offers documents to support the study of
world history. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/
• SOAPSTONE: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/resources/soapstone-
strategy-reading-and-writing
• Khan Academy: Sal Khan and the team have created a collection of lectures and
sources to support the AP World History curriculum:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-world-history

Suggested Assessment Tools and Strategies:

• Teachers should remember that even at the ‘B’ level, students are expected to be able
to produce work independently or display engagement with the material. Copying a
list or definition from a book should not be considered mastery of a TSW. To display
mastery at the ‘A’ level, the student is expected to exhibit higher order thinking skills.
The student must independently assess, evaluate, interpret, or infer, rather than repeat
a memorized response.
• Attached rubric or teacher-generated rubric that assesses ALL essential outcomes
(TSWs). An effective rubric is presented and discussed with the student at the
beginning of the unit, referred to throughout the unit, and used to assess at the end.

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 Students will collaborate with peers and the teacher to assess mastery of the
unit with final judgment by the teacher.
• Students must be required to write frequently as more than half the AP exam requires
historical writing skills. It is highly suggested that in every unit, students complete the
following forms of writing:
• Short Answer Questions (SAQ’s): on the exam students are required to
respond to 3 SAQ’s. The “ACE” method is a good one to use to ensure that
students earn an optimum score.
• Document Based Question (DBQ): on the exam there is 1 DBQ. Students will
need to be able to analyze documents quickly and use a given set of
documents in an essay.
• Long Essay Question (LEQ): on the exam the students must respond to 1 LEQ
prompt from a choice of three.
• Rubrics for these free response questions can be found below, it is important
that the students are familiar with the rubric requirements.
• https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/rubrics-ap-histories.pdf
• Grade student essays from past exams provided by the AP College Board; compare
grades assigned by the student to those assigned by the AP readers.
• Teacher made exams that mirror the AP exam: it should include Stimulus Based
Multiple Choice Questions (SBMCQ’s), Shorth Answer Questions (SAQ’s),
Document Based Questions (DBQ’s) and Long Essay Questions (LEQ’s).
• A selective unit could run concurrently with this unit adding enrichment to the
content, they include: Book Review, Media Analysis, or Creating a DBQ. However,
each unit must be assessed separately.

RUBRIC FOUND ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES…. …. …. …. ….

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 AP WORLD HISTORY: MODERN
Suggested Rubric E08: 1900 to the Present- Cold War and Decolonization
Name______________________________ Class _____________Date______________________
• All TSWs must be mastered for a ‘B’.
• 4 of 7 ‘A’ level TSWs should be met to receive an ‘A’.
TSW- B level A level Comments
1) I can explain the historical
context of the Cold War after
1945.
2) I can analyze the causes and My analysis identifies multiple causes
effects of the ideological struggle and effects of the ideological struggle
of the Cold War. that defined the Cold War and explores
the most significant cause and effect and
their impact.
3) I can compare the ways in My comparison identifies multiple
which the USA and the USSR similarities and differences between the
sought to maintain influence over USA and the USSR’s attempts to spread
the course of the Cold War. their influence over the course of the
Cold War.
4) I can outline the causes and
consequences of China’s adoption
of communism.
5) I can evaluate the causes and My evaluation outlines multiple causes
effects of movements to and effects and makes a claim supported
redistribute economic resources. by historical evidence identifying the
most significant effect.
6) I can compare the processes by My comparison includes multiple
which various peoples pursued similarities and differences between and
independence after 1900. among independence movements.
7) I can explain how political
changes in the period from c.
1900 to the present led to
territorial, demographic, and
nationalist developments.
8) I can analyze the economic My analysis outlines multiple
changes and continuities resulting continuities and changes and explains
from the process of how and why they were significant.
decolonization.
9) I can describe various reactions
to existing power structures in the
period after 1900.
10) I can evaluate the causes of My evaluation outlines multiple causes
the end of the Cold War. for the end of the Cold War and makes a
claim supported by historical evidence
as to the most significant cause.
11) I can compare the effects of My comparison includes multiple
the Cold War in the Eastern and similarities and differences which
Western Hemispheres. examine the effects of the Cold War in
the eastern and Western Hemispheres.

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AP WORLD HISTORY SEC E08
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