LESSON TITLE: McCarthyism

Name(s): Grade: Date:

Yamileth Solorio 12 May 8, 2024
Joseph Wackerman Subject Area: Time Duration:
US History 55 minutes

I. Overview (1 minute): Purpose is to guide instruction toward a coherent objective. Should be

a significant and measurable statement of what students will know and be able to do as a result of
the lesson.

By the end of instruction, students will:

1. Students will analyze the motives behind McCarthy’s accusations and its political
significance.
2. Students will examine the HUAC and the hearings’ role
in the decline of public trust in government.

1. What are the CA Content Standard(s) AND Common Core Standards addressed?
1A. Content Standards
CA HS.CS. 11.9: Students analyze U.S foreign policy since World War 2
CA HS CS 11.9.3: Trace the origins and geopolitical consequences (foreign and domestic) of the
Cold War and containment policy, including the following:
• The era of McCarthyism, instances of domestic Communism (e.g., Alger Hiss) and
blacklisting

1B. Common Core Standards

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.

CCSS. ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1
Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

2. What is/are the Essential Question(s) for the day?

 1. How were Joseph McCarthy’s accusations justified?
2. What motives did McCarthy have for his accusations and how were they significant
politically and culturally
3. Did McCarthy’s hearing have an effect in trust in government
4. In what ways did Joseph McCarthy violate American values in his search for
communists?

3. What is the day’s agenda? That is, how will the lesson fit together?

Daily Agenda:
1. warm -up
2. Essential Question and Learning Objectives review
3. Lecture on McCarthyism
4. Mini Debate
5. Lesson Wrap up

4. What materials (e.g...handouts, readings, primary sources, graphic organizer, video,

PowerPoint, etc...) will be used? (Need to bring all materials on day of lesson)

McCarthyism Lesson (slide presentation includes all images needed for guided practice
activity)

II. Anticipatory Set/aka Opener (About 4 minutes): Purpose is to access prior knowledge,
connect prior knowledge to new knowledge, cue attention toward day’s topic, and/or create
interest. The opener introduces the lesson, but should not overwhelm it. A good set seamlessly
flows into instruction.
Summary of Opener:

With our opener we hope to engage students with the political cartoons and get them to analyze
the images provided. By analyzing the political cartoons they are developing and furthering their
analysis skills they learned in the previous propaganda unit during the wars as well as getting
them to collaborate with their peers.

III. Direct Instruction (About 15 minutes): This is an instructional approach to learning

driven by the teacher. The purpose is to get information, usually new material, to students
relatively quickly. While this can take various forms, lecture is the most widely recognized. You
will deliver a PowerPoint lecture in this portion of your lesson.
Summary of Lecture:
 Our lecture is going to be detailing the state of the U.S. prior to Mccarthy, His rise to
fame, his downfall, and his legacy. We will be showing the different programs created as the fear
of Communism reached its height, from the Loyalty program to the House un-American
committee, and show how Hollywood was blacklisting celebrities and how the Rosenbergs
helped incite anti-communist paranoia. He was propelled to the forefront based off of his “list”,
which made every news station pay him attention. His continued lists and threats of communism
incited further paranoia, making him very powerful as opposing him meant you were a
Communist. He was eventually taken down after hit pieces were made about him and how wrong
he was, and was censured by the senate, stopping him 4 years later. His paranoia can be seen the
same way the U.S. reacted after 9/11, with the same culture of paranoia.

1. How are you checking for understanding during the lecture? Here you want to ensure that
students comprehend the information and are ready to use it.
Summary of strategy/technique:

Throughout the lecture we will check for understanding in the form of asking questions within
the lecture and reframing the question if we get no response. We also aim to address and answer
the essential questions throughout the lecture and have a designated area in the wrap up that will
check for their understanding in regard to the essential questions posed at the beginning of the
lesson.

IV. Guided Practice (The Bulk of Time in a Real Class – However, you will explain in about
5 to 10 minutes): Purpose is to provide students the space to develop a deeper understanding of
the content and to hone critical thinking skills. The teacher provides the instructions and the
resources for an activity and then allows students to work through (often collaboratively) the
content and concepts to make their own. Teacher serves as a facilitator, providing support when
necessary. This should be a student-centered approach to learning. For your lesson, the activity
should be rooted in primary source analysis. (When you deliver your lesson, you should display
the instructions, primary source documents and give specific examples of what students will be
doing).
Summary of Guided Practice:

For this activity students will be working both individually and in groups. Each student will
receive one primary or secondary source that will either be pro McCarthy or anti-McCarthy.
Students will on their own for 10 minutes analyze and take notes on the document provided to
them. Students will then meet with their designated group based on their source (pro or anti
group) and they will strategize how to answer the debate question “were McCarthy’s actions
justified?” Students will then raise key points from their designated source to defend their stance.
The teacher will serve as a facilitator during the discussion. The class will then regroup and
attempt to answer the question together (opinionated of course) and whether they agreed with
their source and if they had any other thoughts or opinions on the subject.
V. Closure (About 3 minutes): Purpose is to highlight new learning for students. Students
should take an active role in this summary. It reinforces the big takeaways for the day and
answers questions like, “So what? Why did we do this? What is this good for?” This is also a
good time to circle back to the essential question(s) for the day.
Summary of strategy/technique for Closure:

We are going to directly show the essential questions and ask the class what they think the
answer is, then slowly reveal the answers we have as examples of what to take away from the
lecture, both showing what they should remember and write down as well as providing some
engagement to keep the class interested. Shows dangers of paranoia.

VI. Independent Practice (About 2 minutes): Purpose is to reinforce content knowledge and
continue to hone skills focused on in the day's lesson. This is done independently. Teacher will
check at the completion of the assignment to assess students’ skill level and understanding.
Sometimes occurs during class if time permits. For your lesson, this will be a homework
assignment.
Summary of Independent Practice:
The students will be watching a clip of the body snatchers, an allegory about the fear of
communism and the paranoia of the era, and they will provide a 6-8 sentence write-up to show
what they got from the clip and how they connected it to what was discussed in class. Their notes
would reinforce what was talked about during class and by writing their observations they should
remember better and have notes to fall back on in case of tests.

VII. Summative Assessment (Less than 30 seconds): Purpose is to evaluate student

performance of the objectives. Usually performed by students individually with teacher
monitoring integrity.

1. How will the content and the skills be tested at the end of the unit? For this lesson, no need
to create actual assessment, just explain.

The content and skills from this unit will be tested at the end through a summative test that will
be graded on their content knowledge. Students will also be assessed through a series of written
reflections and short discussions posts that will ask them to analyze the day's content and write
how it is significant and ties back to the content we’ve covered. All this is to ensure students are
grasping the material and can make connections with it to past content covered and future
content to come.

VIII. Identify 5 Sources Used to Design Lesson: This can be sources that assisted you in
content mastery and/or lesson plan development. (Use Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style)

-““Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954).” 2022. National
Archives. February 8, 2022.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/censure-of-senator-joseph-mccarthy.

Holmes, Alexander. 1951. "McCarthyism Flourishes to the Gallery's Delight." Los Angeles
Times (1923-1995), Jun 22, 1.
http://proxy.library.cpp.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/mccarthy
ism-flourishes-gallerys-delight/docview/166261823/se-2.

-“‘National Suicide’: Margaret Chase Smith and Six Republican Senators Speak Out Against
Joseph McCarthy’s Attack on ‘Individual Freedom.’” n.d. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6459.

-“‘Enemies From Within’: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s Accusations of Disloyalty.” n.d.

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

-"Sen. McCarthy, Pro and Con." 1950.Los Angeles Times (1923-1995), Jun 28, 1.
http://proxy.library.cpp.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/sen-mcca
rthy-pro-con/docview/166103855/se-2.

Important Note: Depending on your topic, you will either be teaching 8th grade OR 11th
grade history. Be sure your lesson is tailored for the appropriate grade level.