ALEX Learning Activity Resources

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SS2010] US11 (11) 13 :

13 ) Trace the course of the involvement of the United States in Vietnam from the 1950s to 1975, including the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Tet Offensive, destabilization of Laos, secret bombings of Cambodia, and the fall of Saigon. [A.1.b., A.1.c., A.1.d., A.1.e., A.1.g., A.1.i., A.1.k.]

•  Locating on a map or globe the divisions of Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and major battle sites

•  Describing the creation of North and South Vietnam

[ELA2021] (11) -4 :

R4. Use digital and electronic tools appropriately, safely, and ethically.

[ELA2021] (11) 17 :

17. Use images, sound, animation, and other modes of expression to create or enhance individual or collaborative digital and multimodal texts that are suitable in purpose and tone for their intended audience and occasion.

The students will conduct research about an individual who served in the Vietnam War from their hometown or a city in Alabama. Using this information, the students will construct a memorial to their serviceman in Google Drawings. This activity will allow this time period to become relevant to students by asking them to research those geographically close to them. This activity serves as a beginning engagement tool to hook students in either the reading of The Things They Carried or a historic look at The Vietnam War.  

This activity is a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [ELA2021] (11) 15 :

15. Analyze digital texts and evaluate their effectiveness in terms of subject, occasion, audience, purpose, tone, and credibility.

[ELA2021] (11) 6 :

6. Analyze a text's explicit and implicit meanings to make inferences about its theme and determine the author's purpose.

[ELA2021] (11) -4 :

R4. Use digital and electronic tools appropriately, safely, and ethically.

[ELA2021] (11) 1 :

1. Read, analyze, and evaluate complex literary and informational texts written from various points of view and cultural perspectives, with an emphasis on works of American literature.

In this learning activity, students will focus on the rhetorical analysis of visual texts to determine an author's purpose and message. First, students will view a video on analyzing political or editorial cartoons. By identifying and analyzing labels, symbols, exaggeration, irony, analogy, and argument, students will be able to infer the artist's/author's intended message of the editorial cartoon. Then, students will practice analyzing other cartoons with the same process utilizing the tech tool Flipgrid (from Common Sense Education:  Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to create "grids" of short discussion-style questions that students respond to through recorded videos. Each grid is effectively a message board where teachers can pose a question, and their students can post 90-second video responses that appear in a tiled "grid" display.)

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.