My DBQ assignment asks students to answer the following question:
How does media impact our perception of war?
Students will view and analyze media from the Vietnam War era to answer this question. First, in order to build some content knowledge and context, students will watch a film that surveys the major events and themes of the war.
We will then move to the analysis of photographs, advertisements, speeches and letters that support the war effort. Students will look for commonalities in themes, emotions, and methodologies, as well as judge the effectiveness of the various media types. The process will then be repeated with anti-war media.
Applying their freshly-gained media savvy, students will then curate a slideshow of media depicting a contemporary conflict. They must take a position in the conflict, select media supporting that position, present their slideshow to the class, and explain why they selected each image, video, or text.
- Description: Vietnam War protesters. 1967. Wichita, Kansas, 1967
- Source: US Archiv ARCWEB ARC Identifier: 283627
I really like this DBQ and the path that you chose to take with it. Media, bias, and propaganda play a huge role in how people have thought about war throughout history and this is a lesson that will allow students to look at the past in a different way, as well as the future of war. I like that you ask students to chose a viewpoint and argue that viewpoint using sources from the media because that allows them to move beyond surface-level reading and draw their own conclusions.