[Paul M]

Hi all

This half term I will be teaching Vietnam coursework for the first (and, because of the new GCSE courses, the last) time.

We're doing the AQA Model B Assignments on the reasons for US involvement in Vietnam and the Ant-War movement. These topics are completely new to me and there is real pressure for time with the Year 11 classes I and my colleague have inherited so if any of you can provide support such as:
- Schemes of Work
- Powerpoints
- Worksheets
- Suggested websites

... or any other hints/tips you think will help that would be fantastic!

Paul

[nikki]

This is the coursework I have done with my GCSE groups for the last two years and I love it as a topic - we always get really stuck into it. In a way I think we get TOO stuck into it - my students find it hard to whittle the first question (why USA became involved) down to a concise analytical overview and they go into far too much detail. I mainly used good old Walsh (History in Focus) and his accompanying worksheets as the key focus for my lessons as he has some really good activities (the excellent timeline activity is particularly good for clarifying the points at which involvement increased and the reasons for this, and the other focus tasks work really well too). For homework exercises and general reading, I think you can't beat Neil DeMarco's Vietnam book (Hodder 20th Century History).

As to websites etc, there's a good section on this topic on the "downloadable resources" (GCSE) part of this very website. The BBC GCSE Bitesize site also has a useful bit and the section created by members of this forum on YouTube includes some really fantastic clips which bring home, amongst other things, the impact the fact that this was a TV war as well as an actual war, must have had on the anti-war movement.
In terms of good videos - definitely use "Dear America: Letters from Vietnam" and also the documentary on the My Lai massacre (my students - girls - find it quite shocking but it has proven a powerful tool in helping to illustrate the problems with the war and with US involvement). Of course the protest songs are also a must - I tended to use at least one a week and as my students became more knowledgeable on the topic they "enjoyed" trying to decode the songs (and singing along too!). Finally, I always use the Thinking History activity "where are the Vietcong" which gets across more than anything else we do how difficult it was for the US troops to identify the VC.

Hope that helps a little.

[Hutty]

I teach this too and show clips from 'Platoon' and a doc called 'Vietnam's bloody secret' which channel 5 showed a few years ago. I may be able to copy it for you if you want it? Agree with the 'thinking history' suggestion, works really well. Don't worry too much, kids love this topic!

[Jeremy H]

Hutty, on 05 November 2009 - 08:44 AM, said:

I teach this too and show clips from 'Platoon' and a doc called 'Vietnam's bloody secret' which channel 5 showed a few years ago. I may be able to copy it for you if you want it? Agree with the 'thinking history' suggestion, works really well. Don't worry too much, kids love this topic!

Vietnam's Bloody Secret is available on YouTube in 5 sections if you can't get hold of it otherwise.
This is a link to the first episode.
If you do the piece on Did the power of television lead to the US withdrawing from Vietnam then the video pretty much covers the content for you!