The Vietnam War

Content overview

The Americas were profoundly affected by the Cold War and it affected the domestic and foreign policies of all countries in this region. This unit overlaps with the Cold War Topic on Paper 2: Topic 12 The Cold War: Superpower tensions and rivalries and the case study of Vietnam as part of the Wars Topic 11 on Paper 2: Case Study: The Vietnam War (ATL).

How to use the lesson pages

• Eight lessons from nine day headings. The source's numbering is broken, so the pages are renumbered contiguously. Lessons 1–4 are its Days 1–4; Lesson 5 is its "Day - 5 - Both A and B Day Combined"; Lesson 6 is its "Day - 6 - Both A and B Day Combined"; Lesson 7 is the second meeting also labelled "Day 6" (the Canada day); and Lesson 8 is the meeting headed just "Day -" with no number. Each page states its own source label.
• The renumbering is evidence-based, not a guess, and the two joins worth checking are these. Lesson 6's Do Now debriefs "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Reception," which is the activity Lesson 5 runs — so Lesson 6 follows Lesson 5, and the later "Day 6:" cannot be the same meeting. Lesson 8's opening task reuses, verbatim, the exit-ticket question Lesson 7 closes on — so Lesson 8 follows Lesson 7. If you disagree with the order, those are the two hinges to re-examine.
• Only three of the eight days carry a title in the source. Days 2, 3, 4 and the two bare-headed days give a heading with nothing after the dash, so those titles were supplied during conversion; each page says so. Lessons 5 and 6 end up with the same title because the source gives both the same "Lesson:" line, "Vietnam - Domestic Effects" — the blurbs on the index tell them apart.
• No timings anywhere. The source gives no per-move minutes on any day, so every minute on every page is an estimate and each page says so. Each lesson offers a 90-minute block and a short period, matching the course's A/B block schedule; only the block is timed.
• The block totals are deliberately uneven and honest. Lesson 4 runs to about 100 minutes because the source packs nine items into one meeting; Lessons 5, 6 and 8 come in at 70, 65 and 65 because those days genuinely hold less. None were padded or trimmed to hit 90.
• The notes deck is one presentation with three entry points, and the source labels them confusingly. Part I is the deck opened at its start (Lesson 1). Part II is slide 19 — but on Lessons 2, 3 and 4 the link text reads "Vietnam, Pt I" with a second "I" typed just outside the link, so the page renders "Pt II". Part III is slide 43 on Lesson 4 but slide 49 on Lessons 5 and 6. The links are kept exactly as given and each page flags its own version; the slide anchors, not the labels, are what to trust.
• A Vietnam quiz is promised and never given. "Quiz: The Vietnam War — next class" is announced on Lessons 4, 5 and 6, and no day in the sub-unit ever administers it. It is recorded as an announcement on each of those pages, never as a move, and Lesson 8 notes the sub-unit ends without it.
• Lessons 5 and 6 are near-duplicates in the source. Their notes links are byte-identical, and both offer the same two alternates (San Marcos 10, and Protest Song/Art/Newspaper). Both are also marked "Both A and B Day Combined," a scheduling note meaning one write-up covers both cohorts of the A/B rotation. Worth deciding whether these are really two meetings before teaching them as such.
• "Protest Song? Protest Art? Newspaper?" is offered as an extension on Lessons 4, 5, 6 and 7 and never scheduled on any of them. It sits in Extras on each. If it matters, it needs a day of its own.
• Lesson 7 is the Canada day and the strongest objective in the unit — the only one that is not the boilerplate the other days repeat. It is also the one with a hole: its "Two Canadas" debate ("Was Canada Truly Neutral in the Vietnam War?") has a title and nothing behind it — no link, no instructions, no materials. It carries the sub-unit's Canada coverage bullet, so it is worth building out.
• Lesson 7 also carries a ~500-word reference essay comparing Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on Vietnam. The source places it on the page with no instruction about how it is used, so it sits in that lesson's Extras as reference prose rather than as a move.
• Two documents are reused under different names. On Lesson 7 the Do Now's "Vietnam & Canada" and the closing task's "Evidence For/Against Vietnam War / Canada" are the same Google Doc; on Lesson 8 the notes reuse Lesson 7's guided notes and recorded lecture, differing only in slide anchor. Kept as given.
• Every date on the page is relative and none resolve. "Due Monday," "Due Next Friday," "on Friday," "Friday's Assignment," "Over Spring Break" — all kept verbatim, none converted to calendar dates. Check the calendar rather than the page.
• Two things the source leaves unresolved stay unresolved: "Closer - TBD" on Lessons 5 and 6, and an unclosed quotation mark in Lesson 8's warm-up question. Also kept verbatim: "OPVV" on Lesson 6, almost certainly a typo for OPVL, flagged on the page rather than corrected.
• A ninth heading on the source page is not a meeting. It reads "Day -" and holds four parked links (the assignment chart, the event summaries, the Chapter 7 reading already assigned on Lesson 2, and "Reading - Making Wars Great Again," which has no link at all). It has no objective and no sequence, so it was not converted. The "Making Wars Great Again" reading exists nowhere else in the unit.
• No standards codes. This is an IB course; the page carries none, and the NC codes used elsewhere in this repo do not apply.