US Foreign Policy: Kennedy to Carter

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

• Six lessons from five day headings. Lessons 1-5 are the source's Days 1-5. Lesson 6 is the Review — a structurally complete meeting (its own objective, essential questions and sequence) that the source tucks into the Day 5 section after a horizontal rule, with no heading and no number of its own. Both its number and its title were supplied during conversion, and its page says so.
• The Review is an activity page, so it sits beside the numbered chain rather than in it. Lesson 5 is the last numbered lesson and its forward link points up to this overview; reach the Review from the lesson list here, and it links back to Lesson 5.
• Every one of the six days carries the identical objective, word for word: "Analyze the foreign policies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter and their impact on the region." It is unit-level boilerplate, not a per-day aim — it does not distinguish any day from any other, and it fits the Review least of all. The titles and the one-line blurbs on the index are what tell the days apart.
• Only one day in the source carries a usable title of its own. The rest give a bare "Day N:" heading, so titles come from each day's "Lesson:" line and its actual content. That line is unreliable too: Lessons 2, 3 and 4 all label themselves "Pt. 2" even though Lesson 4 has moved on to Nixon and Carter, which reads as carryover from copying the previous day's header. Lessons 4 and 5 both run deck Part III, so each carries a conversion-supplied content tail to 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; only the block is timed.
• Block totals are left uneven and honest, not padded to 90: Lesson 1 runs about 55 minutes on three items, Lesson 3 about 68, Lesson 6 about 70. Lesson 1 in particular is the thinnest meeting in Section 16.
• The reading quiz slips a day, twice over. "Quiz: Reading JFK, pp. 203-205" is announced as "next class" on Lesson 2 and again on Lesson 3, then is finally administered on Lesson 4 as a Do Now. Unlike the Vietnam quiz in T16B, this one does happen.
• Lesson 2 is the odd one structurally. Its sequence lists the notes first and the Bay of Pigs activator second — an activator after the notes. The source order is kept on the page and flagged rather than quietly rearranged, because nothing says which the teacher meant.
• Days repeat each other's material heavily. Lesson 2's "Pt. I" notes reuse Lesson 1's three links byte for byte; Lesson 3 repeats Lesson 2's Pt. II notes and its "Arrogance of Power / CIA, Chile & Allende" pair verbatim, with the Closure as its only genuinely new content. Each page flags what it is repeating.
• One document wears three names across three days. The file linked on Lesson 3 as "Review Prompts for Paper 3 Test Next Week" is the same file Lessons 5 and 6 link as "Possible Exam Questions (Document)". Separately, "Possible Exam Questions" also names a slide range in the deck, so that phrase covers two different resources. Kept as given on every page.
• The notes deck is one presentation opened at four points: Part I at the start with no anchor, Part II at slide 19, Part III at slide 40, and the Possible Exam Questions slides at 61. Lesson 5 adds a fifth "(start here)" anchor. Lessons 4 and 5 open the same slide 40 under near-identical labels ("Pt. III --> TO CARTER" and "Pt. III --> CARTER").
• Three days share a malformed essential-question block. On Lessons 4, 5 and 6, two questions beginning "EQ:" are stranded inside the Lesson Sequence instead of the Essential Questions list, wrapped in stray italic markers that start and end mid-sentence, and one of them has no closing question mark. They are moved up to the key questions on each page and reproduced as written.
• Lesson 4 is the only day with no homework line at all. That is the source's omission, not a conversion loss, and the page says so.
• The Review has the least behind it of any page here. Its activator is "TBD"; "Make Your Own Meme: Cold War Edition" has no materials of any kind; "Cold War Review Timeline" is unlinked there though Lesson 5 links it; and "Closer: Vote to strike 1 prompt" is never explained — most likely striking one of the Paper 3 prompts under review, but the source does not say, and the page records that as a question rather than an answer.
• The Review points at a test the page never provides. "Cold War Test -- Next Class!" closes the source page with no date, no document and no page of its own. The assessment list below names it.
• Relative dates throughout, none resolved: "Next Class", "Next Week", "Due Friday". Lesson 2 also carries a senior-only deadline for a Paper 3 on Vietnam, which belongs to the previous sub-unit. Check the calendar rather than the page.
• Also left as found: "Closure - tbd" on Lesson 2, an unattributed quotation used as Lesson 4's activator ("The center is bled, so that that parameter can expand."), and a stray space inside "W hat" in Lesson 1's first essential question.
• This page carries no unit-level material at all — no shared decks, study guides, assessment documents or overview text above the days. Everything in the sections below comes from the Section 16 homepage, not from this page.
• No standards codes. This is an IB course; the page carries none, and the NC codes used elsewhere in this repo do not apply.