Your Name: Sal Cusmano

Unit: Civil Rights: Cuban Missile Crisis

Lesson Overview: This lesson will be about the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the

A. Daily Objectives: Students will know/be able to:

Explain the background to the Cuban Missile Crisis including Castro taking
power, the US military bases and nuclear weapons in Europe, and Soviet
fears. (MI K-12 High School History Standard 8.1.2 Foreign Policy During
the Cold War – compare the causes and consequences of the American
policy of containment including: the direct and/or armed conflicts with
Communism (for example, but not limited to: Berlin, Korea, Cuba).)

Examine primary source documents and communiques between Kennedy

and Khrushchev and discuss why the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred and how
it was solved. (MI K-12 High School History Standard 8.1.2 Foreign Policy
During the Cold War – compare the causes and consequences of the
American policy of containment including: the direct and/or armed
conflicts with Communism (for example, but not limited to: Berlin, Korea,
Cuba).)

B. Instructional Sequence: Briefly list the steps in teaching this lesson including
ways you intend to launch and close the lesson and the details of teacher and
student actions. *These steps should be appropriately detailed so that a
substitute teacher could teach the lesson.

Provide an approximate time frame for each step, feel free to space these out.
Highlight HLTPs throughout lesson.

For example:

The first step of your instructional sequence should detail how you will
launch the lesson

1. I will launch the lesson by saying “In October of 1962 the world was at the
brink of ending. If things had ended up going even slightly different none of
us would be here today. Today we will be learning about the Cuban Missile
Crisis and how we managed to avoid nuclear disaster.” (1 minute)

2. I will then introduce my PowerPoint and the goals for the day with my students.
(2 minutes)
3. Following this I will present a brief slide discussing the history of Cuba and how
Castro came to power. I will also ask the students why Castro coming to power
worried the United States so much. (5 minutes EMC)

4. I will then introduce a slide giving a very brief overview of the Cuban Missile
Crisis and how Castor requested nuclear weapons from the USSR to try and prevent
the US from ousting him from power. (5 minutes EMC)

5. I will then have my students watch a brief PBS video on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(3 minutes EMC)

6. After that I will have my students read a textbook excerpt of the Cuban Missile
Crisis along with me by having the students popcorn read the document. After
reading the document I will have the students answer the following 2 questions in a
short group discussion: according to the text, why did the soviets pull their missiles
out of Cuba? And who does the text credit the most with ending the Cuban missile
crisis? (10-15 minutes TTLG/LGD)

7. After this I will have my students once again popcorn read another document
with me. This document will be a letter from Premier Khrushchev in response to
President Kennedy’s request to remove the missiles from Cuba. (5-7 minutes
TTLG/LGD)

8. Following this I will ask the students the following 3 questions and have a group
discussion with them: 1. What deal does Khrushchev propose to Kennedy? 2. What
is the tone of this letter? Use a quote to support your claim. 3. Do you think
Khrushchev has the upper hand why or why not? (5-10 minutes TTLG/LGD)

9. After that we will read another document, this being Kennedy’s reply to Premier
Khrushchev. (5-7 minutes TTLG/LGD)

10. We will then discuss the document and answer the following questions as a
class: 1. In this letter Kennedy restates Khrushchev’s proposals. Does Kennedy
include everything Khrushchev proposed? If not, why might have he left something
out? 2. What is the tone of this letter? Provide a quote to support your claim. 3. Do
you think Kennedy has the upper hand? Why or why not? (5-10 minutes TTLG/LGD)

11. Following this we will read the final document from a Russian diplomat and his
meeting with Robert Kennedy. (5-7 minutes TTLG/LGD)

12. After reading the document we will discuss the following questions: 1. What new
information do you learn from Robert Kennedy? 2. Why do you think this exchange
happened in a private meeting (rather than in an official letter)? [Remember,
Document B was published in the New York Times]. 3. How do you think Robert
Kennedy felt during this meeting? Provide evidence. (5-10 minutes TTLG/LGD)
 13. Following this I will have the students complete the lesson by writing a short 2-3
sentence exit slip response to the question “Who do you think won the Cuban
Missile Crisis?” (remainder of class FA)

Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: One challenge I

might see students having would be assessing the tone of the documents. However,
I will help walk them through this process.

* Materials/Evidence/Sources:

PowerPoint
PBS Video
Textbook Excerpt
Document A

Document B

Document C

Assessment: The assessment will be during the lesson and will be the group
discussions we have while reading and examining the articles and after we finish
going over the articles there will be one final group discussion going over the
information from the documents as a whole.

Attach all handouts, texts, images, lecture notes, etc. on observation day.

After the lesson reflection: (here, write your take-aways from the lesson so you
can make changes for next time)

* For observations only