Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Communists?

Fellowship Lesson 2008

Krista Ruud

Champaign County Archives

Lesson 2 - The Fear of Communism

To download this lesson in PDF format, click here.

Length: 1 class period

Set-up: Group work

Procedures:

§ Review with students what was learned in the prior lesson (definitions and locations of Communism/Democracy).

§ Students should brainstorm

o Why did Americans think Communism was bad?

o Why were Americans afraid of Communism?

o What did Americans do because of the fear?

§ Responses should be recorded on the board or overhead.

§ Now hand out the pamphlet entitled What everyone should know about Communism and the Pamphlet Response Sheet.
Groups should look through the pamphlet and record at least 10 pieces of information on the response sheet.

§ With a few minutes left in class have students share what they learned from the document. How does it compare with the brainstorm list on the board? What biases might the authors of the pamphlet have had when creating it?

National Primary Sources: What everyone should know about Communism was an informational pamphlet published nationally in 1962. This document gives insight as to what the government wanted Americans to believe about Communism and what was expected from American citizens.

Assessment:

§ Students will have informally provided what they know (or don’t know) about the Cold War.

§ Students will have analyzed a national primary source and categorized information.

§ Students will have compared and contrasted their knowledge before viewing the pamphlet and their knowledge after viewing the pamphlet.