Units 7–9 Crosswalk — Vietnam, 1970s–80s, 1990s–2000s¶
Grade 10 · US History Units 7–9 + ELA 9-10 Span: 1960s–2000s · Vietnam · Watergate · Reagan Era · End of Cold War · 9/11 and After
Start here — one Demo, two standards
US.6_12.6 + R.9 + W.4 — These units are the closest to your lived experience. Read Malala's UN Speech or Mandela's Rivonia Speech. Analyze the argument (R.9 Skinny). Write your own answer to: What does the past owe the present? (W.4 Skinny). Use the US.6 Unit 9 Skinny — it's the capstone of the whole two-year arc.
Project Ideas — Units 7–9¶
1. "When does protest become history?"¶
Essential question: How does a protest movement decide it's winning — and how does it decide to keep going when it isn't? USH Standard: US.6_12.3–4 + Unit 7 ELA Standard: R.9 + W.4 Source anchors: Mandela Rivonia Speech + Vietnam-era protest context Suggested Demo Mode: Extended Writing or Verbal Conversation Possible deliverables: Argument essay · Podcast · Research presentation The argument: Mandela argued for justice from a defendant's chair, knowing he would likely be imprisoned for life. Students analyze his argumentative strategy (R.9 — what is his claim? who is his real audience?) and write their own argument (W.4) about what makes a protest movement capable of achieving its goals across time. Connects US.6_12.3 with WH.6_12.6.
2. "Who defines what counts as progress?"¶
Essential question: The US has changed dramatically over the 20th century — but changed toward what, and for whom? USH Standard: US.6_12.6 + Units 7–9 ELA Standard: R.9 + W.4 Source anchor: UN UDHR + Malala UN Speech + student-selected current events source Suggested Demo Mode: Extended Writing or Verbal Conversation Possible deliverables: Argument essay · Research presentation · Podcast The argument: The UN UDHR (1948) describes what the world committed to after WWII. Malala (2013) shows what that commitment still requires 65 years later. Students use both to argue: by the standards the world set for itself, how much progress has actually been made — and who gets to define the answer? Strong US.6_12.6 + W.4 crosswalk.
3. "What does it feel like to live inside a political revolution?"¶
Essential question: When a political system changes rapidly around you, how do ordinary people experience it — and what do they lose and gain? USH Standard: US.6_12.3 + Units 7–8 context ELA Standard: R.8 + W.3 Source anchor: Persepolis (Satrapi) Suggested Demo Mode: Extended Writing or Verbal Conversation Possible deliverables: Essay · Visual essay (inspired by graphic memoir format) · Podcast The argument: Satrapi tells the story of Iran's 1979 revolution through her own childhood. Students use R.8 to analyze how she uses the graphic memoir form (image, caption, perspective, irony) to show political change, then write a W.3 explanatory piece on what Persepolis reveals about how political change is experienced differently by different people. US.6_12.3 + comparative framework with any US political shift studied in Units 7–8.
4. "How do we know what we know about recent history?"¶
Essential question: The further in the past an event, the more we rely on historians. For recent events, we have everything — does that make it easier or harder to know the truth? USH Standard: US.6_12.5–6 + Unit 9 ELA Standard: R.9 + IR.4 (source credibility) Suggested Demo Mode: Portfolio Annotation or Written Assessment Possible deliverables: Annotated source log · Research presentation · Podcast on media literacy The argument: Unit 9 covers events students have some memory of (9/11, social media, 2008 financial crisis). This Studio uses that proximity to interrogate how we know what we know — practicing IR.4 (source credibility) at the highest level, while using R.9 to analyze how contemporary journalism and government documents argue. Strong capstone Studio for the full-year US.6_12.5 research skill strand.
5. "What does the past owe the present?"¶
Essential question: When historical injustice produced ongoing inequality, what — if anything — do later generations owe? USH Standard: US.6_12.6 + Unit 9 ELA Standard: R.9 + W.4 Source anchors: Malala UN Speech + UN UDHR + student-selected contemporary source Suggested Demo Mode: Extended Writing or Verbal Conversation Possible deliverables: Argument essay · Structured debate · Podcast The argument: This is the capstone question of the full two-year SDA arc. Students use the whole year's reading library — from Hammurabi to Malala — to write the most ambitious argument they've attempted: what does history owe the present? What obligations does understanding injustice create? This Studio rewards Phoenix-track students who can propose their own angle. US.6_12.6 + W.4 at full extension.
Reading Library — Units 7–9 Texts¶
| Text | USH Standard | ELA Crosswalk | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nelson Mandela — Rivonia Trial Speech (1964) | US.6_12.3–4 + Unit 7–8 context | R.9 — moral argument under pressure; W.4 — argument for justice | Open |
| UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) | US.6_12.6 + Unit 9 | R.9 — claims and evidence; W.4 — what do rights require of governments? | Open |
| Malala Yousafzai — UN Speech (2013) | US.6_12.6 + Unit 9 | R.9 — contemporary argument; W.4 — argument for access to education | Open |
| Persepolis — Marjane Satrapi (2000) | US.6_12.3 + Unit 7–8 context | R.8 — graphic memoir; W.3 — explain political change through personal experience | Open |
| The Handmaid's Tale — Margaret Atwood (1985) | US.6_12.3 + US.6_12.2 + Unit 9 | R.8 — dystopian conventions; R.9 — Atwood's argument about democratic fragility; W.4 | Open |
| The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini (2003) | US.6_12.6 + US.6_12.5 + Unit 9 | R.8 — guilt/redemption arc; W.4 — what do we owe people we've wronged? | Open |
Note: Vietnam-era primary sources (Pentagon Papers, anti-war speeches, protest music) are strong additions to this section — not yet in the reading library. Pull from outside sources using IR.2–4 skills.
Skinnies to Pull These Units¶
WH Skinnies That Cross Over¶
| Standard | Skinny | Relevance to Units 7–9 |
|---|---|---|
| WH.6_12.6 Era 4 | Past to Present Era 4 | Directly applicable — cold war → present connections |
| WH.6_12.3 Era 4 | Political Systems Era 4 | Democracy under pressure, decolonization — Unit 7–8 context |
USH Skinnies — Units 7–9¶
| Standard | Unit 7 | Unit 8 | Unit 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| US.1 Science & Tech | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
| US.2 Ideas & Beliefs | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
| US.3 Political Systems | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
| US.4 Social & Economic | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
| US.5 Causes & Effects | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
| US.6 Past to Present | Skinny | Skinny | Skinny |
ELA Skinnies — Strongest Pulls for Units 7–9¶
| Standard | Skinny | When to Pull |
|---|---|---|
| R.9 | Informational & Argumentative | Malala speech, Mandela, UDHR, contemporary journalism |
| R.7 | Style & Word Choice | Author's craft in contemporary argument and memoir |
| R.8 | Literary Elements | Persepolis — graphic memoir conventions |
| W.4 | Argument Writing | Contemporary argument — the closest to student experience |
| W.3 | Explanatory Writing | Explaining how a historical event shaped the present |
| IR.1–5 | Research Bundle | Every Studio — especially IR.4 (source credibility) for contemporary sources |
CrashCourse US History Episodes — Units 7–9¶
| Episode | Topic | Standard | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ep 12 | Vietnam & Watergate | US.6_12.3–5 + Unit 7 | Watch guide |
CrashCourse Literature — Units 7–9¶
| Work | Focus | Standard | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Handmaid's Tale | Theocratic authoritarianism, gender politics, democratic fragility — how totalitarianism replaces democracy | US.6_12.3 + US.6_12.2 + R.8 | Episode guide |
| The Kite Runner | Afghanistan from the inside — Soviet invasion, Taliban, 9/11 context, guilt and past-to-present obligation | US.6_12.6 + US.6_12.5 + R.8 | Episode guide |
Standards Active These Units¶
| Subject | Standard | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| US History | Unit 7 | Vietnam War — causes, protest, aftermath; Watergate |
| US History | Unit 8 | 1970s stagflation · Reagan conservatism · Cold War end |
| US History | Unit 9 | Globalization · 9/11 · War on Terror · contemporary America |
| ELA — Reading | R.9 | Contemporary argument analysis — speeches, journalism, manifestos |
| ELA — Reading | R.2 | Comprehension and inference in contemporary texts |
| ELA — Reading | R.7 | Style, word choice, and author's craft in contemporary writing |
| ELA — Writing | W.4 | Argument writing — the most directly relevant units for student lives |
| ELA — Writing | W.3 | Explanatory writing — contemporary systems and their origins |
Strongest crosswalk pairing Units 7–9: US.6_12.6 + R.9 + W.4 — these units are the closest to students' lived experience, which makes the "past to present" connection (US.6_12.6) most powerful here. The Malala speech, Mandela, and UN UDHR all connect contemporary global issues to the history students have studied all year.
Why This Is Relevant Today?¶
Units 7–9 are the recent past — close enough that many students' parents lived through parts of it, and close enough that its consequences are still unfolding. The distrust of government that Vietnam and Watergate created didn't heal; it's the baseline for American political culture today. The deregulation and wealth concentration of the Reagan era set the conditions for the inequality students are currently living with. And the War on Terror — the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq based on weapons that didn't exist, the PATRIOT Act, the surveillance infrastructure, the moral and strategic cost of two decades of conflict — is not over. Soldiers who deployed to Afghanistan were not yet born when the Twin Towers fell. The questions Units 7–9 raise are not historical questions: When does a government have the right to deceive its people? What holds powerful people accountable? What does the most powerful country in the world owe the countries it has military relationships with? There are no final answers here — just better and worse arguments. See USH-05: What the Government Didn't Say, USH-06: When the Rules Don't Apply, and USH-07: The Unipolar Moment.
Units 7–9 Crosswalk — SDA Commons Wiki · South High School See also: Unit 7 · Unit 8 · Unit 9 · Units 4–6 Crosswalk · Gr 9 Crosswalk