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It is 1944, and the war between the United States and Japan rages across the Pacific. Back in Nebraska, Kathy Syverson has been having dreams that are so unusual and disturbing that they have left her shell-shocked—literally. She’s been dreaming about her brother Danny, a Marine fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. But Kathy isn’t just dreaming about Danny; she is there with him, witnessing what happens to him, including the horrors of war that he must endure.

She is accompanied at times by two Okinawan children. Repelled by their status as the enemy, Kathy’s animosity toward them begins to crumble as she watches them struggle to survive in a land shattered by war. But how can she feel sympathy for them if their countrymen are trying to kill her brother?

As Kathy experiences increasingly violent battles alongside Danny, she finds herself bringing her traumas into the real world. Pete Thompson came home with one arm and haunted eyes, and it isn’t long before Kathy understands why he’s so different from the laughing young man she used to know. War changes everyone who encounters it: the people fighting, the civilians in the battle zones, the soldiers who come home, and the people who are left behind when soldiers don’t come home. But Kathy learns some important lessons about war and loss, tolerance and humanity, and it is these lessons that she will carry with her after the war is finally over.

Author Robert Black writes:

“In August of 1945, the Second World War ended with the dropping of the second atomic bomb on mainland Japan. The Battle of Okinawa two months before that was the last major engagement. At that point in the war, the Japanese strategy was to make the American advance so bloody and so costly that they’d choose to negotiate peace rather than conquer the Japanese Home Islands. What made the battle especially horrible was the large number of civilian casualties. It’s estimated that 142,000 people—one-third of the civilian population—were killed. Many were victims of collateral damage, and others committed suicide, too ashamed of their defeat or frightened by Japanese propaganda that portrayed Americans as savage brutes.

“Those civilians were the ones that drew me to the battle and led me to think that there might be a story there. I was especially interested in the stories of children who were caught in the conflict. Perhaps the best known of these are the accounts of the Himeyuri students and other Okinawan high school girls who were pressed into service as battlefield nurses.

“I found the story of a young girl who was given a makeshift white flag by the elderly couple sheltering her and told to go to the Americans. By the time she made it, she was being followed by an entire line of surrendering Japanese soldiers. If there was to be a book for me to write about Okinawa, it would involve characters like these children because I believed that my readers could relate to them.”

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Jump into the adventure and drama of 1850 to 2000 with this in-depth and literature-rich study for 11-12th grade students. This one-year study will take your student from Antebellum to modern day while covering the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Industrial Revolution, Turn of the Century, WWI, Communism, Socialism, Nazism, WWII, Korean War, Cold War, China’s Cultural Revolution, Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, modern technology, and the War on Terror. Students will read some of the best literature available on this incredible and dynamic time period by renowned authors Harper Lee, Albert Marrin, Paul Johnson, Martin Gilbert, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen Crane, Richard E. Kim, and more.

Teacher guide offers true college-prep level work. Features comprehensive study notes for each required book, discussion questions, vocabulary, web links, answer key, writing assignments, and more! Extensive study notes accompany each title with an emphasis on critical thinking, analysis, and writing. Literary analysis of the hallmark titles Uncle Tom’s Cabin, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lost Names, The Red Badge of Courage, Night, and Hiroshima is also included.

Study is recommended for 11-12th grade students due to the amount of reading, emphasis on critical thinking and writing, as well as the content of the time period. Award either 1 American History credit or 1 World History credit as well as 1 Literature credit (general survey).

*Be sure to download the answer key prompt for Martin Gilbert’s book A History of the Twentieth Century. This is a free resource for the parent that refers to the essay prompts in the Teacher Guide.

Click here to begin an instant download of our Modern American and World History Picture Packet.

Scope and Sequence: Click here to download

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Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. And when Ji-li’s father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life.

Written in an accessible and engaging style, this page-turning, honest, and deeply personal autobiography will appeal to readers of all ages.

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Examining the intersections of Japanese and Korean history that influenced Korea-Japan relations at the time, Lost Names is at once a loving memory of family, an ethnography of Zainichi Koreans in 1930s Japan, and a vivid portrayal of human spirit in a time of suffering and survival.

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Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic “that stirs the conscience of humanity” (The New York Times).

Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, John Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told.  His account of what he discovered about them is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.

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Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand.

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This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man’s capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

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The Second World War is an exciting time for a young boy growing up in a small town in Suffolk – sometimes far too exciting! Life during wartime is vividly brought to life in this personal story filled with childhood memories – from hiding in air-raid shelters to playing in the bombed-out ruins and the arrival of American soldiers.

War Boy is a modern classic that combines a touching personal story with factual information and wonderful illustrations, from the author of War Game, After the War Was Over, Farm Boy and Billy the Kid and the illustrator of the upcoming Platinum Jubilee picture book There Once Is a Queen.

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Sister Gabriel spoke up. “The Nazis are looking for those children. If we take them we must never let on they are here. Do you understand?”

Of course the children understood—but how would they hide them if the Nazis came?

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Every element of occupied Holland is united in a story of courage and hope: a hidden Jewish child, an underdiver, a downed RAF pilot, an imaginative, daring underground hero, and the small things of family life which surprisingly carry on in the midst of oppression.

Illustrated by the author.

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Jump into the adventure and drama of 1850 to 2000 with this in-depth and literature-rich study for 11-12th grade students. This one-year study will take your student from Antebellum to modern day while covering the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Industrial Revolution, Turn of the Century, WWI, Communism, Socialism, Nazism, WWII, Korean War, Cold War, China’s Cultural Revolution, Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, modern technology, and the War on Terror. Students will read some of the best literature available on this incredible and dynamic time period by renowned authors Harper Lee, Albert Marrin, Paul Johnson, Martin Gilbert, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen Crane, Richard E. Kim, and more.

Teacher guide offers true college-prep level work. Features comprehensive study notes for each required book, discussion questions, vocabulary, web links, answer key, writing assignments, and more! Extensive study notes accompany each title with an emphasis on critical thinking, analysis, and writing.

Also included are parental warnings for mature content found in The Kite Runner as well as some recommended books and movies. Literary analysis of the hallmark titles Uncle Tom’s Cabin, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lost Names, The Red Badge of Courage, Night, and Hiroshima is also included.

Curriculum is recommended for 11-12th grade students due to the amount of reading, emphasis on critical thinking and writing, as well as the content of the time period. Award either 1 American History credit or 1 World History credit as well as 1 Literature credit (general survey).

Click here to begin an instant download of the Answer Key to the prompts for A History of the Twentieth Century by Martin Gilbert.

Scope & Sequence

The post Modern U.S. and World History – Teacher Guide (High School) appeared first on Classical Education Books.