The Causes and Effects of World War I

Nathan Smiley
9th Grade / Social Studies

Common Core Standards:

14. The causes of World War I included militarism, imperialism, nationalism and alliances.
15. The consequences of World War I and the worldwide depression set the stage for the Russian Revolution,
the rise of totalitarianism, aggressive Axis expansion and the policy of appeasement, which in turn led to
World War II.
Lesson Summary:
In this lesson students will be researching the 4 main causes of World War I. They will use the internet to find
detailed information about each cause and the role that it played for causing the war. They will use the internet
to find the 4 causes of the war and then will create a little digital poster highlighting one cause in detail. The
purpose of this lesson is to get the students to understand the 4 cause of World War I and for them to
understand the impact that the war played on the world as a result of the war.
Estimated Duration:
This lesson will take about four hours to complete. I intend on dividing the lesson into four days, with each
class period being 50 minutes long.
Commentary:
I plan on engaging the students by showing them a video about World War I and the warfare involved. I want
this to really peak their interest and to think about how all of this even started in the first place and what
happened after the war. This could be problematic because some students see history as useless because it is in
the past, but I plan on telling the students that what we learn out of this world conflict could be used one day to
help prevent another catastrophe of war by knowing how to avoid the causes of the war.

Instructional Procedures:
Day 1: We will start out the lesson by me showing the video that will capture the attention of the students. (10
min) I will then give the students there pretest to see what they already know about the causes of WWI. (10
mins) Then I will explain the assignment where the students will each get a laptop from a classroom cart and
research the 4 causes of World War I. (20 mins) To close the class, I will go over the 4 causes briefly to make
sure that they have the correct answers and remind them of the poster (PowerPoint Template) not a physical
poster that they are to create for class the following day. (10 mins)

Day 2: To start day two of the lesson, each student who did each cause will put their digital poster up for the
class to see the visual and explanation for the cause of the war. (25 mins) Allow time for questions on the
posters. (5 mins) Next, I will show them a presentation on how the war had lasting impact on the countries
involved. (10 mins) Each student will then pick a country that they want to look at a little further and research
the lasting impact on that country and create a timeline for the events involving that country in the war. ( ~10
mins of in-class work, finish for class the next day)
Day 3: Today we will look at the timeline that each student wrote out for each of the countries to see what was
happening in each country and what happened to each country at the end of the war with the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles. (25 mins) I will then lecture on the board and make sure every country gets covered in
depth and all information gets covered (15 mins). To close class, students will engage in a discussion on what
went wrong with the treaty at the end of the war and the students can discuss what they would do differently to
the treaty. (10 mins)
Day 4: Final Day: Today in class there is 2 objectives. The first thing that we will do is play a review game. I
will have multiple board games so there are no huge groups to get distracted. The game will be a review of the
causes of the war and quiz questions along the way can help the students exercise their knowledge of the
material. The game will be titled Capture the MAIN which are the first four letters of the causes of World
War I. The questions along the way will ask questions about what was happening in each country, different
events, and things the treaty did wrong. (35 mins) The last 15 minutes will be used to take the assessment
which will be an exit slip which asks the questions that the students hopefully have learned over the course
of the lesson. (15 mins)

Pre-Assessment:
The strategy I will use to assess the students previous knowledge will be a pre-quiz with questions about
WWI to gauge what the students already know and can be gone over quickly and what areas need covered
heavily. This quiz will be a nice quick little assessment where the students should not freak out about because
it wont go down as an actual grade, but should just try and answer to the best of their knowledge.
Scoring Guidelines:
To score the quiz I will simply mark which ones are marked right and which ones are wrong. If a
significant amount of the class did get that question right, then I know that I can go over that area of the
lesson at a quicker and less thorough. If a significant amount of the class got that question wrong, then
I know I really have to go over that topic in detail.
Post-Assessment:
For the post assessment the students will have an exit-slip before leaving class that day right after they play the
review game. The exit-slip will be very similar to the pre-quiz in terms of the concepts that are on it because
this will enable me to see very clearly how much the class progressed, or it might tell me I need to go back and
cover some topics again.
Scoring Guidelines:
To score the exit-slip I will go through them and mark them to see how each student did and then
compare their score from the pre-quiz to this assessment. Hopefully each student progressed
tremendously, if more students did not improve a lot, I will have to go back and go through some
material in a different way to see if the students can learn the material if I use a different method.

Differentiated Instructional Support

Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students:
To help students who are ahead and gifted I will give them an extra assignment to go and find one influential
person during World War I and to do a little research activity to enhance their experience with the material and
deepen their learning. They will get on the computer and research the person and then describe their role in the
war and what happened to them.
Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material:
For students who are struggling, I will have a little circle meet-up while I allow other students to work on their
extended research. With the struggling students, I will give them an activity, such as a websearch, where they
will go and fill out the webquest by searching the websites with the information and reading the websites and
then filling out the webquest worksheet. This will give them a firsthand experience with researching the
information and hopefully retaining the information.

Extension
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i
This link is to the History channel website where they have loads of information on World War I. Students can
go here to find a lot of interesting videos about the war. Students can click on the pictures of different people
who played a big part in the war and can find out more about that person and their role in the war. Of course,
there is also links to the different battles that happened during WWI which students usually tend to be
interested in seeing how the actual battles unfolded, especially in the trenches.

Homework Options and Home Connections

Students will complete a couple assignments outside of class. The first thing the students will do is to create a
digital poster on PowerPoint or another program to showcase one cause of WWI in more detail. They can
include visuals and what the cause contributed to the war. Another thing the students will create mostly out of
class is their timeline of a specific country during WWI and afterwards to showcase the effects of the war.
Students could create this on a piece of computer paper and display it on the elmo or to use technology they
could create their timeline on a web based program or template.

Interdisciplinary Connections
English- Research involved in this lesson will allow students to develop the skill of researching a topic and

then during class discussion, students will be able to exercise their speech ability. Research ability is very
crucial to most subjects.
Art- The students will be able to get creative on their digital posters and timelines. Students will be able to put
pictures on their digital posters and play around with the format to really personalize it and be happy with how
the finished product looks.
Ethics- With the discussion on the treaty and the failures that the treaty had, students will be able to voice their
opinion in what would be the right thing to do. They will have to think about would they be hard on Germany
or let them off easily.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

Teachers will need a board to write down the notes on, such as a SMARTboard.
Teachers will need an ELMO to project the timelines onto the board.
Teachers will need a projector to allow the students to load up their digital posters and
display for the class to see.
Teachers will need the board game to give to each group for the review game.

For students

Students will need computers to make their digital posters on a program such as
PowerPoint.
Students will need the board game to play the review game
Students will need internet access to get on the History site and research the battles and
facts

Key Vocabulary
Kaiser- The leader of Germany
Czar- The leader of Russia
Lusitania- The ship that was sunk that carried Americans
Ottoman Empire- The area of present day Turkey
Archduke Franz Ferdinand- The leader that was assassinated which was the final spark in starting the war
Militarism- The belief that a country should have a strong military

Imperialism- The expanding of a country through diplomacy or military force

Nationalism- The strong sense of pride in ones country
Treaty of Versailles- The treaty that ended the war

Additional Notes
This lesson does not take into account any disciplinary actions that may be necessary which 9th graders are
very likely to misbehave at least a little. If any interruptions occur, the lesson may last a little longer.