Examining the Korean War

Review

This is a simple, straightforward lesson that not only provides students with the opportunity to analyze causes of the Korean War, but also supplies an excellent opportunity to teach some fundamental principles of historical thinking—namely, that textbooks are historical sources written from a specific point of view, and that differing perspectives produce contrasting narratives of historical events. The lesson begins with a brief discussion of reasons that textbooks—especially textbooks from different countries—might offer differing accounts of the same event. After a brief background lecture on the Korean War [supplemented by slides available here (under lesson 4)], students read two conflicting textbook accounts of the start of the war, and answer a set of guiding questions. The guiding questions are especially helpful at directing students beyond the superficial differences between the documents, encouraging them to pay attention to specific language that might make one document more or less trustworthy than the other. Finally, students are asked to hypothesize which passage came from a North Korean textbook, and which came from a South Korean textbook, again citing specific passages of text to support their hypothesis. One of the greatest strengths of this lesson is the degree to which it is anchored in the documents, and keeps bringing students back to the text itself. Often, students can state an overall sense or impression left by a document, but have difficulty articulating exactly what about the document created that impression. This lesson requires students to zero in on specific language within the text that achieves the authors’ purpose and ultimately reveals something about the source of the document.