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The History of Stuff is created for and by the Upper School History students of the International School of Estonia. We are a Community of Scholars.
A scholar is excited about learning. A scholar finds other scholars have conversations about history, literature, science, math, music and art. A scholar likes to share what she learns. A scholar thinks creatively. A scholar follows the light beyond the opening of the tunnel and runs into the sunlit field.
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Category Archives: World War II
Examples of Creativity
Posted in China, Revolutions, World War II
Final Assessment
Aliis’ Final Presentation
Zakk’s Final Presentation
Goal
1. Review the history of WW II.
2. Develop a presentation exhibiting:
- Your understanding of the history of WW II.
- Your personal connection to the war
Are you doing the following:
- Do you see making mistakes as a learning opportunity?
- Are you allowing yourself to: look at unconventional ideas, and are you willing to tackle extremely challenging problems without obvious solutions, despite the high potential for failure.
- Are you passionate about this project? Are you motivated, even driven, to know about objects, events, and people. Do you attempt to learn about new, unknown, or unexplained phenomena.
- Are you enjoying this activity for its own sake and not because it leads to later goals (a grade
) . Does the “flow” of the experience often lead you to lose all sense of time.
- Are you working through the uncomfortable and unfamiliar? Are you able to create something amazing without direction or rules?
Posted in World War II
World Wars: Final Assessment – AN ALTERNATE HISTORY

Alternative History
FINAL ASSESSMENTS are in!
Grace and Oliver used stop motion to solve their problem.
We historians will present an alternate history. The presentation is about the world, post World War I. It tells of an alternate history after World War I. We want to be as accurate as possible..
Student goal: revise for final exam.
Time traveler goal: create a world of peace after WW I.
“There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.” Woodrow Wilson
Creativity: Messy problem, taking risks, with few guidelines.
A successful student will work through these requirements:
How creative can you be? Are you working well together? Are you doing the following:
- Do you see making mistakes as a learning opportunity?
- Are you allowing yourself to: look at unconventional ideas, and are you willing to tackle extremely challenging problems without obvious solutions, despite the high potential for failure.
- Are you passionate about this project? Are you motivated, even driven, to know about objects, events, and people. Do you attempt to learn about new, unknown, or unexplained phenomena.
- Are you enjoying this activity for its own sake and not because it leads to later goals (a grade :)) . Does the “flow” of the experience often lead you to lose all sense of time.
- Are you working through the uncomfortable and unfamiliar? Are you able to create something amazing without direction or rules?
- Are you listening to each other? Is everyone encouraged to give ideas and those ideas are appreciated? Are doing your share of the work and/or are you letting others do their share
Step #1: Pick a team. Choose a leader. Exchange ideas.
Step # 2: Report – how you will present your alternate history: choose events to change, how come you choose those events, how will we make the change, what results could that change have, what alternate results could there be.
( more accurately, “Counterfactual History,” i.e. “The purpose of this exercise is to ascertain the relative importance of the event, incident or person the counterfactual hypothesis is negating.”)
Read about the debate on counterfactual history as to whether or not counterfactual history is a legitimate method for analyzing history. Martin Bunzl. “Counterfactual History: A User’s Guide.” The American Historical Review.
An alternate history is a fictional production that:
- Looks at history or events in the past.
- Makes an intentional change to the events of the past.
- Assesses the results of that change.
- Look at the issues: political, economic and social.
Now that you know what happened in 1937 (Asia), in 1939 (Europe) and 1941 (USA)…AND you know what the Allies did post WW II. What might the world have looked like if….
AFTER WW I: For example:
What if the United States developed a Marshall Plan system post WW II?
WHAT would the be results?
What that would work and why?
What if no war?
How would the world look today?
Posted in World War II
Asia in World War II

Map of Pacific War: http://www.emersonkent.com/images/wwii_asia.jpg
Check out this map
Posted in World War II
Seige of Leningrad
Seige of Leningrad (layered photos composed by Segei Larenkov)
- Siege of Leningrad (Wikipedia)
- 900 Day Siege
Posted in World War II