World History · Week 26 · Totalitarianism and World War II
Why People Followed Dictators
Students analyze how disillusionment, economic despair, and fear opened the door to fascist and communist dictators and name how their own need to belong can be used by others.
- Students will
- Students analyze how disillusionment, economic despair, and fear opened the door to fascist and communist dictators and explain the factors that shaped people's perspectives.
- SEL skill
- Recognize fear and the need to belong and notice how others can use them
- What it looks like
- Students recognize emotions such as fear and the need to belong and notice how others can use them.
- Content focus
- Why people followed dictators
- Format
- Partner exchange
Self-awareness
Self-awareness means noticing your own emotions, thoughts, values, and strengths and seeing how they shape what you do. More self-awareness activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- 10.6.3: CA History Social Science Content Standard, Grade 10: World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World (standard 10.6, item 3)
- CA HSS Analysis Skill: HI1 Show the connections between particular historical events and larger social, economic, and political trends. (Historical Interpretation)
- C3 Framework (national): D2.His.4.9-12 Analyze the complex and interacting factors that influenced people's perspectives during different historical eras.
- Literacy in history: RH.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas of a primary or secondary source and summarize them accurately.
Fits these textbook chapters
- History Alive! World Connections, Lesson 18: Era Overview: Global Crisis and Achievement, 1900 to 1945
- History Alive! World Connections, Lesson 23: The Rise of Fascism and Totalitarian States
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More self-awareness activities for World History
- Becoming a Historian Self-awarenessStudents meet ancient thinkers in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem who asked what a person owes others, then name the questions and curiosity they bring to history as young historians.
- Ideas That Start Revolutions Self-awarenessStudents connect the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Bolívar to the revolutions they inspired and name the beliefs that drive their own choices.
- Why Empires Expanded Self-awarenessStudents analyze how markets, resources, national rivalry, and beliefs of superiority drove the new imperialism and examine assumptions about who is better than whom.
- Mapping Colonial Rule Self-awarenessStudents study maps of Africa and Asia before and after colonial rule and name the feelings that arise when borders are drawn by outsiders.
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RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.