Lesson Title: Important leaders of World War II
Objective: The students will be able to identify major leaders of both the Allied and Axis powers
from military to political leaders.
Sequence:
I will begin by telling the students that we will be going to the computer lab to do
research on major leaders of World War II. The students will be instructed to get into groups of
two or three and each group will do in-depth research on one leader using the Internet for a
short presentation they will prepare. The leaders that are available for them to research are
Franklin D. Roosevelt of the U.S., Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, Adolf Hitler of
Germany, Benito Mussolini of Italy, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, Hideki Tojo of Japan,
and Charles de Gaulle of the Free French. I will be around to answer questions and approve
websites.
To keep their research organized, the students will input the information they find into an
Excel spreadsheet, which will be turned in to me when they give their presentation. In their
spreadsheet, they must have the following information:

A short biography

The form of government each leader was involved in and their official title

What happened to each individual and their respective countries at the end of the war

Pros and cons of each individual

Laws and legislation enacted while that person was in office
Any other information added will be at the discretion of the student.
The students will have the entire class period to do research as well as the next class
period. After all their information has been collected, each group will prepare a PowerPoint
presentation about their respective leader. Use of images is required and short video clips of
speeches given by each leader are encouraged, but not required since they might be hard to find
outside of YouTube. Instead of filling the PowerPoint with a bunch of text, the students will
create an outline on Word that they will distribute to the class. To ensure the students are paying
attention during the presentations, they will be required to insert blank spots that their classmates
will have to fill out while watching the presentation. Students will then use Audacity and
Camtasia to make a short video of their presentation which the class will view.
Assessment: Classmates will ‘grade’ the PowerPoint presentations and then I will factor the
classes’ thoughts into the final grade.