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Unit:
The Interwar Years,
1918-1939
Subject: World History II
Grade Level: 10th
Day of Unit: 1
Topic: The League of Nations, Treaty of Versailles, The Mandate System, and the Art/Culture of the
Interwar Period
SOL Standard: WHII.11
Kind of Lesson: Lecture, Student Reading/Research
Objective: This lesson will be taught to high school sophomores in mid-March at a high school
in Virginia. The "Interwar Years" unit will last 4 days, plus a 5th day for a test. Provided pacing
holds true, I will begin teaching students about the Great Depression/global economic depression
on the second day of the unit. Part of Virginia SOL Standard 11 is teaching students about the
Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, documents which would influence the Interwar
Period greatly and would help lay the initial groundwork for WWII. In this lesson, students will
listen to a lecture on these issues and will also learn about the art and culture of the Interwar
Period. Students will then read Woodrow Wilson's proposed Fourteen (14) Points in a critical
fashion and will be asked to answer a worksheet about the text. This worksheet will be assigned
as homework if necessary and will be collected and graded formatively (i.e. completion).
Lesson objective(s):
1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of political, economic, social, and cultural
developments during the Interwar Period by a) describing the League of Nations and the
mandate system. (SOL WHII.11).
2. Students will engage with, (critically) read, annotate, and analyze Woodrow Wilson's
14 Points to better understand why they did not necessarily work and how they are
related to the Treaty of Versailles in terms of content.
Procedure:
1. Students will listen to a lecture and take notes on the information presented. The
lecture will include the following:
I. The League of Nations
II. The Treaty of Versailles
III. The mandate system
A. A short map activity may be incorporated here to show the boundaries
of territories before/after being made mandates; displacement of ethnic
groups and religious groups, etc.
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2. Students will research the arts and culture of the Interwar Period. They will be
assigned a subject (i.e. art, music, movies, fashion, etc.) to research and present the
information to the class. Students will do this in groups.
3. Students will then begin working on an assignment on the 14 Points.
I. Students will first read the 14 Points (provided later in the lesson plan).
II. As they read the 14 Points, students are to practice critical reading strategies.
They must highlight important passages/phrases and write comments or reactions
in the margins of the text.
A. This is required for a 100 percent on the assignment. If there is no
evidence of critical reading, then that student will not be able to get full
credit on the assignment.
III. Students will then answer the corresponding questions
** This assignment may be assigned as homework should time necessitate that.
Assessment: Formative
 Presentations by groups (informal, so no official summative grade) and
questions/annotated reading on the 14 Points
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Name: _______________________________ Date: _______________________ Block: ______
Lecture Notes:
Interwar Period
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Name: ______________________________ Date: _______________________ Block: _______
Notes:
The Culture of the Interwar Period
Art in the Interwar Period
Fashion in the Interwar Period
Music in the Interwar Period
Movies in the Interwar Period
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Name: ______________________________ Date: _____________________ Block: ________
Reading:
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (8 January, 1918)
(accessed at: avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp)
It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be
absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of
any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret
covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for
moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every
public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it
possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to
avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.
We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the
quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world
secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing
peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be
made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life,
determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the
world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners
in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it
will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and
that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private
international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the
public view.
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II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace
and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the
enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an
equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating
themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the
lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based
upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the
interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the
government whose title is to be determined.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting
Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in
obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere
welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a
welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment
accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good
will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their
intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any
attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No
other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws
which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one
another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever
impaired.
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VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the
wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled
the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once
more be made secure in the interest of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable
lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see
safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored;
Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to
one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and
nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and
territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure
sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an
undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous
development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships
and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to
the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be
guaranteed by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the
purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great
and small states alike.
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In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves
to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the
Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until
the end.
For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until
they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace
such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme
does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme
that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise
such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to
block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms
or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other
peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her
only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in which we
now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.
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Name: _________________________________ Date: ___________________ Block: _____
Reading:
The Fourteen Points
(some questions adapted from: http://edsitement.neh.gov/sites/edsitement.neh.gov/files/worksheets/Wilsonianism04.pdf and
http://www.bxscience.edu/ourpages/auto/2008/5/2/1209767068823/WWI%20-%20Treaty%20of%20Versailles.pdf)
Directions: Read through the printout of Wilson's Fourteen Points attached to this worksheet.
Make sure as you are reading, you are using critical reading strategies. These include
highlighting important points and writing your own reactions or comments what you are reading
in the margins of the text. After reading, you will answer the questions below. This assignment
will be graded as a homework assignment, but you won't receive full credit unless your Fourteen
Points text has been annotated (highlighted sentences, written responses/comments, etc.).
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1. The table below shows four major goals of the Fourteen Points. On the table below,
please write which of the 14 Points discuss which of the four goals, and write down the
keywords or sentence found in the points that let you know.
1) Spreading democracy
2) Open markets
3) International
organization for peace
4) Giving the U.S. a
prominent global role
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
- Point # ___:
Evidence:
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2. What was Wilson's goal when writing/publishing the Fourteen Points? What is the
purpose of this document?
3. Who was the audience of this document?
4. In what context was this document written? What is going on in history at this time?
5. When Wilson says the treaty is "not a straightjacket, but a vehicle of life," what does he
mean?
6. Wilson states in the introduction to the 14 Points that "All the peoples of the world are in
effect partners in this interest," meaning for the 14 Points to be a success, international
cooperation is necessary. Do you think this is a realistic goal? Or is it too idealistic? Why?
7. Which THREE points would you say are the most important? Rank your top three
points and give a ONE (1) sentence explanation as to why.
1.
2.
3.
8. Wilson's 14 Points were published before the end of WWI and the drafting of the Treaty
of Versailles. Do you think the 14 Points influenced the Treaty of Versailles? Write down
any similarities between the two.