Lesson Idea: Make-Your-Own Propaganda Poster

Throughout history, especially the parts of history you'll be teaching in your classroom, there have been conflicts between 2 or more groups of people. Usually, to justify starting a war to destroy the other group, Group A would make posters and videos to smear Group B and make them look bad to the unassuming public, called propaganda. Most of the time, it worked, and today we're left with colorful and grim reminders of how manipulative a country can become to force an issue (specifically WWII-era US). But your students can benefit from using this tactic of war to learn about a historical event and get a good grade! (Boy, isn't that a little tasteless?) Make-Your-Own Propaganda is a refreshing view on how boring historical conflicts can be connected to the partially modern world, and the best part is, you get to draw!

Supplies:

• Pencils
• Markers or Colored Pencils (no Crayons)
• 3 ft.X 2 ft. Paper
• History Textbooks/Internet Connection

Before you can even get started, you'll have to choose events from history to use as propaganda pieces. Oh, and they can only come from pre-WWI era history. Why, you may be asking? Well, while propaganda has been evident throughout all of history, the point of this project is for students to make modern-yet-historically correct propaganda, which means using modern propaganda images (like Uncle Sam) for ancient conflicts (like the Hundred Years' War). In even simpler terms, the past used very drab looking propaganda, but your students need to make theirs POP. I suggest finding at least 10 events in history for the students to study.

First, assign the students 1 of the 10 events you have chosen (let's use the Civil War as an example). Tell the students they have a certain amount of time to gather information on that conflict before they begin making the posters, and should include the following information: Groups Involved, 3 Reasons for Conflict, Context for Propaganda, and Dates (if needed). For instance, on a propaganda poster of the Civil War, I would mention that the Northern Union needed help fighting the Southern Confederacy, because the South wanted to keep slaves, disobey the rights of other states, and encroach on Constitutional law. The poster could have a copyright of 1863 in the corner, and mention the Battle of Gettysburg, which had happened that very year.

(Side note: I know it's hard to visualize this poster through words, but I don't have a copy of one to show you. That's what I get for coming up with an idea on my own).

Next, after all of the information the students need has been gathered, tell them to start drawing! However, THEY CANNOT COPY AN ALREADY EXISTING POSTER. By this I mean that if the students simply trace over a poster and change words around, without any effort to make it look like it came from the era the conflict is from, like using Uncle Sam for the War of 1812 (an era where the female Columbia more greatly represented the US) grade them a zero. If they aren't going to put the time into this project to make it look acceptable, you shouldn't have to waste your time grading it. But if a student, say, traced Uncle Sam and made him look like Abraham Lincoln for the Civil War, that's fine, because they made a conscious effort to contextualize the poster (one of the main pieces of information). Have them first draw then color the poster, and have them turn it in for grade.

Finally, after all the posters are graded, you could hang them together in like groups for the students to see. After all, it is their hard work! Now the kids should also have better knowledge of a conflict and why it happened, and a way people tried to convert people to their points of view! Who would've ever said that propaganda could be fun?

-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep