- How to Use This Curriculum Guide
- Download the Pacing Guide and Extra Projects as a PDF
- World History II Pacing Guide
- Additional Videos and Open Stax Reading
- Unit 7 Projects
- Unit 8 Projects
- Unit 9 Projects
- End of Course Projects
How to Use This Curriculum Guide
This World History II course guide is designed to guide you and your learner through world history step by step, blending the OER Project curriculum with supplemental resources from OpenStax, Khan Academy, extra projects from RHL, and carefully selected multimedia. Here’s how to get started:
1. Preview the Week-by-Week Breakdown
- Each week’s lessons, readings, and activities are organized for you but you can choose to complete them on the OER website OR you can use the khan academy links to complete them there.
- Choose which of our weekly breakdowns work best for your family or feel free to adjust if your learner needs more or less time on a topic.
2. Set Up Your OER Project Teacher Account (optional, but recommended)
- Go to the OER Project website and create a free teacher account.
- This will give you access to:
- Answer keys for OER Project activities.
- Teaching guides and strategies.
- Extra background information to help you confidently guide discussions.
3. Use the Alignment Chart (optional)
- The alignment chart shows how OER Project’s lessons connect with OpenStax readings and YouTube videos
- This allows you to build a strong backbone (OER lessons) and then add depth and variety through additional resources.
4. Preview or Watch Multimedia with Your Student
- Some of the linked videos may include content that isn’t suitable for every learner.
- Please pre-watch or watch alongside your child so you can decide what fits best.
- Treat videos as discussion starters. Pause to ask questions, make connections, or clarify.
5. Incorporate Enrichment Projects (Optional)
- Rabbit Hole Learning’s enrichment projects are original and separate from OER Project.
- These projects are optional, but they encourage deeper exploration, critical thinking, and creativity.
6. Take Notes and Encourage Discussion
- Encourage your student to keep a history notebook or digital document where they summarize readings, answer questions, or reflect on what they’ve learned.
- Use the guiding questions provided in the OER Project lessons to spark meaningful discussion.
7. Adapt to Your Needs
- The curriculum is flexible. You can add more primary sources, assign extra writing, or shorten lessons as needed.
- The goal isn’t just to memorize dates, but to see the big picture of history and how events, people, and ideas connect across time.
8. Sharing Your Journey
- We love seeing how families use this curriculum! If you post about your history journey on social media, make sure to tag our social media accounts so we can celebrate and share your work.
- Tagging helps us build a community of learners and inspires other families along the way!
- Use our hashtag: #RabbitHoleLearning
- Show off student projects, notebooks, or discussion moments!
Download the Pacing Guide and Extra Projects as a PDF
World History II Pacing Guide
Additional Videos and Open Stax Reading
This alignment chart connects the OER Project curriculum with additional resources from OpenStax textbooks, and selected YouTube videos. The goal is to provide both the strong, structured backbone of OER Project lessons and opportunities to extend learning through supplemental readings, and multimedia.
- While chosen to enrich and support the curriculum, some may include content or language that are not suitable for every learner.
- Please pre-watch or watch alongside your child to decide what is appropriate for your specific student.
- Use the videos as conversation starters: pause, ask questions, and encourage your learner to connect what they see back to the OER lessons.
- Find something you think I should add? Find something you think doesn’t fit RHL’s values? Email me at admin@rabbitholelearning.org
OpenStax | Free Textbooks Online with No Catch (Part 2)
Unit 7 Projects
Project Idea 1: Freedom Audit
Big Idea: The Long Nineteenth Century reshaped ideas about liberty, but not everyone experienced freedom equally. Investigate how freedom changed for different groups during this period.
Steps:
- Choose one group in one region (examples: factory workers in Britain, formerly enslaved people in Haiti, colonized people in India, or individuals who challenged gender roles and expectations).
- Research how political, economic, and social conditions changed for this group.
- Identify what freedoms increased, decreased, or stayed limited.
Analyze at least one major event (revolution, industrialization, or imperialism) that impacted this group. - Create a final product (essay, slides, or podcast) answering: Did this era make life freer for this group?
Project Idea 2: Industrial Revolution Then and Now
Big Idea: The Industrial Revolution reshaped society, labor, and the environment. Compare two societies with different industrialization paths.
Steps:
- Research industrialization in two regions (e.g., Britain vs. Egypt, or Japan vs. India).
- Create a comparison showing similarities and differences in outcomes.
- Analyze how geography, resources, and politics shaped each path.
- Include a section on how industrialization affected workers, women, and the poor.
- Reflect: Was industrialization a benefit or a burden? For whom?
Project Idea 3: Reform Movement Campaign
Big Idea: Industrialization sparked global movements demanding better rights. Design a reform campaign for a 19th-century cause.
Steps:
- Choose a reform movement (abolition, labor rights, women’s suffrage, child labor, etc.).
- Research the movement’s goals, key figures, strategies, and outcomes.
- Design a campaign including: a pamphlet, a speech or petition, and a poster.
- Present the campaign and explain what change was achieved or why it fell short.
Project Idea 4: Voices of the Colonized
Big Idea: Industrial imperialism reshaped the world through conquest and resistance. Amplify voices that are often excluded from standard narratives.
Steps:
- Choose a colonized region (e.g., India, Africa, Southeast Asia).
- Research the impact of colonization on daily life, culture, and economy.
- Write 3–4 first-person diary entries or letters from the perspective of someone living under colonial rule.
- Include at least one account of a resistance effort.
- Reflect on the long-term legacies of this period.
Unit 8 Projects
Project 1: War Reporter Archive
Big Idea: The World Wars were documented by journalists, photographers, and soldiers. Create a primary-source archive from the perspective of a war reporter.
Steps:
- Choose a specific theater or event from WWI or WWII.
- Write 3–5 news reports covering the experience of soldiers and civilians.
- Include a photo caption section describing real or imagined images from the conflict.
- Add an editorial analyzing the causes or consequences of the war in that region
- Reflect on what the archive reveals about the human cost of global conflict.
Project 2: Rise of Totalitarianism Explainer
Big Idea: The Great Depression and post-WWI instability created conditions for authoritarian regimes to rise. Investigate how and why this happened.
Steps:
- Choose one totalitarian regime (Nazi Germany, Stalinist USSR, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan).
- Create an explainer document or visual guide covering: causes, ideology, key events, and consequences.
- Include at least two primary source quotes from leaders or citizens of the era.
- Analyze: What conditions make authoritarianism possible? Are those conditions ever present today?
Project 3: Holocaust Remembrance Project
Big Idea: The Holocaust was a systematic genocide that demands careful study and commemoration. Create a respectful, evidence-based project.
Steps:
- Research one aspect of the Holocaust (the camps, bystanders and rescuers, global response, survivor stories).
- Create a commemorative visual exhibit.
- Include primary source evidence (testimonies, documents, images with permission).
- Reflect on the phrase “Never Again” and its relevance today.
Project Idea 4: Turning Point Investigation
Big Idea: The twentieth century’s global conflicts were shaped by key decisions and conditions. Investigate how different choices might have changed history.
Steps:
- Choose a major event (WWI outbreak, rise of a totalitarian regime, a WWII decision, or a Cold War crisis).
- Research the long-term and immediate causes leading to this moment.
- Identify key decisions made by leaders or groups.
- Analyze the consequences of those decisions.
- Develop an alternative scenario showing what might have happened if different choices were made.
- Present your findings (timeline, case study, essay, or visual project) answering: Could this event have turned out differently?
Unit 9 Projects
Project 1: Globalization Scorecard
Big Idea: Globalization has produced enormous economic growth—and deep inequality. Students evaluate its costs and benefits from multiple perspectives.
Steps:
- Create a “scorecard” rating globalization across 5 categories: economy, culture, environment, human rights, and technology.
- For each category, provide one positive and one negative example with evidence.
- Include perspectives from both the Global North and Global South.
- Conclude with a personal verdict: Is globalization, on balance, good or bad?
Project 2: The Great Acceleration Timeline
Big Idea: The second half of the 20th century saw explosive growth in human activity and its impact on Earth. Students map and analyze this acceleration.
Steps:
- Create a visual timeline showing key markers of the Great Acceleration (population growth, CO₂ emissions, deforestation, urbanization, internet adoption, etc.).
- Annotate at least 6 events or data points with explanations of cause and effect.
- Include a section connecting the Great Acceleration to climate change.
- Reflect: What responsibility do different nations and generations bear?
Project 3: Global Identity Portrait
Big Idea: Globalization has transformed cultural identity. Students examine how individuals navigate global and local identities.
Steps:
- Interview a family member, community member, or yourself about how global forces (immigration, technology, media, trade) have shaped their identity.
- Research a cultural exchange or tension related to globalization (e.g., spread of fast food, loss of indigenous languages, K-pop, etc.).
- Create a visual or written “identity portrait” showing global and local influences.
- Reflect on the tension between nationalism and global citizenship.
Project 4: The Anthropocene Debate
Big Idea: Are humans causing a new geological epoch? Investigate the evidence and debate what humanity should do about it.
Steps:
- Research the evidence for the Anthropocene: species extinction, climate change, ocean acidification, plastic pollution.
- Present two opposing positions
- Include data visualizations or infographics showing human impact on Earth systems.
- Conclude with a personal action plan: What can individuals, communities, and governments do?
End of Course Projects
Project 1: Then and Now – How the Modern World Was Made
Big Idea: Trace the origins of a modern phenomenon back through history covered in Units 7–9.
Steps:
- Choose a modern reality (e.g., smartphone, climate crisis, democracy, global inequality, social media).
- Trace its roots through the Long Nineteenth Century, Global Conflicts, and Globalization.
- Create a visual timeline or illustrated essay showing the connections.
- Include at least one turning point from each unit (7, 8, and 9).
- Present as a poster, short video, or interactive timeline.
Project 2: Alternate History – What If?
Big Idea: Consider how history might have changed if one major event or development had gone differently.
Steps:
- Choose a key turning point from Units 7–9 (e.g., if WWI had been avoided, if decolonization had happened earlier, if the Industrial Revolution had been greener).
- Create an alternate timeline where this event never occurred or had a different outcome.
- Show ripple effects across political, economic, social, and environmental developments.
- Present as a podcast, comic, storybook, video, or timeline poster.
Project 3: Museum of the Modern World
Big Idea: Curate a museum exhibit exploring the major forces that shaped the modern world.
Steps:
- Curate 5–7 “exhibits” — one from each major theme in WH II (revolution, industrialization, imperialism, global war, Cold War, globalization, climate).
- Each exhibit includes an artifact or image, a description, and an explanation of its significance.
- Must include at least two exhibits from a non-Western society.
- Present as a virtual exhibit or slideshow.
Project 4: History Remix – Playlist of the Present
Big Idea: Synthesize key themes in modern history through storytelling and pop culture analogies.
Steps:
- Create a 10-song playlist where each track represents a major development, theme, or group from Units 7–9 (e.g., “What a Wonderful World” for globalization’s promises).
- For each song, write a brief explanation (liner notes) connecting lyrics or tone to historical content.
Project 5: Global Citizen Report Card
Big Idea: Reflect on what you have learned and assess the state of the world they are inheriting.
Steps
- Create a “report card” grading humanity on key challenges: democracy, human rights, climate action, global inequality, and peace.
- For each category, provide historical context from WH II explaining how we got here.
- Include evidence for your grade (data, examples, events).
- Conclude with a “goals for the future” section: What would it take to improve each grade?
Project 6: A Life That Didn’t Fit the Rules
Big Idea: Throughout history, some people lived in ways that challenged society’s expectations about gender, identity, and relationships. Their experiences reveal how freedom and identity have been shaped by culture, law, and power.
Steps:
- Choose one historical person whose life challenged gender roles or expectations about relationships.
- Research their life and historical context (time period, location, major events happening around them).
- Identify the expectations or “rules” they were living under (laws, cultural norms, religion, gender roles).
- Analyze how they navigated those rules: Did they resist, hide, adapt, or create space for themselves?
- Examine how society responded to them (acceptance, punishment, erasure, etc.).
- Create a final product (essay, slides, visual profile, or short narrative) answering:
What does this person’s life reveal about freedom and identity in their time?
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