Planning for the Future to Teach About the Past

Unit planning for teaching any discipline can be a very difficult endeavor. However, I think that planning in social studies and in history in particular has it's own set of challenges that may not be encountered in other disciplines. Social studies teachers need to always be prepared to engage in debate and answer questions about topics where there is not only one truth or a hand-full of truths. This is especially true for my unit plan, which covers the period of European history between 1870 and 1914. The big concepts being addressed in my unit plan include nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, and irredentism. The "big idea" of this unit is "I can identify the causes and effects of nationalism on Europe in the period between 1870 and 1914." I am still working out a summative assessment, but formative assessments so far are made up of primary source analysis. I would like to incorporate a game and some historiography work as formatives as well. This unit is meant to be a mile wide and an inch deep since we will need to cover German unification, Italian unification, the second industrial revolution/militarization, African colonization, Asian colonization, Balkan Independence, and, finally, the causes of World War One.