I spent Wednesday with a great group of middle and high school teachers, talking about the best ways to engage kids in thinking historically. A good chunk of the day focused on using primary and secondary sources. I always have fun being a part of history teachers sharing ideas and resources. Kenny Holthaus of Royal Valley HS shared a site I hadn’t seen before that documents some awesome World War II propaganda posters.
I’ve added it to my growing collection of propaganda resources. I’ve included some of those sites below as well as a few lesson plans that might be useful. A simple exercise is to have kids compare two images of the same topic from different periods or different countries.
The first picture below is an US poster from World War II urging Americans to be careful what they say. (It’s from the US Air Force collection.) The second is a similar image from the same period but from a German perspective. (You can find it and others at the German Propaganda Archive below.)
(You can start by going to my Delicious page tagged “propaganda.”)
Lesson Plans
Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda? Analyzing World War II Posters
World War II Powers of Persuasion (National Archives)
Critical Inquiry of Propaganda Posters from World War I
Anne Frank & the Holocaust – Josef Goebbels and Nazi Propaganda
General Resources
World War Two Resources
World War II posters (US Air Force)
National Socialist Posters (posters good, web site probably biased)
World War II propaganda, cartoons, film, music, art
World War One Resources
Propaganda Postcards of the Great War
First World War Propaganda Posters