≡

Lesson Plan Library

Free Lesson Plans for Teachers

WHDE offers a set of free resources for teachers to help students better understand Korea. The lesson plans cover a variety of topics including geography, religion, economic development, culture, history, and the Korean War. Search our archive of lessons plans by topic, skill or grade level. You can find more teaching resources on the Korean War on the Korean War Legacy Foundation website. Visit teachingaboutnorthkorea.org to find lesson plans and activities for teaching about North Korea.

 
Skills
 
Topics

Showing 21 - 30 of 84 lesson plans:

Geomancy: The Power of Place

old map

The main focus of this lesson centers on how humans shape and are shaped by the places chosen to develop communities. In Korean culture geomancy plays a major role in shaping communities. Based on a system of beliefs similar to Chinese feng shui, Korea’s pungsu-jiri focuses on creating harmony with nature and is the basis of the formation of what we know today as Seoul. Similarly, throughout the United States and other areas of the world, humans interact with place in a way that illustrates each societies ideals and priorities. In these lessons, the students will examine the similarities and differences between Seoul and Washington, D.C. as they come to understand how physical and human characteristics of places are connected to human identities and cultures.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Anthony Roy

Grades: Middle (6-8)

Time: Three 50-minute classes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2018

Skills: Comparison

Topics: Geomancy

Get to Know a Korean War Veteran

Medal of Honor

This lesson will help students and multilingual students know the significance of U.S. forces and other soldiers from the 22 nations that participated in the Korean War and the impact of their service, along with some of them receiving the Medal of Honor from their actions. The students will be tasked with helping a local author with researching for their book on veterans and the awards they received from participating in the war. The students will learn about the spotlighted soldiers. These soldiers will tell their story through videos and articles written about them. Students will be using citations and videos from The Korean War Legacy Foundation, the Medal of Honor Foundation, and The 22: Korean War International Legacy websites. Students will flow through the WebQuest and will be asked to click on a hyperdoc. This hyperdoc will ask the students to go deeper into the stories of Tibor Rubin and Hiroshi Mayamura. After reading the citations and watching the videos, students will be asked to fill in graphic organizers on good character traits that the soldiers displayed. This will lead into the student’s learning about the assignment that will be a formative assessment project. Students will be tasked in researching and creating a presentation that will be shown to the local author writing a book on soldier life in the Korean War.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Heather Brindle

Grades: Middle (6-8)

Time: 3 class periods, 75 minutes each

Participation Year: Fellowship 2024

Skills: Analysis

Topics: ESOL World History, World History

History Beyond the Textbook

video frame of man with glasses

Students will learn about the improtance of oral histories as they relate to the Korean War.

Download:

PDFWordPowerPoint

Author: Jennifer Madden

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: 90 minutes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2020

Skills: Analysis

Topics: Korean War

Honoring Korean War Veterans

black and white photo of bugler in military cemetery

This lesson will allow students to apply the information they have learned about the Korean War and develop a medium to honor the sacrifices of Korean War Veterans. The lesson will be the culminating activity on the study of the Korean War. It is designed to develop empathy and understanding of sacrifice and need to honor veterans.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Bobbie Downs

Grades: Middle (6-8)

Time: Three- five 40-minute classes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2018

Skills: Analysis, Presentation

Topics: Korean War, Veterans

How do Viewpoints of North and South Korean Reunification Differ Today?

Korea and the Cold War

This lesson is accessible to students with little to no English. It includes many images and modified readings. In this lesson, the students will learn about why the Korean War is still very topical and how it affects millions of people today. This lesson assesses differing viewpoints on the idea of reunifying the two Koreas. It also assesses current discussions on reunification.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Ann Krois

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: 90 minutes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2024

Skills: Analysis

Topics: US History, World History

How Do We Memorialize a “Forgotten War”?

white statues of soliders in field

This lesson helps students answer the question, “How do we choose to remember and memorialize people and events from history?”

Download:

PDFWordPowerPoint

Author: India Meissel

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: 90 minutes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2020

Skills: Analysis

Topics: Korean War

Innovation in Early Modern Korea

metal artifact

Much of East Asian History focuses on China and Japan. Korea is often an afterthought, or taught as a tributary state under the influence of China. Also, much of Korean History is taught with a modern lens, where Korea is a victim of China and Japan. This lesson will introduce students to the cultural achievements of Korea during its Early Modern Era, showing that Korea has important cultural achievements of its own and is not always influenced by other cultures, but has its own history. It will focus on Moveable Type Printing, King Sejong and Hangul, Admiral Yi and Turtle Ships, and citizen governance under the Joseon. These topics tie into the Iowa Standards about cultural advancement as well as those about individuals impacting history. They also tie into change over time and causation standards in the C3 Framework.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Kelsey Hudson

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: 2 45-minute classes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2019

Skills: Continuity, Inquiry

Topics: Jikji, King Sejong

International Conflicts

three soldiers with rifles jumping over wall

In this lesson, students analyze secondary source documents in an effort to answer the central historical question: Who started the Korean War? The teacher begins by first explaining that textbooks can be biased sources and then uses a brief PowerPoint to show the geography of Korea and why/when war began there. Students then form pairs and read 2 accounts of the war: one from a South Korean textbook and another from a North Korean book. For both, students not only summarize and answer questions, but they must identify which source is which (North or South Korea?) and use textual details to prove it. In a class discussion, students share their answers. Students will also study the Montford Point Marines. They exceeded expectations and served tenaciously in the Korean War. These African American men were finally recognized by Congress and received the Gold Medal of Honor as a group on June 28, 2012. Guest speaker will be an academic coach from the school whose father served in the war and she has several primary documents to share with the students about her father’s experience in the war. Our school is primarily African American so I must incorporate the Montford Point Marines in this lesson, especially since a relative of a Korean War veteran works at the school. The conversation will lend itself to African Americans serving in a war and returning home to constant racism.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Valencia Robinson

Grades: Middle (6-8)

Time: Five 45-minute classes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2018

Skills: Analysis

Topics: Korean War

Japanese Occupation of Korean Peninsula

Graphic of national/state standards

In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to evaluate primary and secondary sources related to the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula. Students will read a document giving background and context to the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula. This will allow students to draw connections between this sphere of influence and others throughout the world that Europeans had created. Students can compare and contrast Japanese occupation to that of European in Africa, for example. The activity breaks the occupation into 6 categories of Korean society and how each was influenced or impacted by the Japanese during occupation. Students will have the opportunity to evaluate patterns that might have emerged within these 6 categories, and can determine if certain areas of Korean society were impacted more than others. Students will get first hand accounts of the occupation and what life was like for Koreans during the time period.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Nolan Stearns

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: 1-2 Class Periods

Participation Year: Fellowship 2024

Skills: Comparison

Topics: AP World History, World History

K-Pop and Globalization

street scene at night with crowd and neon signs

This lesson will allow students to explore the concept of globalization and how it has impacted Korean culture by examining the Kpop phenomenon and how it has been influenced by other cultures.

Download:

PDFWord

Author: Bonnie Lewis

Grades: Secondary (9-12)

Time: Three-five 50-minute classes

Participation Year: Fellowship 2018

Skills: Evaluation

Topics: Globalization, K-Pop

1 2 3 4 5 … 9