How did Chairman Mao Change China? - Full Lesson

The aim of the lesson is for the students to judge how much Chairman Mao Zedong changed China. It is useful as a stand-alone lesson on China, as part of a greater Cold War scheme of work, or in conjunction with my other China lessons (where this forms the first part).

• Lesson begins with a source analysis of the carving up of China.

• Then students’ knowledge of China is discussed with a Round Robin activity.

• Students will then learn about the background of Communism in China, with the Century of Humiliation (including colonisation, the Opium Wars and China in WWII) being analysed.

• The main task is looking at the problems the ‘New China’ faced and how Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party set about fixing them. This looks at economic growth in the First and Second Five Year Plans, analyses GDP growth and military threats to China, including the Korean War and US involvement in Vietnam.

• The lesson concludes with an extended writing activity with the students writing about the changes they have seen under the leadership of the CCP in a letter; allowing students to make their own assumptions and judgements on the class content.

• Some key words and phrases from the lesson:

  • Century of Humiliation
  • Opium War
  • Ideology
  • Economy
  • Five Year Plan
  • GDP
  • Korean War
  • Vietnam War

This is a fully resourced lesson including a PowerPoint as well as documents for printing.