China: The Great Leap Forward

PowerPoint with five slides and two worksheets that examines Mao’s attempts to industrialise China via the First Five Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward. Reasons for the success of the First Five Year Plan are contrasted with reasons for the failure of the Great Leap Forward.

Please note that the lesson refers to collectivisation and the Great Famine but does not delve into the specific causes and consequences of these.

Activities include

• Quick Quiz starter activity focused on prior knowledge of China’s economy and Mao’s agricultural reforms.
• Reading and comprehension on the First Five Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward leading to an activity to identify differences between the two.
• Matching task on the causes of the failure of the Great Leap Forward.
• Source analysis activity on a speech by Mao on the reasons for failure of the Great Leap Forward.

Designed for the teaching of Edexcel iGCSE History 4HI1 Paper 2 Breadth Study B4 China: Conflict, Crisis and change, 1900-89.
Lesson Length: 1hr depending on pace