The Iron Curtain lesson

This is a lesson on the Iron Curtain Speech and explores the impact it had on post-war Soviet-Western relations. This lesson was made for KS5, and the OCR Britain 1930-1997 specification, and lasts approximately 1hr15min to 1hr30min. This lesson includes the following activities: cartoon analysis in groups, speech analysis task, group task on US/British/Russian response, Thinking Hats activity (based on Edward De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats theory), and a plenary question. Differentiation is included in this lesson by differing difficulty of cartoon, extension tasks and a scaffold table of information. Suggested timings and potential questioning is also included in the notes section of the PowerPoint.

DISCLAIMER This lesson is based on students having a prior knowledge of Churchill’s relations with the other allied leaders during the war. It is also based on the teacher/students having access to a copy of the OCR Britain 1930-1997 textbook, pupils will also need to be supplied with a copy of the Iron Curtain speech to read through.