(Page 19 of 28) - Assuming Identities, Enhancing Understanding: Applying Simulation Principles to Research Projects authored by Williams, Victoria.

APPENDIX B: PROJECT GUIDELINES

Cold War Project Guidelines

The year is 1945, and the United States has just accepted the Japanese surrender. World
War II has officially ended, and, although most people don’t realize the change that will
be happening in their lives, a new era has been entered: the Atomic Age. The Atomic
Age will be dominated by the nuclear arms race and fear of nuclear war, the Cold War
conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, the ideological struggle of
communism versus democracy, and dramatic social changes in the United States. This
project will help you gain a greater appreciation for how these events permeated the
culture and impacted individual lives. This is an on-going, multi-part project.

Overview of the Assignment:
You will have to ‘become’ a character. The character will be assigned to you, and you
will have to do cultural research to understand what the character saw and did, felt and
cared about. You will have some latitude in determining the direction of the character,
but the assignments have been chosen to reflect the diversity of experiences of
Americans. You must remain faithful to that experience, as your character will represent
the broader experiences of the cultural sub-group of which he or she is a part.

The Projects:
For each period we study you must turn in a paper or project that traces the developments
of the period and how they impact ‘you.’ Your papers must be well-integrated works that
reflect on more than just one episode or event, although if you can convincingly argue
that one event was most likely to resonate with your character (for instance, if your
character gets sent off to Vietnam), then focusing on that is fine. The papers must be as
long as you need to adequately reflect on the events in the life of your character and to
give an in-depth feeling for what he or she is experiencing and thinking about the world
around them. For at least the first paper, I will not specify a page-length, because I want
to give you flexibility in how you approach the project and do not want to put constraints
on your creativity.

Because the goal is for you to develop a sophisticated understanding of and feel for the
era, you are required to rely mostly on primary documents for information and research.
You are required to use magazines from the resources available at the Reading Public
Library (see attached). You should include the list of magazines and articles (or any
other interesting information you gathered) in a bibliography. You may also check out
newspapers from the era (Reading Eagle or New York Times). You may look at movies,
listen to music, watch re-runs of TV shows on Nick at Night, even read novels or books
that reflect on the times. I have some resources that you can borrow. You are
encouraged to interview people who lived at that time to ask them what they remember
thinking or feeling. Look carefully at the pictures, advertisements, and language of the
times. What do they tell you about ‘your’ life? One thing you cannot do is avoid talking
about the major cultural, scientific, political, or international events. Even though some
characters may be more interested or caught up in the dramatic events of the Cold War,
every character should be interested in what is going on and reflect on how it could