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Teaching The Vietnam War

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  • Activities: 6
  • Quiz Questions: 23

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Your students are no strangers to controversial wars, but they might need to brush up on their Vietnam War history. While you're not in danger of sending a nation to war (we hope), we'll make sure you don't make any other unnecessary mistakes.

In this guide you will find

  • lessons that analyze quotes, videos, and documents from the time period.
  • an activity showing students that Jane Fonda is more than just the babe from the work-out tapes.
  • discussion questions to put history into context.

And much more.

What's Inside Shmoop's History Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring history to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 3-5 Common Core-aligned activities (including quotation, image, and document analysis) to complete in class with your students, with detailed instructions for you and your students. 
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.
  • Reading quizzes to be sure students are looking at the material through various lenses.
  • Resources to help make the topic feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.
  • A note from Shmoop's teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the topic and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching The Vietnam War?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: The American press chronicled the Vietnam War more thoroughly than previous wars. Taped footage from the front aired nightly on the news, and American newspapers and magazines provided graphic images of the character and the costs of the war in Vietnam.

In this activity, your students will examine some of these images and consider their effect on the American public—especially as the war dragged on and questions about American policy increased.

Length of Lesson: One class period. 

Materials Needed: 

Step One: Ask your students to examine each of the images above. For each image, they should write a sentence or two about how it might have affected public perceptions of the war.

Step Two: When everyone is done, go through the images together and ask students to share their thoughts.

Step Three: Play the NPR story "The Vietnam War, Through Eddie Adams' Lens" for your students. This story discusses the photo of the Vietnamese general executing a soldier. 

Step Four: After listening to the story, revisit the last photo together and discuss how their perceptions of the image may have changed. You may ask them:

  • Did learning the background of the photo change anyone's reaction to it at all? If so, how?
  • What does this tell you about the power of photos and the role they can (or should) play in helping people to understand events?

Instructions for Your Students

We're going to take you back in time for a second. Ready? If not, listen to this dreamy harp sound effect. Okay. Now we're good to go.

  • It's 1965. The country has been to war many times, but you've never seen TV images or live coverage it before. There's no Call of Duty, no Game of Thrones, no live Tweeting, and the media has never really gotten into plastering images of the wounded or dead across newspaper covers or TV screens. In short, it's a very different world...which is about to change.

American reporters had covered earlier wars, but never as extensively or graphically as they did during the Vietnam War. The nightly news included regular reports from the front, and newspapers and magazines provided thousands of images.

You will be examining some of these today as you think about how they might have affected the American public—especially as the war dragged on and questions about American policy increased.

Step One: Examine each of the images below. For each image, write a sentence or two about how it might have affected public perceptions of the war.

Step Two: When everyone has finished their sentences, go through the images with the rest of your class. Share your thoughts and listen to what your classmates came up with.

Step Three: Listen to the NPR story "The Vietnam War, Through Eddie Adams' Lens" with your teacher and classmates. This story discusses the photo of the Vietnamese general executing a soldier. 

Step Four: After listening to the story, revisit the last photo with the rest of your class. Did learning the background of the photo change your reaction to it at all? If so, how? What does this tell you about the power of photos and the role they can (or should) play in helping people to understand events?