Real Life Risk

In World History, about 4,000 years is covered in a year. One of the most confusing issues for students to comprehend is the policy of imperialism and the need for law and order. Students will be split into cooperative learning groups ranked by learning abilities. They will then have to sketch out the perfect country as they see it. When they have sketched out their country they then will make a poster to be presented by the group to the class. They will have to defend why it is "perfect" to the rest of the other countries. When each of the groups have presented, they will again get into their groups and decide how best they can imperialize one or more of the other countries. They will draw on weaknesses of each country and plan out an attack. The goal is to conquer all of the countries, which will lead to world domination. At the conclusion of the lesson, I would use response pads to elicit feedback about why we need governments, armies, and laws.