Leveling Up My WWII Unit: Strategies, Stories, and Tools I’m Taking Into My Classroom
Every year, I make it a personal mission to reignite my love for teaching. It’s easy to burn out in the high school classroom—especially when you’re teaching heavy, complex topics like World War II. So each year, I seek out professional development opportunities that actually inspire me, not just check a box for credit hours.
This year? I needed a deep dive. A history deep dive.
And the WWII Museum’s Summer Teacher Institute in New Orleans was exactly what my teacher soul needed.
💻 How I Got In (And How You Can Too)
I applied in early spring (late winter-ish!) after following the museum and seeing the application shared through their Calling All Teachers email list. If you want to be considered for next year’s institute, sign up for the museum’s educator email list here:
👉 WWII Museum – Calling All Teachers Email Signup
You’ll get updates, free classroom resources, and direct links to teacher program applications. Highly recommend jumping on this opportunity—it’s a game changer.
I went knowing NO ONE—but luckily, I do know my way around the WWII Museum! I felt confident walking in, and I left even more empowered.
⚜️ Louisiana’s Hidden WWII History (And Why It Blew Me Away)
We kicked off the week with an incredible deep dive into Louisiana’s WWII contributions—and let me tell you, it was MAGNIFICENT. I rarely get the chance to teach Louisiana-specific content in my U.S. History curriculum, so this session was a gold mine.
Here are just a few gems I learned:
Higgins Boats: Designed and built right in New Orleans, these amphibious crafts were crucial to the D-Day invasion and helped change the course of the war.
Storyville & Operation Booby Trap: The U.S. military took drastic (and creative) action in New Orleans to prevent the spread of disease and manage troops stationed in the city.
German POW Camps in Louisiana: Rural parts of the state housed thousands of German POWs during the war.
U-Boats off the Gulf Coast: German submarines lurked shockingly close to Louisiana’s shores, disrupting shipping routes.
It was like stepping into a local lens of a global war, and I’m walking away with stories and sources I never knew existed—but now need to share with my students.
Photo- Keely Merritt, Historic New Orleans Collection
🧠 WWII Lesson Plans That Made Me Rethink My Entire Unit
Each day, we explored ready-to-use classroom materials from the museum’s education team. These are free, high-quality lesson plans built around inquiry, primary sources, and student collaboration.
👉 You can check them out here: WWII Museum Lesson Plans
Some of my favorite tools and strategies we practiced:
🎯 Propaganda Gallery Walks
Students move through a series of WWII propaganda posters, analyzing visuals, language, and purpose. This can easily be turned into a station activity, writing prompt, or Socratic Seminar.
🕵️♀️ Inquiry-Based Simulations
Lessons are structured so that students must wrestle with real decisions—like whether or not to bomb certain targets, how to respond to Pearl Harbor, or how to support the war effort at home.
🧾 Interactive Timelines
Instead of pre-printed timelines, students build their own by researching key events, placing them on classroom displays, and making connections across different theaters of war.
🗣️ Oral History Unit (MY FAVORITE!)
Students read or watch firsthand accounts from people who lived through the war. In groups, they discuss what they would’ve done in those situations—before learning what actually happened.
It gives them empathy, agency, and an understanding that history is about real people making hard choices.
🗃️ Unforgettable Experiences & Behind-the-Scenes Moments
Beyond the classroom sessions, the workshop included one-of-a-kind experiences that no regular museum ticket can offer:
A live talk with Sylvia Murphy, who shared her childhood experiences during WWII, offering a powerful personal lens into civilian life during wartime.
A field trip to the Historic New Orleans Collection, where we studied rare documents and learned how to bring local archives into our classrooms.
An exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the WWII Macro Warehouse, where the museum stores tanks, vehicles, and artifacts that aren’t even on display. Talk about history teacher heaven!
🏆 What Is Louisiana History Day—and Why It Matters
One of the most valuable parts of the week was learning how to implement Louisiana History Day in our classrooms.
If you’ve never heard of it, Louisiana History Day is part of the nationwide National History Day (NHD) program—a yearlong, project-based competition where students choose a historical topic related to an annual theme, conduct primary and secondary research, and present their findings through one of five formats:
Exhibit
Performance
Documentary
Website
Research Paper
These projects are presented at school, regional, and state competitions, with the chance to advance to the National History Day competition in Washington, D.C.
It’s student-centered, inquiry-based learning at its finest.
And it’s perfect for Social Studies, ELA, Gifted, and even elective enrichment classes.
🔗 Learn more about the competitions here:
We explored how to scaffold the project over the school year, how to help students select topics and sources, and how to build confidence in public presentation. I’m 100% bringing this to my classroom this year!
🧳 What I’m Bringing Back to My Classroom
Before we left, each of us got to choose a full unit plan to take home—and I picked The War in the Pacific. It includes:
Daily lesson guides
Primary sources & maps
Discussion prompts and assessments
Built-in differentiation strategies for high school learners
This unit has everything I need to bring rigor, empathy, and engagement to one of the most complex topics of the 20th century.
✨ Stay Tuned—I’m Just Getting Started!
I cannot wait to bring these lessons to life in my classroom this year—and I’ll be sharing how I differentiate and adapt everything for my high schoolers as we go.
💌 Subscribe to my email list to get a front-row seat as I roll these out, reflect, and share my real-world classroom results. I’ll even be sharing a few freebies based on what I learned!
Let’s keep leveling up our teaching—one powerful unit at a time. 🖤
