Teaching the History of the Vietnam Wars: A Geographic History of the Vietnam Wars

This module is part of the #AHRSyllabus project. More information about the project can be found on the AHR website under #AHRSyllabus. 

A visitor encountering a set of historical photographs that were part of the 2023 Vietnamese American Roundtable’s annual commemoration for the end of the Vietnam War in San Jose. Photo courtesy of the Vietnamese American Roundtable.

Christian C. Lentz, Elena Samkin, Vincent Pham, Duyen Tong, Chris Bunin, and Andy Mink

In this module, Christian C. Lentz provides an introduction to the aims of the module, while four high school teachers discuss their own creative teaching practices and classroom activities that have helped their students understand the Vietnam wars. Elena Samkin explores everyday experiences of war through graphic novels, Vincent Pham considers the role of ideology in shaping the conflict, Duyen Tong takes a deep dive into one of the soundscapes of the war, and Chris Bunin discusses the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to study the complex geographies of the war. Andy Mink concludes the module with a reflection on the design of inquiry-based practices that foster historical thinking.

Read the module in full here.