I've been asked to teach a middle school history elective course for the last hour on Fridays for 7 weeks. This is a supplement to what their "normal" history courses cover in their curriculum, so I'm trying to either deep dive into something that gets glossed over in the usual curriculum or is a subject that isn't covered at all. By chance (or elective), I've ended up with 12 middle school boys in the course. These guys are more interested in covering conflict so I'm trying to tailor the last few courses toward that.
So far I've covered:
The History of Rock and Roll (covering the African/southern roots/blues/Elvis/Beatles/Hendrix/Led Zeppelin/Hair Metal/Alternative/etc.)
Assassins: A quick history of political/religious assassination (covering the background on the word itself to Caesar, Lincoln, Archduke Ferdinand, JFK/MLF/RFK and even touching on drone strikes)
Walls: covering forts, castles, trenches, defenses, and how they evolved. Went from palisades, to castles, to fortresses, to trench warfare, to bunkers in short order.
Gettysburg: I took a deep dive into the battle of Gettysburg as it was an area that I have some background from college and there were some local tie ins to the history of it.
I have one more "in the can" so to speak covering the history of the Space Race as it likely won't be something that they will get to in their courses.
What are some other things that fellow History fans think would be great subjects that you feel these students should know? My main goal is to get a few of these future historians excited and wanting to continue into higher study of History.
M.Ed here. You say not much contemporary history is taught post WW1. Also, your topics look interesting to a young male adolescent. I’m assuming since this is an elective course on Fridays with only 12 students that they may be more interested in history than your typical middle schooler. Would a deep dive into the Civil Rights movement be warranted? These may be future AP students if my assumptions are correct about their backgrounds. This may not be as interesting as the other topics, but the implications are important and may help set them up nicely for future interest in myriad topics. Not sure if the idea fits with what’s available to you, just throwing it out there!