Name of Assignment: Cuban Missile Crisis Simulation Subject: World History Facilitator/Teacher: Ms. Terry
This assignment was related to our unit about the Cold War. In this assignment, we were put into groups to act as ExComm, which was the Executive Committee of the National Security Council created to aid President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were given a folder labeled “TOP SECRET”, and the folder contained images and letters with information on events of the crisis and the Cold War. We were tasked with writing a formal memorandum to the President advising him on how to handle the crisis and why our plan of action was better, while also informing him of the risks. Afterwards, we watched a video to learn what actually happened.
I feel this assignment addresses Thinking and Problem Solving, Global Awareness, Interpersonal, Communication, and Civic Literacy and Engagement skills. This addresses my Thinking and Problem Solving skills because we had to consider the events of the world and the tension between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis and formally advise the President on how to best go about solving the crisis. We used Global Awareness skills because we had to analyze the possible motives behind the actions of Cuba and the U.S.S.R, as well as try to predict how they would’ve reacted to each of the U.S’s courses of action. We used Interpersonal skills because we had to come to a conclusion as a team and voice our opinions in a civil and coherent manner. We used Communication skills when both working with our group mates and when writing the memorandum to the President. We used Civic Literacy and Engagement skills because we had to analyze the actions and motivations of each country and their governments during the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis.
I was the one who wrote the first draft of the memorandum, and I’m really proud of how I wrote it. I think it was very professional and I like how it sounded.
The most difficult part of this assignment was probably deciding what solution we wanted to propose to President Kennedy as a group. Samson and I both felt pretty strongly about two different options, so we had to go into a thorough pros vs cons discussion about each so we could determine which one was the best course of action. I would’ve read over the paragraph I gave Jia to type out before I gave them to her, as when I read over the document she’d typed up, I noticed some errors that were probably due to the way I’d written the first draft.