History teacher Robert Foshee’s world history students show their C.I.A. Stalin projects to one another, March 6-7. Students partner up in pairs to create a file on USSR dictator Joseph Stalin to go along with their unit 6: Russian Revolution. 

High schoolers impersonate C.I.A. agents as they compile information on the dictator based on five case studies. Along with answering questions, they are also tasked to decorate their file folder with images of Stalin and create a propaganda poster to represent the Soviet Union (Russia) government at that time. 

This assignment helps students understand a deeper knowledge of Russia’s Revolution by digging into Stalin’s past as a leader. Through their case studies, they learn how the Russian people were persuaded into the idea of Stalin’s perfect government. Due to the amount of propaganda promoting leadership, Russian citizens never saw the whole truth of what was happening.

Along with creating the file folder with case studies, each pair of partners design a propaganda poster. The goal of the poster shows the bias and misleading messages the USSR government provided to their citizens.

Instead of traditional presentations in front of class, partners meet with one another as if it were a real case study. Some students even age their files to make it look more authentic. They use tea bags and burn the edges to give it an aged look.

Other topics studied during their current unit are comparisons with Russian dictators to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini along with ‘Anna Anderson: The Great Imposter’ who said she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia of the Russian royal family.

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