As the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and only one of four presidents to do so in United States history, Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy achievements and preservation of peace are often overshadowed by his famous admonition regarding the big stick. Middle and high schoolers take a closer look at the peace processes from the Roosevelt administration, including the Venezuela Crisis, the Morocco Dispute, and the Russo-Japanese War, and analyze how Roosevelt managed to subdue each crisis. They then compare the League of Peace to Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations and determine what went wrong in the congressional approval process.

Concepts

theodore roosevelt, foreign policy, united states presidents, united states foreign policy, the league of nations, woodrow wilson, wars

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Additional Tags

social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• Assign the question regarding the League of Nations as an independent essay prompt for a class final
• Design a debate for class members to argue whether Roosevelt supporters should have rejected Wilson's proposals or not, and why

Classroom Considerations

• Does not supply student handouts or resources; teachers will need to create their own prompts

Pros

• Provides thought-provoking discussion questions
• Folds nicely into a study on Roosevelt and the pre-World War I era

Cons

• None

Common Core

RH.6-8.1 RH.9-10.1 RH.11-12.1