Billy Joel - We didn't Start the fire music video

I really like the idea behind this movie with the music from Billy Joel "We didn't start the Fire" it goes through the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  It would be a great way to start the a unit after WWII. I think it also does a good job of summarizing the whole time period.  Because teachers are usually crunched with time to get to this last section of US History I think the overview it provides is important.  Also there is some adult content in here with different issues such as drug use and birth control.  At first I hesitated to use this clip but I think it is an important part of history that students still need to be aware of.  I think it would be helpful to send home a letter to parents explaining that we will be discussing these items in a historical context. 

Also, in different history teaching course and I taking we did something similar to this.  We did a unit on Jamestown and broke it down into different groups.  Then we split up into small groups where we brainstormed ideas about different songs that matched those historical parts of Jamestown.  We then presented all of ideas from the different groups and voted on what song we thought would work best.  Our teacher then found clips of the songs and put them to a slide show.  I really liked how this worked out.