③ Transfer · Solve the problem

Phase 3 — Meet the problem

⛔ Gate check: only open this phase once students have finished Surface and Deep. This is where they transfer everything they built into a real, messy decision.

This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about the crisis — they step inside the thirteen days of October 1962 as stakeholders, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving and decision-making process named in §113.41(c)(31)(B).

🎟️ Entry ticket — 1-minute warm-up

Problem-solving teaching · d 0.61§113.41(c)(8)(A), (c)(31)(B)

Step 1 · Meet the Problem

Read the narrative aloud. Read it once for the story, then again for details students will need.

It is the morning of October 16, 1962. On the President's desk are grainy black-and-white photographs taken two days earlier by a U-2 spy plane. Analysts are certain: the Soviet Union is secretly building nuclear missile sites in Cuba — barely 90 miles from Florida. Within days these missiles could strike Washington, D.C., and much of the United States in minutes.

President John F. Kennedy gathers a small group of advisers, ExComm, behind closed doors. The generals of the Joint Chiefs press for an airstrike to destroy the sites, or a full invasion of Cuba. Others warn that killing Soviet soldiers could trigger nuclear war — and that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev might answer by seizing West Berlin.

In Havana, Fidel Castro — remembering the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion just a year earlier — sees the missiles as protection of Cuban sovereignty. In Moscow, Khrushchev weighs his own reasons: to defend an ally, and to offset the U.S. Jupiter missiles already aimed at the Soviet Union from Turkey.

The clock is running. Every hour the missiles come closer to ready. Whatever Kennedy chooses could save the peace — or end the world. What should the United States do?

First reaction (not answers yet): what did you notice? What do you wonder? Keep it open — the point is to pull students into the problem.

⚠️ Handling difficult history: the genuine risk of nuclear war and civilian catastrophe, the secret U.S. promise to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey, and the reality that Cuba's sovereignty was at stake while Cuba was not at the table are taught here directly and respectfully as documented events — not sanitized and not sensationalized (TEC §28.0022).

🏛️ The documented events: read the concise, sourced account — Office of the Historian · The Cuban Missile Crisis ↗ (§113.41(c)(8)(A)).

Multiple perspectives · d 0.75§113.41(c)(28)

Step 2 · Take a stakeholder role

Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake in October 1962.

🇺🇸 President John F. Kennedy

You must protect the nation without starting a nuclear war. Every option is dangerous. How do you weigh firmness against catastrophe — and what will you tell the American people?

⭐ A Joint Chiefs general

You urge an immediate airstrike or invasion to destroy the missiles before they go live. Waiting, you argue, only lets the threat grow. How do you defend acting fast against the risk of escalation?

🕊️ A diplomat / advisor

You favor the blockade ("quarantine") plus quiet back-channel negotiation — pressure with an exit ramp. How do you keep the door open for Khrushchev to retreat without humiliation?

⚖️ Attorney General Robert Kennedy

You are the President's brother and closest confidant, and you carry the secret back-channel message. How far can the U.S. bend — including on the Jupiter missiles — without looking weak?

☭ Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

You placed the missiles to defend Cuba and to answer the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey. How do you protect your ally and your prestige — and find a way back from the brink?

🇨🇺 A Cuban perspective (Castro's government)

After the Bay of Pigs, you see the missiles as your right to self-defense and your sovereignty. But the superpowers are deciding your fate without you at the table. What do you demand, and whom can you trust?

Problem-based learning · d 0.53§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(28)

Step 3 · Hunches → Know → Need-to-Know

Build three shared columns on chart paper. This identifies the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.41(c)(31)(B).

💭 Hunches	✅ Know (from the text)	❓ Need to know
Our guesses about what is happening and what each side might do.	Facts we can point to (it's October 1962; U-2 photos show missiles in Cuba, ~90 mi away; ExComm is meeting in secret; the generals want an airstrike; the missiles aren't yet all operational).	Questions we must answer — What could each option actually cause? Why did Khrushchev put missiles there? What were the two letters? What was the secret Jupiter-missiles deal? Where was Cuba in all this?

Turn "Need to know" into the H of KWHL: How will we find out? (which sources, whom to consult). Record it — this is the class's research plan.

Transfer strategies · d 0.75§113.41(c)(28)

Step 4 · Inquiry & investigation

Groups pursue their "Need to know" questions using vetted sources (see the facilitator guide for suggested public-access sources). Students gather and use valid information, applying the source routine they practiced in Phase 2. Keep filling the Learned column of KWHL as answers come in.

Teacher-as-guide moves: answer a question with a question; point to a source, not the answer; ask "How do you know?" and "Whose view is missing?"

📚 Investigation sources: Office of the Historian · Cuban Missile Crisis ↗ · JFK Library · Cuban Missile Crisis ↗ · National Security Archive · Key Moments ↗ · National Archives · DocsTeach: the Cold War ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.

Weigh & choose · d 0.75§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(28)

Step 5 · Propose & defend a solution

From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a recommendation for how the United States (and its counterparts) should respond in October 1962 — and on whose terms — and defends it with evidence. Assessment happens throughout the process, not only here (the reasoning is the point).

Groups present an 8-part problem/solution brief (poster, slides, or spoken):

Title & group members (and your stakeholder role)
What is the problem?
Why is it a problem — and for whom?
Who are the stakeholders?
Options we considered (advantages & disadvantages of each)
Our recommended solution
The evidence and sources behind it
How we'd know if it worked

Evaluation & reflection · d 0.75§113.41(c)(31)(B), (c)(8)(B)

Step 6 · Debrief & metacognition

Close the loop — the evaluate step of the problem-solving process. Discuss across roles so students hear how the same thirteen days looked from every side.

Did our solution address the real problem — security, deterrence, and the risk of catastrophe — or just the missiles?
Did we use evidence from more than one source? Whose point of view did we still miss?
How did the crisis look different from another stakeholder's chair — Khrushchev's, a Cuban's?
Transfer & evaluate (c)(8)(B): knowing what actually happened — the blockade held, Khrushchev withdrew the missiles, and a secret deal removed the Jupiter missiles from Turkey — how do you now judge Kennedy's choice? Where else does this decision-making process fit today?

Connect to today & to the standards: nations still weigh security, deterrence, and the rights of others when they act under threat. Name the steps students just used — identify, gather, list options, weigh advantages and disadvantages, choose, implement, evaluate — that is §113.41(c)(31)(B).

🧑‍🏫 Facilitator guide & sources ✅ Assessment pack

🎫 Exit ticket — check yourself

‹ Phase 2 — Deep Unit home

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.41; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. The Meet-the-Problem narrative is a teaching fiction grounded in the documented events of 1962.