Multiple Learning Goals at Once

Over the last few weeks, students in my class have been working on two vastly different goals. One group was learning about war, and another was doing an integrated unit with the novel, Out of the Dust. This is the first time large groups of students have worked on such different goals in my room, and it has not been going as I had hoped.

It seems like every time I need to do some intensive instruction with one group, I'm interrupted by off-task behavior of the other group. There are some exceptions for a few well-motivated students, but in general both groups are getting less work done than I would expect. Class also doesn't have a cohesiveness to it like when students are all working on goals related to similar subject matter. It is not something I am leaning towards repeating.

My initial thought is that the negative results could just be the natural reaction of trying to have such completely different things going on in my room at once. I want it it to work, so I'm racking my brain for better practices and alternate reasons for my challenges. January has been a very rough month for continuity, and that is my strongest alternate theory. 

I guess my question for you is, how do you manage having students working on massively different goals at the same time?