Great Depression Unit

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Great Depression Unit
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TopicThe Great Depression

• Subtopics
• Causes and Results of Depression
• Diverse Ways of Life During the Depression
• The Role of the Government in Economic Recovery
• Champaign-Urbana and Illinois during the
  Depression

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Brainstorming

• Causes and results of Depression
• Stock Market Crash
• President Hoover
• President Roosevelt
• Government Policies
• New Deal
• Increases in taxes
• Poverty
• Diverse Ways of Life During the Depression

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• Diverse Ways of Life During the Depression
• Hoovervilles
• Sacrifices across socioeconomic statuses
• Unemployment

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• The Role of Government in Economic Recovery
• Public Works Program
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation
• Bonus Army

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• Champaign/Urbana and Illinois during the
  Depression
• Interviewing community members who lived through
  the Great Depression.

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Key Perspectives

• Making choices and taking actions students will
  critically analyze the political and societal
  actions that were taken by the government and
  society as a whole during this time.
• Living with uncertainty engagement of students
  in significant ideas and experiences. To address
  this perspective we plan to integrate math,
  literature, history, and social studies.

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Rationale

• This unit is important to teach to fifth graders
  because they have the tools necessary to
  comprehend the Great Depression. The Great
  Depression changed society and there are still
  lasting effects felt today. The Great Depression
  lead to preventative actions being taken to
  ensure that history will not be repeated. By
  making the unit meaningful and integrating other
  subject areas we are using the best practices in
  social students education. We are also allowing
  students to critically analyze and form their own
  opinions on how the Great Depression came to be.

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Instructional Strategies

• Using Documents
• Students will read a letter written to Eleanor
  Roosevelt
• Community Resources
• Students will research at library
• Community member will be interviewed on personal
  experiences from Great Depression

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Instructional Strategies

• Interviews
• Interviewing a community member
• Students will create questions to ask
• Incorporated current events
• Students look at current economic issues and
  relate them to the past.

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Background Information

• A local teacher informed us that this topic is
  discussed briefly in fifth grade only if tied
  with a book in literature. In sixth grade it is
  also discussed if time at the end of the year. It
  is not until eighth grade that students are fully
  immersed into what the Great Depression really
  is.
• The teachers we interviewed seemed to feel
  apprehensive about this topic because it is more
  recent than say the war 1812. The Great
  Depression still has lasting effects both
  emotionally and economically. These teachers
  choose not to cover it in depth because they do
  not feel their students are capable of fully
  understanding it and appreciating its history.

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Doing History

• Benefits of using Documents
• According to Doing History If children are to
  enthusiastically engage in sustained conversation
  about history, four things are required
• Questions worth discussing
• Questions that do not have single answers
• Sufficient and appropriate data sources so that
  students can attempt to answer the questions
• Imaginative entry into the past (24).

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Doing History

• Instructional Strategies
• Students should not be limited to a single
  learning style (38).
• All students should be given the time and
  support to engage in a variety of assignments
  (38).
• Authentic tasks allow for student choices (38).

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Literacy Link

• Read aloud from Karen Hesses Out of the Dust
• Reading a letter
• Writing the newspaper article
• Writing letter to legislature
• Going to the library for research
• Through reading these stories, writing stories,
  and researching students will be encouraged to
  place themselves in the characters shoes and
  hence experience the Great Depression.

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Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings

• How does economic turmoil affect people?
• Everyone in the nation was affected regardless of
  socioeconomic status
• Extreme unemployment
• What role does government play in the economics
  of a nation?
• All major economic decisions involve the
  government
• Decisions made at the national level affect the
  local level

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Standards

• VII Production, Distribution, and Consumption
• f. Explaining and illustrate how values and
  beliefs influence different economic decisions
• I. Use economic concepts to help explain
  historical and current developments and issues in
  local, national, or global events

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Unit Sketch

• Tuning in
• Students will receive a letter that was written
  by a child who lived through the Great
  Depression. This letter will help bring into
  light the hardships faced by those who
  experienced this time of turmoil.

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• Mason, Wisconsin
• January 9, 1934
• Dear Mrs. F. Roosevelt,
• I suppose you'll be kind of surprised to hear
  from a poor little girl. I am ten years old. On
  Christmas eve I had wished for Santa Clause to
  come but my mama said the chimney was blocked
  he couldn't come, so I had a poor Christmas. I
  was expecting Santa to bring me some things.
• I lost my daddy when I was two years old.
• I have read in the papers how good you are to the
  poor and thought maybe you can help me some. I
  will appreciate it all my life.
• To-day we have started school from our Christmas
  vacation all the children talk about how many
  presents Santa has brought them I felt so bad
  cause I had nothing to say. I guess that is all.
  My address is R2, Box 7 Mason, Wisconsin
• Yours truly,
• M. A.

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• Tuning In
• The teacher will engage students with a read
  aloud from Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse.
  This story takes place during the Great
  Depression and will allow students to gain an
  understanding of the hardships faced by families
  similar to theirs. This will allow students to
  make personal connections and thus make history
  relevant to them.

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• Preparing to find out-
• After reading the letters we will create a KWL
  chart. Students will discuss what they already
  know, and what they would like to know. After
  the students discuss what they would like to
  learn about the Great Depression, they will
  prepare questions that they can research or ask a
  community member who will be coming in to discuss
  their experiences of the Great Depression. At
  the end of the unit, we will revisit this chart
  and discuss what was learned.

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• Finding out-
• A community member will come in and share the
  hardships they endured throughout the Great
  Depression. Afterwards, students will be able to
  ask questions and interview the speaker.
  Students will research any remaining questions
  via the internet. They will also have the
  opportunity to visit the library and research
  using books, journals and other documents.

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• Sorting out-
• After the students have interviewed and
  conducted their research, they will organize
  their information in an article format. This
  article will then be used as part of the
  culminating activity which will be creating a
  newspaper.

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• Going Further-
• The dust bowl in the Great Depression was caused
  by erosion and weathering. Students will perform
  various activities to see what wind erosion is,
  why it happens, and its effects. We will also
  study Albert Einstein the famous scientist who
  migrated to the United States in the early
  1930s.

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• Making connections-
• Students will see how the prices of many things
  familiar to them have changed over time. Through
  the lesson, students will understand that there
  is not only a price increase in goods, but that
  there was an increase in wages as well.

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• Taking actions-
• Students will write a letter to the legislation
  regarding any topic that is of economic concern
  to them. After having studied the Great
  Depression, students will have seen how a
  national problem hit home. Students will then
  discuss a national topic and how its concerns
  them at the local level.

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Bibliography

• Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
• Doing History by Linda S. Levstik and Keith C.
  Barton
• http//newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/index.htm

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Assessment

• Formative-
• Informal and formal
• Group work
• Individual
• Peer Assessment
• Summative-
• Student will be graded on their overall
  participation throughout the unit and their final
  newspaper projects.

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Reflection

• Stressful, time consuming, and scary
• Great group members
• Talkative yet hardworking
• Used many outside resources
• Asked for help
• Prefer lesson planning over unit planning

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Reflection Cont

• Best part was learning ourselves
• Organization is key
• Learned importance of Unit planning