The Great

Depression

Unit Plan

By Lisa Harper

6th grade - United States History II

PageMiddle School

Lisa Harper

Dr. Stoddard

Unit Plan

Unit: The Great Depression

(2 week unit)

Course:United States History II: 1865 to Present

Grade: 6th

Time:1 40-minute block per week (C days)

2 75-minute blocks per week (A/B days)

Unit Overview:

The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939 and was one of the most devastating times in history. Overspeculation of stocks with the resulting stock market crash, overproduction of consumer products, high tariffs and a collapse of the banking system were causes, but the effects were insurmountable. Banks were forced to close, unemployment and homelessness were at an all-time high and people were starving. One man and many programs helped pull America out of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his “New Deal” were the answer to what seemed like an impossible situation.

This unit is structured in a chronology of what caused the Great Depression to how the people were affected and finally the relief brought by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The larger themes and concepts include the role that society, politics and the economy played in American life at the time of the Great Depression. The students will be introduced to various forms of learning so all students may in some way demonstrate understanding of the information. Lessons will include visual representations that must be evaluated, documents that must be analyzed and writing assignments that serve in a reflective capacity to help the students internalize the Great Depression and demonstrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Rationale:

Students will learn about the Great Depression because as part of the Virginia Standards of Learning students are required to know the causes of the Great Depression, the impact on the American people, and the features of the “New Deal”. The “New Deal” proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a group of programs that would give relief to the American people and help end the Great Depression, although it would not completely end until WWII.

The unit has been designed in order to give the students multiple ways of demonstrating their knowledge. The unit lesson plans give a variety of different types of activities so the students will be engaged. The activities focus on writing skills, evaluation and analysis of primary and secondary source documents, and technology integration.

Goals:

  1. Students will develop skills in evaluating and analyzing primary and secondary source documents.
  2. Students will learn how to express themselves through various means to include writing, discussion and an oral presentation.

Essential Questions:

  1. What were the causes of the Great Depression?
  2. What effect did the Great Depression have on the lives of Americans?
  3. What were the features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”?

Unit Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to identify and describe the impact of the Great Depression and the resulting social, economic and political consequences.
  2. Students will be able to identify and describe the causes of the Great Depression.
  3. Students will be able to analyze primary and secondary sources and will be assessed through formative discussion.
  4. Students will be able to construct a written representation that has a thesis statement and evidence to support the thesis on a topic related to the Great Depression.

Academic:

  1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the social, economic, and technological changes of the early twentieth century by identifying the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (SOL Objective – USII.5d)

Skill:

  1. Students will learn and define terms relevant to the Great Depression.
  2. Students will demonstrate prior knowledge skills.
  3. Students will describe the institutions involved in the Great Depression.
  4. Students will describe the conditions of the people during the Great Depression.
  5. Students will present orally features of the “New Deal” to include visual representations.

Standards:

Virginia Standards of Learning

  1. Students will be able to identify and describe the impact of the Great Depression and the resulting social, economic and political consequences and will be assessed through various forms of written expression.
  2. Students will be able to identify and describe the causes of the Great Depression through written expression and formative discussion.
  3. Students will be able to analyze primary and secondary sources and will be assessed through formative discussion and written expression.
  4. Students will be able to construct a written representation that has a thesis statement and evidence to support the thesis on a topic related to the Great Depression.

NCSSMiddle School

  1. Students will be able to analyze group and institutional influences on people, events, and elements of culture (5 b)
  2. Students will be able to describe the various forms institutions take and the interactions of people with institutions (5 c)
  3. Students will be able to describe the role of institutions in furthering both continuity and change (5 f)
  4. Students will be able to apply knowledge of how groups and institutions work to meet individual needs and promote the common good (5 g)
  5. Students will be able to give examples and explain how governments attempt to achieve their stated ideals at home and abroad (6 i)
  6. Students will be able to use economic concepts to help explain historical and current developments and issues in local, national, or global contexts (7 i)

Outline of Content: The Great Depression

  1. Causes
  1. High Tariffs that discouraged international trade
  2. Overspeculation of stocks, using borrowed money that people could not repay
  3. Stock Market Crash of 1929
  4. Overproduction of consumer goods with a decline in demand
  5. Federal Reserve failed to prevent collapse of banking system
  6. Banks demand repayment of loans
  1. Effects
  1. Banks and businesses fail
  2. Unemployment Increases
  3. Homes are lost though foreclosure
  4. People were hungry
  5. Farmers’ incomes fell to low levels
  1. Features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”
  1. Social Security Program
  2. Federal Work Programs
  3. Environmental Improvement Programs
  4. Farm Assistance programs
  5. Increased rights for labor

Unit Assessments: Students will be assessed through both formative and summative assessments. Assessments include discussion, a worksheet, a response paper, a diary entry/letter and a class presentation. **See Attached Rubrics**

Materials and Resources:

Text Book:United States History:From 1877 to Present,textbook: The American Nation, notebook, pen/pencil, television, VCR, Video “The Great Depression and the New Deal”, PBS video “Riding the Rails”, computer, LCD projector, Great Depression Posters, Nextext History Series book with accompanying worksheets, Large Index Cards or cardstock.

Unit Calendar

Day 1

Introduction to the Great Depression unit

Video and reflection response writing

Day 2

K-W-L, vocabulary terms, and questions to answer in groups after reading

Day 3

Gallery Walk, reflective response, reading about life during the depression in the text and life in the Dust Bowl region with accompanying worksheet from the Nextext History Series.

Day 4

Review: Trivial Pursuit/Jeopardy game

Day 5

PBS Video “Riding the Rails”, Diary Entry/Letter about experiences

Day 6

FDR’s “New Deal” programs, research and oral presentation project, review

Day 7

Unit Test

Daily Lesson Plans:

Unit: The Great Depression

Lesson 1 (45 minutes)

Introduction to the Unit

  1. Hook: (35 minutes)

Watch Video “The Great Depression and the New Deal” from the United States History Video Collection: Origins - WWII

  1. Activity 1 (10 minutes)

Students will respond to the video in a reflective response paper of one to two paragraphs. Students will be graded on the content and support of their response according to the video

______

Lesson 2 (75 minute lesson)

  1. Hook (15 minutes)

K-W-L

K---What do you know about the Great Depression?

W---What do you want to know about the Great Depression?

L----What did you learn about the Great Depression? (end of lesson)

  1. Activity 1 (5-10 minutes)

Students will share what they know and what they want to know

  1. Activity 2 (10 minutes)

Vocabulary terms:

  1. Investors – Someone who uses money to buy or make something that will make more money
  2. Stock – shares in a company or corporation that people buy and own part of that company or corporation
  3. Black Tuesday – October 29, 1929, the day the stock market dropped to its lowest point
  4. Great Depression – The period of economic hard times that followed the crash of 1929
  1. Activity 3 (5 minutes)

Have students write down the following questions on a blank sheet of paper and leave several lines between each question

  1. What were the signs of economic trouble that led to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression?
  1. What were causes of the Great Depression?
  1. How did the hard times affect American families?

**Bonus Question: Who did people blame for the Great Depression and why?

****I will read pages 746-749 from textbook “The American Nation” (15 minutes). As I read the students should answer the questions they wrote down.

Transition time-5 minutes (for moving desks and getting students in groups).

  1. Activity 4 (20 minutes)

The students will break up into groups of 3 and have 10 minutes to compare answers and come up with a group response. Each group will be asked to give their response to the first question. When all groups have responded the groups will each respond to the second question.

  1. Concluding Activity (10 minutes)

Students will answer the L from the K-W-L

L-What did students learn about the Great Depression?

Students will be assessed on participation.

Lesson 3 (75 minutes)

Hook (20 minutes)

Gallery Walk: students will look at various pictures hung on the walls around the classroom. The students will look at the pictures and answer questions that will be written on the board.

  • Questions
  • What do the pictures portray?
  • How does the picture make you feel?
  • Do you notice anything in the pictures that can give you an idea of the person (people) in them?
  • What do you think the person (people) in the pictures is doing?

Activity 1 (15 minutes)

After the Gallery Walk we will discuss as a class what we thought about the pictures and how they affected us.

Activity 2 (15 minutes)

Students will look at the box on page 304 relating to the Dust Bowl Region. I will point out on a map the region that is known as the Dust Bowl. Students will then take turns reading aloud pages 305-306 in Harcourt Horizons text “United States History: From 1877 to Present”.

Activity 3 (25 minutes)

Students will read a story from the Nextext History Series regarding life in the Depression and living in the Dust Bowl and answer the accompanying questions. The students will hand in the answer sheet to be graded. This assessment will count as a classwork grade.

Lesson 4 (45 minutes)

Hook (5 minutes)

Students will be given two cards when they enter the classroom, one with a question and another with an answer. In the beginning of class the students will be asked to sit at one of the seats in the already arranged circle in the classroom.

Activity 1 (30 minutes)

The students will be reviewing what they have already learned in this formative assessment. This review game will be composed of two parts. The teacher will have the class role with everyone’s name. First the question will be held up for all to see. The student who answers it correctly first will receive a point marked down next to his/her name on the role sheet by the teacher. The questions will continue to be asked going to the right and so on until all questions have been asked and answered. If no one knows the answer it gets collected by the teacher and saved for future reteaching. Next the answers will be shown one at a time and students have to respond with the correct answer as to what the answer is referring to. Again the students will go one at a time to the right. The teacher will again mark each student with the correct answer on the role. The student who has the highest number of correct answers will be given an extra 10 points on the end of unit test. Second place gets 5 extra points and third place gets and extra 3 points on the test.

Activity 2 (5-10 minutes)

The teacher will go over any questions or answers that were not correct or that caused difficulty.

Lesson 5 (75 minutes)

Hook (60 minutes)

Watch the PBS video “Riding the Rails”

Activity 1(15 minutes)

Write a diary entry or letter from the point of view of a teenager during the 1930s who has run away to ride the rails. Explain why you left and what you are experiencing. What are your hopes? What are your fears?

**Students will finish their diary entry or letter for homework

***Students will have an example of a diary entry and letter to use for structure and style

**** This assignment will be assessed using a rubric.

Lesson 6 (75 minutes)

***Students will be in the computer lab for this class

Hook

Students will be given a set of letters (acronym) on a card as they enter the computer classroom. These sets of letters (acronym) will represent one of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. There will be 2 sets of each so students may be paired up. The sets will be in a hat and they will have to pick one randomly from the hat.

Activity 1 (40 minutes)

First students will have to look up the New Deal and find the program that the letters (acronym) match.

Second the students will have to research the appropriate program and gather information about:

  • what the program did specifically
  • who it helped
  • any strengths and weaknesses
  • where the program was located (was it all over the U.S. or only in a certain region/area of the U.S.).
  • In addition the students will have to find out if the program still exists today.
  • Students should also include 2 visuals to represent the program.

Activity 2 (20 minutes)

Students will organize a presentation of their facts related to their specific program and present it to the class. Presentations will be about 3-5 minutes. Presentations are to include all of the information asked for and at least two pictures to represent the program. The assignment will be assessed using a rubric.

Activity 3 (15 minutes)

Closure: As a class we will review the New Deal Programs and talk briefly about how the Great Depression ended.

Next class period

End of Unit Test on the Great Depression

Differentiation: Groups will be formed that will include students of varying levels so the students are working with others who are either on the same academic level or working with others who are higher in academic level to act as to strengthen a student’s weaknesses,acting as balance so all students can contribute.

Accommodations:

Students with special needs who have IEPs will have their needs met accordingly depending on their disability. Students will get extra time for writing assignments to include finishing them at home. The students will have reduced writing or assistance with writing. They may be allowed to speak into a tae recorder and recite what they would like to have written. These students will not be able to be assesses on grammatical skills, but rather content and support.