11th Grade American History
Mr. Dalton’s Class
Subject: Chapter 15 Hoover and the Great Depression
Objectives: Describe the 1929 stock market crash Identify the causes of the Depression
Objectives: Describe how Americans coped with unemployment identify problems faced by farmers in the 1930s
Objectives: Analyze Hoover’s failure to stem the Depression explain how the Depression influenced the 1932 election
Activity One Have the students devise a multi-media project focusing on the early years of the Great Depression. Students may include illustrated scrapbooks, tapes of interviews with people who lived through it, and reports analyzing the causes. They can also use photographs, art, literature and music. It will be presented to the class at the end of the chapter because it will help with reviewing for the test.
Activity Two The students will read excerpts from John Steinbeck’s book, the Grapes of Wrath, about the time during the Great Depression and discuss it in groups.
Activity Three On the computer, the students will look at the America’s Presidents Series: World Wars, prosperity, and Depression - Presidents during and between two World Wars. They will look at Wilson-Truman administrations and write a paragraph explaining what they would have done if they were President.
Activity Four The students will watch the video, Growing Up in the Great Depression. It is about the shared memories of five people who lived through it. Then they will role play being in a soup kitchen.
Activity Five The students will watch the video, America Lost and Found, a video of rare footage that conveys the psychological impact of the Great Depression and the as a class, discuss how they would have felt or tried to deal with the problems.
Activity Six The students will discuss the disadvantages that Al Smith had as the Democratic nominee for President in 1928, after reading the first section of the chapter. They will go on to discuss what obstacles there are today for running for President, that Al Smith had.
Activity Seven To help the students understand the stock market crash, and how it would affect a person we will play a stock market game, where they would have $10,000 to start with and the newspaper to use everyday for a week and buy stocks by those numbers, and after about two weeks I will crash it and they will see what happens to their money
Activity Eight As a class we will discuss how farmers’ problems were affected by forces of nature, as well as what farmers might have done to avert disaster.
Activity Nine As a class we will discuss what efforts the NAACP focused on during the Depression and what W.E.B Dubois criticized of that focus.
Activity Ten The students will be divided into two groups and each will take a side and debate whether or not they agreed with Hoover and Mellon that government aid to the unemployed, homeless, and farmers undermines people’s desire to work.
Important terms for the chapter: Hooverville Dust Bowl Okie Community Chest Bonus Army Black Thursday Great Depression Stock Pool Margin Buying
Important People in the chapter: Douglas MacArthur Andrew Mellon Franklin D. Roosevelt Alfred E. Smith John Steinbeck Walter Waters
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