Suzanne+Mills-+Activity+One

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This activity will cover the following creative statements: __Black Tuesday Does Not Equal The Great Depression__, __As America Goes, So Goes the World__, __Brother Can You Spare a Dime?__, and __Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie__.

The unit will consist of learning stations which cover various aspects of the Depression. Stations will include the industry boom in America (with film footage, newspaper clippings, and photos), the Roaring Twenties (featuring audio files of music, an excerpt from the Great Gatsby, photos, movie clips, news articles, slang dictionary, and radio broadcasts), The Stock Exchange (after learning about how stocks work, students will select a current stock and follow it through the duration of the unit, either on the internet or newspaper depending on tech availability), This station will have a “part B” which covers Black Tuesday, and it’s immediate effects. Another station will demonstrate the effect America’s economy has on the rest of the world, and explain how we became such an important part of the global economy. Ideally an interactive activity via the web will be used at this station. The plight of the agricultural industry, President Hoover’s response, and the Dust Bowl will be featured at another station (newsreels, photo, eye witness accounts, and an excerpt from Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck will be used). “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” will be the focus of another station, which highlights the state of the economy, the lack of employment, Hoovervilles, and the various ways people survived (musical audio, photos, newspaper ads, stories, personal accounts, and slang terms will be part of the station). Finally, a station featuring life for families will cover grocery prices, items, wage earnings (for those who had jobs), goods and services that were difficult to get or too expensive, ways that homemakers “made due” including recipes that were improvised. Students will look at photos, read recipes, and listen to popular radio shows. They will look at some examples of school clothes, text books, daily lunch menus and leisure activities. They will be given a budget, a menu, and a list of items needed to create a meal. Using this information they will try to stay within their budget, but still feed their family. A guide sheet which takes them through the stations, as well as worksheets and activities from each station will be placed in a folder and turned in at the end of the unit. A final free write on the experience and what they found most interesting or surprising about the period will serve as an exit slip.