Artifact # 9
Social Studies Lesson Plan: A lesson for fifth graders that explores the lives of young people during the Great Depression through letters written to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.
Context:
This lesson was developed for my Social Studies Methods class during
my pre-service training in the spring of 2001 at ASU. Actual letters
were found on the Internet and then copied, with proper citation, onto
a document created with Microsoft Word.
Impact:
I would use this lesson along with the Literature Circle Unit to create
an understanding of what life was like for people who lived during the
Great Depression. Today’s students are a lot like students during
that time period, which is something I would want my students to take notice
of. The children of the Great Depression were poor and hungry, yet
still yearned for toys and other childhood items that they felt were necessary.
When used in combination with the Literature Circle Unit, I feel that my
classroom would get a first hand perspective on what life was like during
that time period.
Alignment:
This Social Studies lesson plan was designed with the purpose of encouraging
the students to better understand the lives of people of the great depression.
As part of the assessment in this lesson, the children are to perform a
role-play for the class. Each group is given a picture and asked
to act out what they might be saying, how they might feel. By observing
how the children act out the scene and by giving written questions on the
information, I would be able to assess if they have truly grasped the way
the people of the Great Depression lived (INTASC
#8). Additional links are included within the lesson to allow the teacher
to access more pictures or information (Tech
10.3).